While Recording Screen - User Interface Discussion - including remotes

[Davide-NYC]

OK here goes some suggestions for better useability in the WRS.

1.

This only applies for stereo sources, so while INPUT == LINE-IN:

Instead of displaying two separate Gains (Gain Left and Gain Right) display only one Gain labelled

Gain Stereo: < GvalueL | GvalueR >

Where 'GvalueL' and 'GvalueR' are the Left/Right Gain values as diplayed in the two-line display.
LEFT/RIGHT would just adjust both Gains in equal increments until either gain hits a min/max.

Volume: 0 dB
Gain Stereo: < -64.0 dB | +13.5 dB >
AGC: Off

If a user highlights Gain Stereo and presses the SELECT button the display adds a line displaying the separate Gain Left and Gain Right lines with both Gains highlighted/selected. As it is currently.

(SELECT)
Volume: 0 dB
Gain Left: -64.0 dB
Gain Right: -13.5 dB
AGC: Off

The 'selection option' and 'change value options' are as they are now:
LEFT/RIGHT changes selected/highlighted value.
DOWN highlights/selects only Gain Left, DOWN again highlights/selects only Gain Right, and DOWN again selects the AGC line.

(DOWN)
Volume: 0 dB
Gain Left: -64.0 dB
Gain Right: -13.5 dB
AGC: Off

(DOWN)
Volume: 0 dB
Gain Left: -64.0 dB
Gain Right: -13.5 dB
AGC: Off

(DOWN)
Volume: 0 dB
Gain Left: -64.0 dB
Gain Right: -13.5 dB
AGC: Off


Pressing SELECT while having any Gain Line highlighted/selected toggles between single line or double line display. So if you wanted to hide the extra line you could by just pressing SELECT with any Gain Line highlighted/selected.

2.

AGC max gain setting should be accessed with a SELECT press, not a DOWN.
This way if anything need to be added to the WRS it can be added without modifying the button schema.  

(I'm thinking real-time encoding values in the future)


The only problem I see with the first change is if the user has one gain 'max'ed and the other gain 'min'ed.

Volume: 0 dB
Gain Stereo: < -64.0 dB | +48.0 dB >
AGC: Off

In this particular case a user wouldn't be able to change the gain at all unless they were aware of this potential problem. I'd prefer it this way instead of incrementing/decrementing the other channel until they were both 'min'ed/'max'ed. But either way is cool I guess.


The second change *should* be easy and I think it makes sense. THe first one might be tricky but I think it's cool since most folks will never mess with their Left/Right Gain balance.


Alright everybody... Wadayatink?

[petur]

uch... sorry....

[Llorean]

As an alternative, I and some others would like to offer this idea:

The gain is alway shown on one line, like this:

Code: [Select]

Gain: [<] -20.4db | [>] 36.4dbOne could highlight it as a normal line, and then press select to toggle between "Both", "Left", and "Right" selections, looking like this:

Both:

Code: [Select]

Gain: [<] -20.4db | [>] 36.4dbLeft:

Code: [Select]

Gain: [<] -20.4db | > 36.4dbRight:

Code: [Select]

Gain: < -20.4db | [>] 36.4db

[Davide-NYC]

I like it!     More elegant (the screen doesn't re-organize itself) and achieves the goal.

Here's a minor suggestion:

Volume: 0 dB
Gain: [<] -20.4dB | 36.4dB [>]
AGC: Off


Volume: 0 dB
Gain: [<] -20.4dB | 36.4dB  >
AGC: Off


Volume: 0 dB
Gain:  <  -20.4dB | 36.4dB [>]
AGC: Off

I'm not sure the bracket is the correct character to designate selection.
It just doesn't seem to "jump out at you" enough.

Everybody... chime in! It's a party!

[Mmmm]

This is an interesting idea but my one, extremely massive complaint with it is that it looks awful. If I saw something like that when I first opened the recording screen I would just give up immediately. It's confusing!

The way it is at the moment is fairly intuitive. You press the down button and you see the different lines highlighted, it's fairly obvious that the highlighted lines are the ones that will change. One line down and you get the stereo change which, as you say, is what most people are going to want to be using and so that is why it is the first you come to.

There is no need to display the gain on one line (it fits nicely on two on all targets), so what is the advantage of this?

So there you go... it gets the NO vote from me!

[Llorean]

It's been pointed out that while it fits nicely on the H100 and H300, you also have the Remote to be concerned about.

As well, the Archos Jukebox Recorder has a smaller screen than the H100, and is incredibly space-limited.

[Davide-NYC]

I'm mostly thinking about the remote screens for the iRivers.
At 128x64 the iRiver RLCD is a little tight.
At 112x64 the Recorder LCD is a disaster.

I also do not find it confusing because UP/DOWN will select different lines, LEFT/RIGHT will change the selected value and only SELECT would change the active state of the channels. If a user does not press SELECT they wouldn't even notice any difference.

Also there was discussion in IRC about using icons. I think icons would be even better.
My main point in all of this was to get it to fit better on the RLCD and get the Gain(s) on a single line since the vast majority of all users never need to 'imbalance' their Left/Right Gains.

 

Here are some Simulator screenshots of the WRS while source == Line-In.

[attachment deleted by admin, too old]

[Mmmm]

They all look pretty good to me!

OK, so on the Iriver remote AGC isn't displayed all the time, I'll give you that.... I suppose it would be better if it was, but I think your solution confuses things too much.

[petur]

good luck getting the two values on one line + have meaningfull text in front of them
do check this for Archos...

I'm still for scrolling. The top can stay fixed and below the peakmeters we can put a list with a scrollbar so the user sees there are more items to change on the fly...

Other option is to remove the AGC setting and maybe frequency from the screen as you can still change it on-the-fly by going to the settings menu. And just keep the stuff we _really_ need to adjust on-the-fly on the main recording screen.

[Davide-NYC]

For the Archos Recorder screen, assuming we're using chars instead of icons....
Here there is a problem since the line is not labelled. That's bad I agree but here it is anyway:

Volume: -00.0 dB
[<]-00.0|-00.0[>]
44.1 kHz Stereo

I'm of the opinion that once seen in 'action' it all become immediately intuitive.
(The chars should be replaced with spaces so the line doesn't jump around.)


What about number 2?

AGC max gain setting should be accessed with a SELECT press, not a DOWN.
This way if anything need to be added to the WRS it can be added without modifying the button schema. 

(I'm thinking real-time encoding values in the future)

[Davide-NYC]

Other option is to remove the AGC setting and maybe frequency from the screen as you can still change it on-the-fly by going to the settings menu. And just keep the stuff we _really_ need to adjust on-the-fly on the main recording screen.

This is probably the best idea (in my opinion). Less is more.

[Llorean]

I would've suggested that as well, but since I don't use recording, I'd assumed you guys just all wanted that stuff to stay there, and needed a way to shuffle it around to fit.

[catstevecam]

I've only just loaded Rockbox on my H120 - but am quite familiar with the recording functions on my Archos Recorder 20. I just love the time split function for extended recording.

The gain and volume elements are intuitive - I'd keep them the way they are.

One change I could use is the possibility to select 'mono/stereo' source.

I haven't tried extended use of the firmware - but first impressions are that it does all I need and has improved over the iRiver interface.

Thanks everyone.

[Mmmm]

Other option is to remove the AGC setting and maybe frequency from the screen as you can still change it on-the-fly by going to the settings menu. And just keep the stuff we _really_ need to adjust on-the-fly on the main recording screen.

You can't enter the settings screen while recording!

[Davide-NYC]

I just thought of the obvious. (I presume there is some underlying reason why this is a bad idea)

If not here is the obvious idea:

Why don't we just turn off the status bar?

I attempted to do this but it doesn't dissapear in the WRS or the RWRS.
I have just posted a feature request in the 'User Interface and Voice' forum.

I made a Flyspray Feature Request --> http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/5869

I am of the opinion that AGC doesn't belong in the WRS. Removing the AGC line and the status bar we'd be able to fit stereo gains and the bitrate info on the iRiver RLCD!

Discuss!