Clip+ button mapping

[TheAlmightyGuru]

I've recently moved from my dying Gigabeat to a Clip+. One of the things I liked about the Gigabeat is the button interface.

Any time at the playback screen you could click the center button and be taken directly to the file list with the file that was playing, and any time at the file list, you could click A and be taken back to the playback screen.

The Clip+ interface works a bit differently, and, in my opinion, less-efficient.

There is no one-click way to return from the file list to the playback screen. On the Gigabeat, button A always returned me to playback, but on the Clip+, I have to click home, which takes me to the main menu, and then scroll down and select Now Playing.

I would prefer the Home button to take me back to the playback screen. The menu can still be reached by clicking the center button and backing up to the man menu. My rationale for this change is that I want return to the playback screen much more often than I want to go to the main menu.

I've seen that I can customize the buttons by altering the source code and recompiling, but I wonder if any other Clip+ users would prefer the home button (when clicked in the file list) would send them back to the playback screen instead of the main menu.

[Chronon]

According to the manual your Clip+ shares the same button combo as my Clip v1 to return to the WPS: Home + Select.

The Gigabeat simply has more buttons available than the Clip+, so at some point you have to start using button combinations to reach the same features.

[TheAlmightyGuru]

I'm with you on that. Fewer buttons equals more presses to perform functions, no doubt about it.

However, my question to Clip+ users is, which do you do more often? Move from the file list to the playback screen, or go into the settings?

I only use the settings, maybe once every couple weeks, however, I move from back and forth between the playback and file list screens several times a day. I'm wondering if other people use their Clip+ in this manner as well.

And if the majority of the people move between the file list screen and the playback screen, more than the settings screen, wouldn't it be more efficient to change the function of the button to accommodate this behavior?

[Llorean]

Part of it is also about button familiarity.

The "home" button serves the purpose of the "menu" button on many other Rockbox players. What this ends up meaning is that if you've used Rockbox before elsewhere, you can predict what this button will do in many screens. Other developers who may not have the hardware, but add a feature, can predict what that button should do based on the hardware they do have and its general function, etc.

So there's definitely some benefit to having it be the 'menu' button in all screens, rather than 'menu' in some, and 'wps' in others. For example, what should it do when you're already in the WPS? Should it resume functioning as 'menu' or do what the 'A' button did on the Gigabeat?

The current map may not be perfect, but it's not that bad either. Also remember that the 'home' button can quickly take you to the home screen, where there's an option to get back to the WPS. So you don't really have to back out of the whole filetree or anything. A single press accomplishes much of it, if you can't manage the combo.

Generally, I'm just trying to say that in some ways it's less simple than "let's see what people who respond on the forums use more." Typically speaking, people who are happy with the button mapping aren't likely to be on the forums looking for threads about it, so there'll also possibly be an innate bias in responses.

[bertrik]

I wouldn't mind having the home button simply go to the WPS (I think now it's "back to previous menu"). In the WPS, home already goes back to the menu, so this way it acts like a kind of "mode key" to switch between menu and WPS.

[PVG]

Completely agree with TheAlmightyGuru that returning to WPS is needed very often and pressing two tiny buttons simultaneously is too much.  I would agree that using Home for that would be better.  But there is another 'funny' option. In fact, TWO buttons (Enter and Right) have the same function.  I'd suggest to use Enter to return back and leave Right for action (as it is now).  In this case jumping between WPS and File view will be performed with one and the same button.

I expect that lots of people would object to redefining Enter just because they got too used to it. 

Perhaps the universal solution would be to have a Mapping Configuration file. 

[sandwich600]

I agree that returning to the WPS if often needed and would welome any way of making it easier than it is now.

[slappyhaze]

I was searching the forums before posting the same 'issue' PVG states:

But there is another 'funny' option. In fact, TWO buttons (Enter and Right) have the same function.

My idea however was to use right as page skip (for long lists) while enter stays the logical select to enter the highlighted option.

I didn't want to clutter the boards.

Phil

[Strife89]

The Sansa c200s have the user "Fwd." (>>) for a shortcut to the WPS. Although it won't, positionally, make as much sense, I wouldn't have any problem with the equivalent button on the Clip+ taking on the same function.