Request for Feedback - SATAN

Anton Persson don.juanton at gmail.com
Sat Mar 21 15:26:10 CET 2009


First of all, I'm glad that people have at least tried it... But I also
expected that probably many
would not come very far, since the application IS complicated... I'll try to
make the next version
a bit easier, however the basic concept is in it's nature complicated and
there's always going
to be tons of knobs and levers to pull and slide since that's what you need
to enable as much
creativity as possible... But yes, I do recognize that it must be as easy as
possible to understand
how to find the knob you want, and minimize the amount of work needed just
to get started.

NOTE! There is an XML-file in /usr/share/satan called satanUI.xml that
describes the
GUI, if you have the time and inclination please play around with that and
give me a
proposal.. Also note that that is an proprietary XML format for the GUI
engine I'm using.

On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Aapo Rantalainen <
aapo.rantalainen at gmail.com> wrote:

> > 1) Rename it. Yeah, I know it's nice to provoke people etc but to me
> >it just sounds stupid.
>
> One more vote for renaming.
>
>
The name is probably going to stay the same since it is etched in soooo many
places
that it's very much a lock-in now... Maybe I can add a "friendlier" icon and
alias for
the menu so you won't be offended every time you use your phone.. ;-) And
for
the record; the name is one of the few silly things I have left in my life
now when
I'm all grown up with a family and responsibilities.. It's kinda sentimental
and still makes
me put on this silly smile once in a while when I'm discussing it with my
friends.. ;-P


>
>
> >2) Add an icon in .ipk package. I installed to 2008.12+Kustomized, no
> >icon was shown.
>
> I got icon. (is this fixed?)
>

It seems to be different on different distributions; there IS an icon in the
package
and on some distros it shows up correctly, and on others it doesn't.. If
someone
can point at what I can change about the icons path, and/or the
.desktop-file I
would be delighted to fix it. For the next version I set Categories to
Applications,
hopefully that will make it better for SHR users.. Hope it will still "works
for me".


>
> > 3) First run I get a message that Enlightenment was not able to ...
> > satan: error while loading shared libraries: libltdl.so.3: cannot open
>
> I added libltdl3 for http://www.opkg.org/package_34.html
>

I have libltdl3 as a dependency in the control file used for ipk-generation,
but
it seems maybe that isn't enough? Any suggestions?


>
>
> > 4) Started the app. It's a mess.. sorry.. I'd like to be able to do
>
> I do this step-by-step
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/23526681/MANUAL.txt
> (My sound settings of phone are messed so I didn't got any noise out of.)
>
> This manual is good. But maybe program is too hard and complicated to
> Phone if it needs so long read-this-first (and I can't reproduce
> anything without that manual).
>

The application is complicated for sure, but that's a result of the
basic requirement "let the imagination be the limit".. I'll try to
explain it through an example; a basic synthesizer is easy to
get started with, but it is not a complete studio. If you want a
complete studio you won't have something that is easy to start
with...

My idea now is to have a question asked when the application start:
Do you want it simple? yes or no... "Yes" will pre-load a "toy"-project
that is easy to start playing with, sort of a demo.


> Keep it simple. / Use menus with long names.
> Tabs like  "Ld/Sv" aren't good. How about standardr drop down menu
> called File (containing Load project and Save project)? I didn't got
> point of whole "Connector"-tab. Maybe some working default settings
> and menu-entry 'Advanced'-> 'Connections' where power-user can fine
> tune them.
>

The connector tab is quite vital, alas... :-) It is basically the "studio",
here you can add your synthesizers, drum machines, echo-boxes
and so forth.. If you have an empty studio; then you have no sound except
the occasional cough from the studio manager wondering what you
are doing without any instruments... ;-)


>
> And menu entry named 'Mode' could have 'surf' and 'tracker' and so on.
>

Maybe I could have two major "modes", one called "Configure" and one
called "Compose", and then the Load/Save project tab.  The "Configure" mode
would contain sample loader, instrument editor, control configuration
and connections. The "Compose" mode would contain the "Surface", the
tracker and the sequencer. One problem that is constant is the lack of
screen real-estate on the 2.8" screen we have to play with.. Especially
since I want to make it more finger friendly in the future..

The way of the future will hopefully be nicer looking graphics that is
more finger friendly... This will however probably require the new OpenMoko
since the code I write requires a FPU that won't be available until that
phone arrives...

I hope I get some more feedback on the ideas I presented here and on the
comments I made on your suggestions.

   Best regards
     Anton Persson
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