getmusicbee.com
General => General Discussions => Topic started by: Steven on June 15, 2017, 09:56:03 PM
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One of things that has been mentioned for a long time now is simplifying MusicBee settings.
I should start by saying I dont really have an appetite for making wholesale changes to the way settings work at the moment. I recall there have been some complaints in the past about buttons in the settings opening a new dialog window and i will probably do something about that.
I have a couple of approaches in mind. The first and least prefered is to start with a limited set of settings being displayed and the user clicks "Advanced" to show them all. If i was to remove the settings to an iTunes level, 95% of them would be gone.
The second and prefered approach would be to show a couple of lines of explanatory text in each settings section and one or two of the common settings with an expand button the expands the settings section to show all the settings for that section. Doing it this way, I might get rid of most of the tabs in the settings dialog (I would probably keep Layout separate though)
Does anyone have any comments on this?
I was thinking of posting some screenshots of the settings i would remove for the new default settings panel (which would be virtually all the settings if it was to an iTunes level) and having you comment on which settings are advanced. But i only want to do that if there is some interest from the forum members
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There have been a lot of discussions and suggestions about the preferences dialog. Why not start from those? Some of those are:
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=9426.0
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=16921.0
Personally what I'd like to see in preferences is two things: tree-hierarchy left navigator & search bar.
If that's possible, simplifying can be easily done by only showing basic options for each section node before the user selects any sub-nodes under each section. Also adding search bar would really help the user quickly locate an option they are looking for along with other relevant settings.
If you don't want to re-design the whole thing, even this might be useful:
An easy way might be to add a search box and to highlight tabs, options, and text that contain the search terms.
Then the user can check each highlighted tab. It should include options hidden inside pop-up boxes.
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redwing, +1, especially search bar.
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Does anyone have any comments on this?
I was thinking of posting some screenshots of the settings i would remove for the new default settings panel (which would be virtually all the settings if it was to an iTunes level) and having you comment on which settings are advanced. But i only want to do that if there is some interest from the forum members
Youv'e done a great job of creating the best ever Media Player! It does have quite a lot of functionality and it took me a while to become familiarised with all the settings, but now everything is to my liking, I probably wont change anything any time soon..
A new clean and simple layout would mostly benefit newbies, or a one page view that contains the default settings from a new clean install may help..
I would prefer a line of explanatory text to a pop-up, and maybe a hyperlink to a 'further information' page or the MB Wiki.
A search option would be good, but probably be of little use to new users who may never have heard of 'replay gain', ' normalise volume' or 'crossfade' etc.
Regards :-)
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I think simplifying is a great idea! There is definitely an obstacle with searching and the sometimes obscure names for settings, etc
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I really liked the Vivaldi preferences window. Luckily, it's already similar to MusicBee's, but looks cleaner and a little more modern thanks to its icons and bigger check boxes, ticks and selection indicators (•). I guess you both were inspired by early Opera. I don't have it installed anymore, but here are screenshots which I found in the internet:
(https://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/vivaldi-themes.png)
(http://www.macprices.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Vivaldiprefs.jpeg)
I think it would be nice to incorporate the following three aspects:
Visual: Icons
Accessible: Search function and obviously a rearrangement of all the listed settings and options
Flexible: option to open preferences in a tab (it's very common in web browsers and Windows apps such as Groove Music)
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whatever you come up with will be great
the one thing I ask for is don't take any of the power of music bee away (just make it better)
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I think one factor that contributes to users having difficulty finding settings is that the user and the developer can have different ideas regarding how each setting should be categorized. An ability to search would allow forum users to direct other users to the name of the setting and have that be enough information to find it.
I also agree that expandable detailed settings in each section would make the interface easier to navigate, keeping commonly used toggles easy to access and leaving lesser-used modifiers tucked away for occasional tweaking.
I'd be interested in providing feedback.
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I am not very enthusiastic about a simple vs. advanced switch.
In a way that is just adding complexity.
Also for some newbees, almost everything would belong under 'advanced', and for savvy users, nothing would.
So it's prone to just present extra clicks, and some confusion if options are hidden in this way or not.
In my opinion an improvement on the hierarchy, and cleaning up the panels (no pop-ups, no scrolling panels within the panels) would probably bring the biggest improvement.
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Steven, I'll leave it up to you.
Only thing I would say, if you do go with a collapsible tree-hierarchy view, please included an "expand all" option.
I hate having to click through multiple nodes looking for those deeply buried options :D
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I agree with hiccup, simplifying navigation is the key.
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Steven, I'll leave it up to you.
Only thing I would say, if you do go with a collapsible tree-hierarchy view, please included an "expand all" option.
I hate having to click through multiple nodes looking for those deeply buried options :D
+1
I agree with hiccup, simplifying navigation is the key.
+1
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Steven, I'll leave it up to you.
+1
...if you do go with a collapsible tree-hierarchy view, please included an "expand all" option.
+1
I agree with hiccup, simplifying navigation is the key.
+1
This is is a complex task for sure... unfortunately, for good input, I have gotten used to the layout by now as well, but I did struggle with the preference layout in the first months as there's a lot of burried settings and at times in places/wording I wouldn't have them expected to be under.
A few things I remember and/or that I still find difficult.
The biggest 2 issues for me:
- how layouts & 'saved views' are handled & managed. This I feel should be streamlined and integrated better into the preferences ui connecting how views are handled in the different places in MB, plus some global settings. eg, especially mass-editing I struggle with atm still, as in, if I update my main custom view and I would like this to be used globally now, this is very time consuming & confusing to do as some are stored tab relative, some playlist relative, etc and applying a new 'master view' is fairly cumbersome once you started applying custom views in some places
- preferences' ui layout has grown organically over time I feel, therefore the structure & grouping isn't easy to understand / is overwhelming for the first weeks/months and could/should be more intuitive. (great would be to do some focus group testing... i.e. see what most new users struggle with, the average itunes user as well as the technically minded... but this is costly & difficult to do...)
The smaller issues or practical examples:
- tieing into the above request for streamlining views - Layout (1) & Layout (2) could become Layout (Global) (= global player layout settings), Layout (Panel Settings) (i.e. what atm is the lower half of Layout (1) plus the 'Arrange Panels'..? is there a way & would it make sense to collate those ?) and Layout (Views) (= settings relative to tabs/playlists/etc, ideally with a good workflow to save/load single bits as well as mass-apply settings (global or to multi-selections ideally, but this might be complicated to do...))
- Internet retrieval of information should be its own tab I feel (i.e. Artwork, Lyrics, etc), and disable-able globally (i.e. I disabled all artwork retrieval, and occasionally I still find the odd new cover.jpg in backup logs that must have come from MB somehow)
A few thoughts.
- (Potentially,) a search in the preferences, although welcome (if do-able without too much effort I think as it), relies on a user-test phase as its' usefulness will rely on people using the same nomenclature/wording... which for long term users is probably a given they sort of know the nomenclature used, but new users might not and therefore a search might not be helpful but frustrating ?
My few centimes.
Churs.
c.
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Also for some newbees, almost everything would belong under 'advanced', and for savvy users, nothing would.
This could be said for most applications.
I think expandable hierarchy is probably the most common method of organizing preferences for applications with large numbers of options. The root level is typically tabs on the left like MB is now. Commonly, each tab is a list of commonly activated/deactivated options, and then there is either an option to expand further options and scroll them or an advanced button to open a new window. I think the key is consistency.
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Re: simplifying navigation, how about sending all links to a setting to that page /area in preferences, rather than having pop-ups that only contain settings for one thing. If someone doesn't find the setting they're looking for right away, at least they can keep looking without backing out of the window and trying to open another one
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Is this something you are considering for 3.1?
To be honest, I hope not. It would be nice if 3.1 could become final in the not too distant future.
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Is this something you are considering for 3.1?
To be honest, I hope not. It would be nice if 3.1 could become final in the not too distant future.
i am not sure - if i think i can do something useful that doesnt take too much effort then i will do something for v3.1. It might just be making a start on some of the worst items
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i think i will bump this to v3.2 as its summer here and I dont really feel like doing any more large changes for v3.1
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Steven, I really Like your program. I will use it the Best I can. However, the settings are Way... too confusing for a dumb little beginner like me. For me to understand, I would need a step by step( example, click this, then this, scroll down to this, click this) instructions with photos. Ya see....I'm That brain dead. Thanks for your time and patience, Harold.
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Does anyone have any comments on this?
I was thinking of posting some screenshots of the settings i would remove for the new default settings panel (which would be virtually all the settings if it was to an iTunes level) and having you comment on which settings are advanced. But i only want to do that if there is some interest from the forum members
Youv'e done a great job of creating the best ever Media Player! It does have quite a lot of functionality and it took me a while to become familiarised with all the settings, but now everything is to my liking, I probably wont change anything any time soon..
A new clean and simple layout would mostly benefit newbies, or a one page view that contains the default settings from a new clean install may help..
I would prefer a line of explanatory text to a pop-up, and maybe a hyperlink to a 'further information' page or the MB Wiki.
A search option would be good, but probably be of little use to new users who may never have heard of 'replay gain', ' normalise volume' or 'crossfade' etc.
Regards :-)
I just Love your idea!!! Simplification... Great!!! Thanks so much. Harold
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When you revisit this, please consider adding a filtering bar to the hokey list. Really hard to find a command without reading out the entire commands listed there. Also it would be useful if the list can be sorted by assigned keys so that the user could quickly find out which keys are assigned to which command.
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When you revisit this, please consider adding a filtering bar to the hokey list. Really hard to find a command without reading out the entire commands listed there. Also it would be useful if the list can be sorted by assigned keys so that the user could quickly find out which keys are assigned to which command.
+1
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Does anyone have any comments on this?
I was thinking of posting some screenshots of the settings i would remove for the new default settings panel (which would be virtually all the settings if it was to an iTunes level) and having you comment on which settings are advanced. But i only want to do that if there is some interest from the forum members
A search option would be good, but probably be of little use to new users who may never have heard of 'replay gain', ' normalise volume' or 'crossfade' etc.
Regards :-)
Agreed.
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When you revisit this, please consider adding a filtering bar to the hokey list. Really hard to find a command without reading out the entire commands listed there. Also it would be useful if the list can be sorted by assigned keys so that the user could quickly find out which keys are assigned to which command.
+1