Proposition: SimpleBox

[adamti91]

This is the original post in a thread on MisticRiver (http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=46846). This was written in particular for the iRiver H10, and any updates to the thread will be made in the MisticRiver thread (again, http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=46846). I am a moderator at MR, and am just posting here to increase exposure.

All buttons mentioned below are for the H10, but hopefully will be used in other players as well (with corresponding buttons)

Alright, I know RockBox for H10 is nowhere near the level that is is on other platforms, and it will be some time before it is. However, I would like to put forth a suggestion, and an outline along with it. I am by far one of the least technical people on the moderating staff, and my experience and know how with RockBox is limited. I'm sure the same can be said for the majority of the MisticRiver community. Therefore, I am proposing a less complicated approach to RockBox, that will hopefully increase awareness and usage.

Notes: All buttons below refer to the iRiver H10, but SimpleBox will hopefully be able to be used on all RockBox supported players.

The Idea: Have an offshoot of RockBox, called SimpleBox. SimpleBox would run on the same code as RockBox, but would offer a much simpler, streamlined approach to the interface.

The Plan: Let's face it. The majority of us don't use/don't know how to use the majority of the features of RockBox. SimpleBox would streamline the interface, and focus on simplifying the UI of the player, but including some of the more sought-after features RockBox adds to the original firmware. Creating a simple, graphical main menu, with sections like 'Music', 'Pictures', 'Radio', 'Recording', 'Text', 'Games' and 'Utilities' (and 'Video' should it become functional with sound) (and 'Settings') would be essential, with it being the same (obviously screen sizes and color restrictions would be taken into account) across all platforms. More advanced equalizer settings would be customizable through the current (iRiver firmware) procedure, and the keymap would be the same. You would be able to change the playback settings/EQ on the fly by holding down the "o" key on the 'Now Playing' screen. Album Art would be available, as would an option to turn it off.

On startup, the player would boot to the SimpleBox firmware by default. If so inclined, other firmware could be booted by holding down a button, let's say "<-", during startup. If this button was held, the user would be shown a GRUB style selection screen, with the options "[insert player here; e.g. iRiver; iAudio, etc.] Firmware (and the version of the currently installed iRiver firmware)", and "SimpleBox" (and "RockBox, more below). The user could then pick witch firmware to use.

While there would be a cross-platform default skin, here would be other complete "skins" made for SimpleBox (not RockBox), that changed the look of everything from the USB connected screen to the main menu, to the 'Now Playing' screen. These skins would be included with each final build.

The Excecution: While RockBox is far away from being optimized for the H10, I believe if we get a team of people commited to SimpleBox to pick and choose features as they become available for RockBox, we could have a functional version of SimpleBox sooner rather than later. Features would only be added to the stable builds once they were absolutely optimized for the [target player] and SimpleBox. Usability would be the main objective of SimpleBox, so only plugins that functioned at 100% would be added, with keymaps that actually made sense (unlike some current RockBox plugins). The plugins would be added to either "Games" (Pong, Snake, etc.), or "Utilities" (Calculator, Stopwatch, etc.). Plugins like "Plasma" or "Fire" would be available through the 'Now Playing' screen's "o" menu (the one where you can change EQ and playback modes), as "screensavers".

There will be an optimized build of SimpleBox for each player.

I have no coding experience, so I couldn't really contribute to the coding of SimpleBox, but I would test daily builds, and give critiques along the way. I try to spend as little time on MR (and the internet) as possible, but I would try to stay updated until a final version is released.

Who's on board, and could we get an official endorsement from RockBox possibly?

Edits/Additions:

    * When booting with "<-" held down, a regular/customized RockBox (non SimpleBox) boot option is added, in addition to iRiver Firmware and SimpleBox
    * Revised suggestion to add cross-platform compatibility, not only for iRiver H10. Because RockBox is already very stable on other platforms (iRiver H3xx for example), progress could begin on making an H3xx optimized build of RockBox, off of which other builds (for the H10, X5, etc.) would be based, using the same 'Utilities' and 'Games' (as mentioned above).

-Adam

While discussion will hopefully begin here, please make any major announcements in the original thread on MisticRiver (http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=46846), and keep in mind it was intended for the iRiver H10 player, but will hopefully work on other RockBox supported players.

-Adam

[LinusN]

Good luck!

[Febs]

How would I change EQ settings on my iPod, which doesn't have an 'o' button?

For that matter, how would I change the EQ settings *at all* using only one button?   (Note:  I mean actually change EQ settings, and not just scroll through crappy 'presets.'  One of the huge advantages of Rockbox over the original firmware--iPod or iriver--is that it has a customizable EQ.)

[Davide-NYC]

Personally I dislike this idea. Custom builds and forks in general are (IMO) a waste of effort.

But as a start: Why not just comment out what you don't want from the files apps/plugins/SOURCES and apps/plugins/SUBDIRS? This will decimate the plugins. Just keep the ones that work.

If you want fewer WPSes just comment out the appropriate lines in wps/WPSLIST.

That's what I do. Then I generate a patch and I call it "nofun.patch".  

Good luck!

[saratoga]

So basically all hes saying is he wants the menus rearranged and the splash screen changed?

[JdGordon]

2 things I wanted to point out...
there is no such thing as an optimized build, if anything, the custom builds with extra patches for individual targets make then less stable..

and 2, if there are button mappings which are just plain wrong, then mention them so they can be fixed.

[Llorean]

Guys, I'm not even sure he's going to ever read this post again, or at least any time reasonably soon. You may have notice that he intentionally quoted his other post, instead of copying and pasting the text, and wants all conversation related to this idea to happen over there.

[JdGordon]

well then its his loss... seen as this is the proper rockbox forums and MR isnt.

[adamti91]

who said i wasnt going to check this? i agree, its radically different than rockbox, and as someone said in the misticriver thread, graphics for the main menu is possible, and commenting out what we dont need it too. these are two big parts of the proposition. I know its a big undertaking by all who volunteer, but i think its worth it.

[lachlan]

I remember seeing a patch in the tracker not to long ago that had something to do with a scrolling graphic based GUI, although I think it was for the iPod.

Found it: http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/5167

[Llorean]

All I said was that I didn't know if you would be checking this often, or soon. Your post said that all updates would be at MR and that you only posted here to increase exposure, so I was unsure if you intended to follow up much here.

[bazmonkey]

Looking at the proposal, this would be a very complicated undertaking for essentially a new UI and less features.  And with you having no coding experience (or, as you said yourself, a willingness to even get online often), you're going to have a very hard time finding someone to, uh, do it for you, basically.

Specifically, though, what don't you like about Rockbox's UI?  You scroll through your filesystem to what you want to play (be in a playlist, movie, image, or music), and play it.  It's not pretty and graphical, but it's not unintuitive.  Really, is starting in your filesystem and navigating to the file you want to play (or through tagcache to the artist/album/track you want to play) really easier than hitting a little music note button that says "Music" on it, and then navigating to the file or track you want to play?  

And just out of curiosity, on a device out of which you want to squeeze as much battery life as possible, why would you want to use energy running a screensaver of any sort?  

I do agree that the settings, while a major feature of Rockbox, could scare away some people.  I think a lot of the frustration there could be fixed by different/better default settings.  Turn on dircache (why does anyone with a newer player *not* want that on?), tagcache, crossfeeding, etc.  Enable what most less-than-technical people would want running on their so that while it leaves all of Rockbox's features, less people have to play around with them.

[nls]

I dont't like the idea of a "simplified" ui those often end up making things more complicated and less flexible, also saying that rockbox adds features to the OF makes me wonder if you've grasped the concept of rockbox.

I do however agree that the userinterface could be a little better, prehaps as mentioned many times before a bigger default font for players with big displays, nicer looking standard wps, saner defaults on some settings. But please not the "Everything on" approach especially sound altering stuff like crossfeed. And as to why anyone would not want dircache, ask amiconn ;-) or copy the HVSC to your player and wait for it to update...

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...

[Febs]

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...

Do you really think so?  There is a link to "documentation" on the navigation panel on the left.  From there, it's just two clicks to the manual for your specific platform.

[bluebrother]

I really don't understand why it's so difficult for users to find that "documentation" link on the left side or the "manual" link below each daily build. Really, I don't get it. Seems a bit to me as most users are thinking "it's open source, so there is no documentation". Strangely as most bigger open source projects have really good documentation (even if it is sometimes really hard to read, and does not necessarily include the code itself).

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. Another option would be a README.txt in the root folder -- hopefully most users will open that first and this would be the perfect point to tell "try the shipped configuration files first" and "download the manual".

But I'm getting OT. To simplebox itself: I don't like the idea as it's useless IMHO. Also, starting that argumentation on the h10 feels a bit strange as the h10 port is the newest working port and thus it's the one that I consider most incomplete of all working ports. A lot of other arguments have already been posted so I won't repeat them. Nevertheless, doing such a fork would be a really huge task. This shouldn't get underestimated at all.