Support and General Use > User Interface and Voice
Proposal for a better text editor
j8048188:
i like the scrollable text idea, but it would have 3 separate lines that would be switched between using a trigger button.
see attached picture.
DancemasterGlenn:
--- Quote from: psycho_maniac on April 16, 2008, 10:12:01 AM ---I think if anything happens to the keyboard layout. one thing that should really be changed is the size of the actual letters.
--- End quote ---
I see this as a problem that would hopefully be fixed when multifont is implemented. I have no personal problem with the current size on my ipod, but that's mostly because I don't use the editor very much, and never on the go due to it being a bit time consuming. the text sizes in my picture weren't any kind of scale (using text in gimp doesn't seem to be very editable yet...), but I'd say it's definitely readable. Ideally it would also be prettier, at least having the normal backdrop and font color (but that's why it's a rough sketch). It's my opinion that while these potential text editors might not act the same on all targets, it would make sense for them to at least be themed similarly in terms of any colors used (just an example, if any colors are in fact needed). In that way it would be kept at least somewhat uniform.
--- Quote ---Have separate lines for Capitals, lowercase, numbers and punctuation and move between them with a button press (short menu?). Each individual line would wrap to the start of that same line.
--- End quote ---
My problem with multiple lines (besides clutter) is that we start running out of what I would think of as "sane" button combinations for normal use. If clicking "menu" now exits without saving, it doesn't seem like it would make sense to change that press to switch a line, and (I'm assuming) make quit a long press. I still think that if it scrolls nicely, having all the characters on one line (capital, lowercase, or other) should still be smooth.
Actually, now I'm curious. Do you want to be able to see all three lines at once, or are you talking about using menu to toggle between visible lines? Because that could be nice, actually... no clutter, and it might even be useful for putting other kinds of characters into my model (one could switch into foreign characters in this model, if toggling between formats was customisable with different character sets). In this way we could avoid getting a really huge line in any given situation, and some plugins do use a long menu to exit, if I remember correctly, so it's not that insane. We would lose our long menu going into Morse code, though, and I enjoy that feature (I think it's really smart). I suppose an option could be made to use Morse code, classic, or this potential third option in a text editor preference menu, but you'd lose the ease of switching you have now. Although if the idea worked well enough in practice, it would definitely be more useful on the go...
When I'm less swamped with work, I've been thinking about looking at as many of the targets as I can, to perhaps make more crappy concept drawings. Anyone could do this, really, and it might help if the person doing it actually owns the player, since I would just be looking at pictures/videos of players in action and reading their rockbox manuals. If this is a silly idea, please tell me so.
DefineByte:
I was thinking of only one line being visible at a time and the line simply changing when you press a button. Text size could be as big as you wanted and the line would simply scroll across the top of the screen if it didn't fit.
Probably superfluous rough ASCII representation:
---------------
|stuvwxyzabcde| <line scrolls with wheel
| ^ | Short menu for next line (numbers)
| |
| pla|.m3u8 | <line scrolls to follow caret if name too long
---------------
That's how it's been in my head for the last few months but I haven't really thought about any possible issues it may have. Maybe being able to see multiple lines would be better. I don't know. Should work with multiple targets, even those with tiny screens.
DancemasterGlenn:
Yeah, that's the essential idea. On screens with room there could perhaps be something in the corner displaying which line you have in use ("abc", "ABC", "123", "!@#"), so people know they can toggle.
bascule:
It would be worth reading this: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/zhai/papers/ZhaiHunterSmithHCIGalley.pdf
It describes the theory behind the OptiII layout that's on the Wiki (more interesting than you might think) and explains that it is optimised for minimum movement of the cursor i.e., common letters grouped in the middle, least-used towards the outside.
However, this approach is less useful for the scrollwheel targets and something like that proposed above would be quite cool if done properly. As usual the stumbling block is finding someone both interested and capable of coding it.
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