Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion

Proposition: SimpleBox

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Febs:

--- Quote from: keuleJ on September 21, 2006, 04:54:27 AM ---
--- Quote from: nls on September 20, 2006, 03:20:00 PM ---Also I think most usability "problems" could be solved by having a really big "MANUAL -- read it" link covering at least half the front page and flashing and playing some anoying sounds or something because we have a IMO pretty good manual (albeit not in very good shape for the h10 yet) and it seems it is very difficult to find it...

--- End quote ---
I don't think that you get the whole usability issue. The GUI of RockBox should be that simple, that you don't need to look at the manual for the most stuff!
I mean, has anybody ever looked at the manuel for functions of the iPod original firmware? I think in terms of usability, the iPod original firmware is way better than RockBox.
Of course, RockBox has much more Features, but they're often presented in a complicated way. I think that there even is the idea of making such a SimpleBox port shows how complicated RockBox ist to use.

--- End quote ---
If you want SimpleBox, use the original iPod firmware.  That's what it is.


I agree with Linus--if there are ways of making the interface easier to use without sacrificing features, let's hear them.  But if you just want to strip features off of Rockbox to make it more like the original firmware, what is the point?

I come back to the equalizer as an example.  Rockbox has a fully parametric 5-band EQ.  On the 5G, it also has what is curently a 2-band semi-parametric EQ.  The iPod firmware, on the other hand, has *only*a number of crappy-sounding presets that give the user no ability to control them.  It would be a relatively simple matter for someone to make a bunch of EQ presets and make them available to Rockbox users to duplicate the "functionality" of the iPod software.  Although I personally find EQ presets to be useless, I would have no objection to including such presets in Rockbox if it improved the usability of the firmware.  Likewise, I would have no objection to improving the interface of the EQ to allow users to access the existing settings in a more intuitive matter.  (In fact, I've had discussion with some of the developers about doing just that.)

On the other hand, I would object, and strenously so, if there were an effort made to strip out the customability of the EQ for  the sake of making Rockbox "simple."  That would be a huge step backwards.

In short:

Improving usability of existing functions = good
Reducing functionality to "improve" usability = bad

keuleJ:

--- Quote from: bluebrother on September 20, 2006, 05:09:28 PM ---How about distribution a couple of cfg files with rockbox that get installed in, say, the root directory or /.rockbox. Then we could state "try the shipped configurations, if none matches your need just look into the manual and build a configuration yourself". That way we could have a "most users.cfg" that uses iCatcher as wps, turns on tagcache, selects a font that is suited to the screen size etc.
--- End quote ---

The idea of making "good" presets is great. But why packing them into a config file, which the user first has to select, instead of making them default in the firmware? OK, there would be different presets for different players, but that istn't too difficult, is it?

And I think, the GUI could use some slight improvements. I think it's not always intuitive where you get when you push certain buttons etc.

The third point is the menus. I don't know if this is the right place to discuss the whole menu again. But maybe we should hide the more esoteric options in a menu in a submenu called "advanced" or something like that.

Llorean:
Why include them in the firmware? If they're hard-coded, they're always in memory even when not used. How on earth is having them in seperate files a bad idea, since you still just browse presets and see a list of them?

As for the menus, I don't see how hiding anything in an advanced menu improves anything. That just means your options are in two places instead of one, and you have to learn which options are considered "advanced" and which aren't. Is it really all that difficult to just not use an option if you don't know what it does?

keuleJ:

--- Quote from: Llorean on September 21, 2006, 10:41:54 AM ---Why include them in the firmware? If they're hard-coded, they're always in memory even when not used. How on earth is having them in seperate files a bad idea, since you still just browse presets and see a list of them?
--- End quote ---
OK, maybe saving them in a file is alright. But that the user first has to go into the menus, find out where to select the config files and then select this file, I think this is a bad idea.
Maybe we could just save the settings in a file called default.cfg and load by default this config file.

xlarge:
Still the big WHY hasn't been answered properly imo...

Isn't it quite an insult towards people saying that we need a "simpler" interface?
I can't imagine anyone willing to use and capable of installing rockbox without being intelligent enough to learn the menues (although there can be quite intelligent people who doesn't want to spend time learning it - a completely different story).

If it's to big of a deal to learn the menues or look in the manual i don't think they (the people) will use rockbox at all! They are perfectly satisfied with the original firmware.
I mean, flash the firmware, compile rockbox (no, you are right people would prefer to download an already built one... i guess) - without using manual - and then complain about the interface?

I'm tempted to say; Just go for it! Make it happen! I won't use it. :)

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