GUI changes for v3.0

[psychoadept]

Those visual cues could be only enabled by a right-click menu "Unlock" (along with "Hide" command). It would make it unbelievably easy to move panels and elements around (like moving wave bar from the bottom of the left sidebar to the top of right sidebar), and the users won't need to open layout editor frequently except when they want to introduce new elements. Please think about it again.

One of the only things that I really miss about Media Monkey is the modular layout. I know it would be harder to implement, but it would be awesome.  When you unlock it, each element could have an X to close it, and there would be a + somewhere to add new elements/sections. Think of the element boxes for configuring office programs or similar.

[OrB]

in this model configuring dialogs with 'left/right' 'above/below' 'vertical/horizontal' should be obsolete
eg collision line detection left/right - vertical ; top/bottom - horizontal element orientation

[Steven]

everyone thanks for the feedback. I think i can amend the mockup to accomodate a number of the concerns raised and that i feel comfortable with.
I will post an amended mockup a later

[hiccup]

There is also a thread in the wishlist about the column browser having independently adjustable columns, the same as the fields in the main panel.  With this major re-design, would that be possibly implemented as well?

An "Auto size all columns" function for the column browser, similar as this existing option for Track Detail view would be very welcome indeed.

[hiccup]

And more important for the relevance of this topic: are you contemplating to develop MusicBee in the direction so it might become usable on a tablet like machine or not? I believe that this is important to know to decide on what contributions would be sensible to make here.

I guess not for this v3.0
That will then maybe be something for a futuristic 'MusicBee One'.

[Steven]

And more important for the relevance of this topic: are you contemplating to develop MusicBee in the direction so it might become usable on a tablet like machine or not? I believe that this is important to know to decide on what contributions would be sensible to make here.

I guess not for this v3.0
That will then maybe be something for a futuristic 'MusicBee One'.

its still early days and i am focusing on get the basics right. To me that is more superficial that may or may not make sense to tweak for when i have time to focus attention on it and played around with windows 10.
For the application window i intend to broadly follow "endeavour1934"'s proposal and mockup i later produced

[Steven]

In this mockup, all elements are in the one layout panel including ones not enabled. Enabling an element just requires ticking it.
The active element (blue in the mockup) can be dragged within the same panel section or to other panel sections - the valid panel sections are bolded (or some other visual cue). As per bee-liever's suggestion (if i understood correctly) the main musicbee application window could be overlayed with a colour mask for the active section in the Panel Arrangement dialog so the user knows better what area is being edited.
An information message down the bottom also indicates which panel sections the element can be moved to
Some elements are permanently ticked with a dimmer tick. The elements that cant be moved are a dimmer colour.
As previously mentioned, some elements will have a configuration dialog. The same dialog can be accessed directly on the MusicBee application GUI via right click/ Configure Panel
You can click "Apply" to see the impact on the MusicBee application window.

[Bee-liever]

As per bee-liever's suggestion (if i understood correctly) the main musicbee application window could be overlayed with a colour mask for the active section in the Panel Arrangement dialog so the user knows better what area is being edited.

It's not quite what I was suggesting, but that's a damn good re-interpretation of the idea  

[endeavour1934]

Icons could make it more readable:

[psychoadept]

^^^^^

+100

[phred]

Something with icons could make it more readable:

YES!!  Brilliant.

[Bee-liever]

Something with icons could make it more readable:

Yes. Very good addition endeavour1934.

Maybe these name changes as well:

main panel  =  central main panel  or  prime main panel  or  center panel
left main panel  =  secondary main panel  or  secondary panel

[Pingaware]

This is shaping up really nicely Steven - I think the latest mockup of the configuration panel (with endeavour1934's icons) is a huge step forward and looks pretty professional.

[psychoadept]

main panel  =  central main panel  or  prime main panel  or  center panel
left main panel  =  secondary main panel  or  secondary panel

How about "main panel" and "filter panel"?

[Bee-liever]

main panel  =  central main panel  or  prime main panel  or  center panel
left main panel  =  secondary main panel  or  secondary panel

How about "main panel" and "filter panel"?

I thought, with Steven not using the 'navigation panel' and 'filter panel' terms in his mock-up, that he was trying to move away from these old terms and imply that the new panel arrangements are much more dynamic and are not so easily pigeon-holed as just "navigation" and "filter" areas.

Did I read to much into the panel name change?