Support and General Use > User Interface and Voice
Pressing LEFT to get to WPS from file root
Mr. Brownstone:
Falco98, do you have any feedback on this post for a slight reworking of the interface and button-layout?
Falco98:
--- Quote from: Mr. Brownstone on May 09, 2006, 11:21:00 AM ---Falco98, do you have any feedback on this post for a slight reworking of the interface and button-layout?
--- End quote ---
I agree immediately with your suggestion that pressing "right" not play anything but only go to to a further sublevel (and perhaps, while we're at it, into the "long-push options"?). I'm concerned about your revision of the "play" button, just because I and so many others are used to it returning to the WPS, and having it "play selected song, playlist, or folder" would be a dramatic alteration to get used to (though if it gives you a menu to confirm that might be cool). I'd hate to have to start using the Record button (mine feels weird too), though adding some functionality to it might make sense in some cases. I agree with your intent to make "enter WPS" more consistent across menus, though I like to point out that in most, the "left" key is unmapped (and in root, to not interfere with multi-tapping to return to root, we could make it a "long-hold left", which currently doesn't do anything anyway).
Febs:
--- Quote from: Falco98 on May 09, 2006, 10:51:34 AM ---the irksomeness enters into the equation when someone can access, navigate through, and perform complex operations in the filetree all with joystick operation, but then when they feel like viewing the WPS again they have to reach around to hit something completely different.
--- End quote ---
Remember that navigation decisions like this need to apply to more than one platform. Of the three Rockbox platforms that I own, what you just said is true of the H100 platform (although I've never found it to be a problem), but not of the H300 series or the iPod. On the H300, the PLAY button is right next to the LEFT button, so it's really no harder to hit one than the other. On the iPod, the PLAY button is at the button of the scroll wheel. Since the scroll wheel doesn't give as much tactile feedback as either the H100's joystick or the H300s buttons, I would prefer that the LEFT button not return to the WPS. As Llorean has noted, the present system is also much better for blind users, and the voice interface makes Rockbox hugely popular for the blind.
Mr. Brownstone:
Falco98 > Thanks for the feedback!
My reason for having the Play button remapped is for two reasons: The first is consistency between the Browser and the WPS - Play does what it says. The second is pure selfish convenience on my part as the user of an H300 - The Record button is closer to my thumb than the Play button, so as a right-handed user it would be very easy for me to toggle the WPS with Record. Am I right to assume that the Record button is also close to the right-hand thumb for an H100 user, albeit at the side of the device?
I have also got used to the Record button doing nothing, and I usually use it to just turn on the backlight. But I think the existing option "Keypress effects when backlight is off" overcomes this - you can just use any button to turn on the backlight when it is off. I think this is also the default bahaviour since the feature was implemented. A long-press of the Record button would be great to jump straight to the recording screen, or perhaps Play + Record together like how the old tape-recorders functioned.
Concerning the "left key being unmapped", any action mapped to a directional key I feel should be intuitive to the overall interface concept. Since ROCKbox is removed from the iRiver firmware's concept of the WPS being the main-screen, the Left key is no longer intuitive as a device with which to "return" to anything other than the root-folder when in the Browser, because that's how all file-browsers behave. It makes sense for iRiver, it doesn't make sense for ROCKbox.
A long-press of Left I think would be better suited to returning directly to the root-folder.
Febs:
Mr. Brownstone, your proposal is well-thought out, and there is much about it that makes sense, but there is a fatal flaw: not all supported platforms have a RECORD button. IMO, this means that the RECORD button can be used for as a shortcut for some other function that can also be accessed from the menus (e.g., as a shortcut to the recording menu, or to the radio), but not for a core function like accessing the WPS.
As for the effect of the RIGHT button on an individual file, I think that this is the perfect opportunity for the 1-click "add to current playlist" function that has been so often requested.
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