returning to "now playing" screen

[bblackmoor]

Thank you for missing the entire point of comparison.

I think you are the one missing the point. But it's clearly not going to benefit either of us to continue. Have a nice day. And if you are one of the people who volunteer their time to developing Rockbox, thank you. Your effort is appreciated.

[Llorean]

Then spell out your point clearly.

So far, you've said "Rockbox should do it because everyone else does it", had many people respond "Not as far as the stuff we own says", then made an invalid comparison with a monitor (which has two inputs and one output), since the iPod has one input, and one output for the display. A fairer comparison would be something with an integrated display, where the display does not have separate controls. For example another MP3 player. Why not take a poll of MP3 player owners here, as to what their original firmwares do.

But remember, "everything else does it" isn't a valid reason to add extra code, especially when it duplicates something that can be done by pressing a single button in nearly any screen.

[AlexP]

What an over generalisation

It is a generalization, but that is because it is generally true.

It isn't true at all in my (and most other people who have replied's) experience.  Just because you think it is doesn't make it so.

Anyway, most of your examples are irrelevent, as Llorean has pointed out above in the case of monitors.

[piggy]

After upgrading from an old grand daddy of archo 6GB to sansa c250, I think this is the things that bug me the most. I went back to study the the old archo and learned that there are extra 3 menu buttons that repeat press brings back to the "now playing". If one was traverse in menu or directory during playing, the press of "OFF button" will also bring the player back to "now playing"

However it seems that the the sansa c250 doesn't have enough button.. The ON/OFF/MENU button is all in one. Hence despite all menu traverse, a press of ON/OFF/MENU button will only bring one back to the menu. The repeat press of ON/OFF/MENU takes one back and forth between two last menu. It's awkward one is forced to traverse down the list again and select "now playing" to view the song title every time anyone does some menu browsing.

From reading the past post, I think there is valid point from everyone's view. If this feature can be implement, it would be very nice. However, I think there is also another possible easier solution to this problem.

Lets suppose that the player is playing some music, the user does some browsing and press the ON/OFF/MENU  button to get back to the main menu. Instead of using UP/DOWN selector to go down and press "now playing" to get back to the music, it would be much easier that the user just press BACK again to get back to the "now playing" At present, the BACK button in Main Menu doesn't go anywhere because it's the main menu already.

Please give some thoughts the idea of BACK button press in main menu goes to "now playing" if there is music playing or resume the last song that the player has played.

Thanks for reading.

PS. After all these years, it's great to see rockbox is still alive and kicking. It's still the BEST!

[AlexP]

I feel pretty confident in saying that this won't be implemented.

However, the c200 keymap is currently not ideal (in my opinion and some others) - see http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/8824 for a patch that changes some of it.

[oayz]

Yes, Sansa is terrible in this regard - there is no single button possability to directly go to WPS. I think long LEFT would work here - this shouldn't intrefere with other players.

Having said this I do not understand why there is so much opposition to have timeout return to WPS. It's not about "my device does it" or "no it doesn't not". It's about "does it make sense" or "why would I rather prefer to stay in menu mode". Considering WPS is by far most useful mode of operation timeout does make sense IMHO.

[Llorean]

First off, having "left" stop somewhere that's NOT the WPS is very helpful to blind users. If it didn't stop somewhere in the menu system, you could very easily accidentally "left" until you're rewinding or skipping to the previous task.

As for "not timing out", it's not an issue of "why would I prefer to stay in menu mode" it's "why would I want my MP3 player to do things when I'm not pressing buttons?" If it doesn't timeout, you know that whatever screen you left it on is what screen you'll return to. this is handy, again, if you're navigating blindly (either because you are blind, or because you just can't look right now) and something makes you stop for a few seconds/minutes. It's good to know that when you return, you don't have to know exactly how long you were gone to know what screen it will be in.

Is it really such an imposition to get back to the WPS?

[pixelma]

Yes, it's quite inconvenient to have to resume through the menu instead of a single button press, especially when you are used to it from using other targets.

piggy/oayz:
Using "Left" and this only in the main menu is, as Llorean pointed out, very inconsistent and won't be a "one button resume" too unless you are already in the main menu. Besides, "Long Left/Right" is already taken for the forced horizontal scrolling (which makes sense).

If you take a look at the set of patches for the c200 keymap in the tracker task linked to earlier, you will find one patch which puts "Resume" on "Volume Up" and "Stop" on "Volume Down" which would work everywhere as on other targets - you will loose the ability to directly adjust volume in menu or browser but I think those where the only buttons to make at least some sense to put these functions on, otherwise a short press of "Rec" is still unused but it somehow feels awkward to use for this. I intend to commit bits of these patches soon (resume, virtual keyboard (without the "Page Flip" though but with additionally to the button changes enabled "Line Edit Mode" and one thing that's not in there but for consistency with other targets - WPS context menu on "Long Select"), will add a comment there soonish. I'd be happy if any of you could give a try and comment.

[LinusN]

I wouldn't mind having such an option in Rockbox (go to the WPS after a timeout, if music is playing). I wouldn't use it myself, but it is an often requested feature, and I don't think it would be that hard to implement.

Just my .02

[yapper]

Or something similar to the Start Screen choices - after timeout, go to X (WPS, Main Menu, etc)?

[GodEater]

I wouldn't mind having such an option in Rockbox (go to the WPS after a timeout, if music is playing). I wouldn't use it myself, but it is an often requested feature, and I don't think it would be that hard to implement.

Just my .02

Gets my vote too.

[Llorean]

As long as it's optional, and defaults to off, I don't object. It'd be a bad behaviour to suddenly "show up" when someone upgrades their build. Again, especially for blind users.

[piggy]

Ok, I think I understand the difference in opinions after reading the new inputs and some further study.

In a way, the problem itself is tie with the limited key of Sansa, the screen and the difference of preference.

Unlike the old archo player and other new mp3 player, when the sansa goes time out with the backlight, the screen is totally BLACK. Hence if an user don’t return to WPS after some fiddling, the next press of key can end up anywhere that’s unintended.

This problem is conflicting with the need of user that would like the see the name of song in WPS without the intention to go anywhere to start with. At present, the all the sansa key in WPS force a user to go somewhere and comes back to see WPS.   

Interesting enough, I just notice in the latest build, someone solve this problem within the past week!! The short press of REC no longer go to REC mode but the screen lights up!!

Overall, I deduce that there is two camp of preference. The first camp prefers that the Main Menu should be the starting point VS the second camps prefer WPS should be the starting point.

Except during the first boot up, if a user is actively playing the music, I tend to think that WPS is actually the starting point of interaction. This need of second preference is increment by the way sansa operate where the screen is BLACK after backlight time out. The user is already lost if he doesn’t know what state he was in before the backlight time out. In this regard, I end up recommend finding way to return to WPS more quickly which is why I suggest the return to WPS in Main menu with short LEFT click.

If possible, I think the idea of short click with REC return to WPS is actually a BETTER IDEA!! The user who like main menu as starting can always click menu key for shortcut while the user who need to return WPS quickly can use short REC click as shortcut.

With extra button in other rockbox mp3 player, this need may not be as important.  But for sansa, this change will match to the old experience of archo rockbox where  one extra click of either 3 menu button or the OFF button takes the user back to WPS. 

[AlexP]

Or you could turn the "First keypress tuns on backlight" option.  Then if the backlight is off pressing any button will turn it on and do nothing else.

[oayz]

Using "Left" and this only in the main menu is, as Llorean pointed out, very inconsistent and won't be a "one button resume" too unless you are already in the main menu. Besides, "Long Left/Right" is already taken for the forced horizontal scrolling (which makes sense).
.... I'd be happy if any of you could give a try and comment.

Acatually I was concerned only about quickly getting from MANU to WPS. It takes too many clicks getting back through 4-5 layers. Since left takes you one layer up it seems logical that long left takes you to the "top". I agree -horizontal scrolling is also important and does interfere with this proposal. Should long right  force bidirectional scroll while long left goes to WPS?

I also vote to have WPS timeout option.

If you need a help to try out new interface features on Sansa C200 - I can volonteer