Music Player - UI question

Sean Moss-Pultz sean at openmoko.com
Mon Apr 23 12:10:55 CEST 2007


On Sat, 2007-04-21 at 09:28 +0200, Abraxa wrote:

> > > My suggestion is to add another screen where the user can add files  
> > > to/delete files from the playlist he/she currently selected. Also I'd  
> > > add another button to the main screen which would bring the user there.
> > > 
> > > Any commments/ideas/suggestions?
> > 
> > This would be possible. But it's goings to involve file browsing which
> > is probably a stylus option. But again, I'm totally open to changing the
> > way this works.
> 
> I'd like to clarify things some more before I go into this. The way I
> understood it till now was that the Music Player is used for audio while
> the Media Player is used for either audio or video. The wiki also lists
> a finger-based Video Player for phase 2 but isn't this making the Media
> Player redundant?

You should really think of finger based applications as simplified
stylus applications. They are only redundant if you think in terms of
feature sets...not usage scenarios. 

> The Media Player page says nothing about video so far but talks about
> audio only. From my point of view it's pointless to have two different
> applications on the Neo do the same things. Thus I'd like suggest the
> following:
> 
> -) Make a dedicated audio player whose main interface can be controlled
> using one's fingers. It should also offer a playlist editor even if that
> needs the stylus - yes, that would mix the use cases but it makes the
> most sense in my opinion since I, as a user, would be alienated by an
> application that won't directly allow me to change what I can listen
> to. 
> Imagine you're in the Music Player, remember some track and want to
> listen to it right away. You'll have to open the Media Player, edit a
> playlist, switch back to the Music Player, open that playlist there and
> only then you can play it...
> To be frank that's rather awkward to me compared with just editing the
> playlist from within the Music Player and adding the track there.
> 
> -) Make a dedicated video player, also with a mixed finger- and
> stylus-based interface. Read: main controls are finger-based with the
> file selection/playlist interface being stylus-based.

I can see where you're going here. But from the beginning we wanted to
separate finger apps from stylus apps. Yes the base code / functionality
can (should) be shared. But visually we wanted them separate. Here
you're trying to make an application that does everything that both the
stylus and finger apps do individually. I'm not going to argue that this
is good or bad. It's just not totally consistent with our current
model. 

We want things to be either or. Either you use your finger to do
everything the application can do...or you use the stylus. 

So at this point I would not be against combining these applications.
But I would prefer that the combined application be either finger or
stylus. Just not both. What do you think?

> I can see how a general Media Player could make sense but honestly I'm
> not sure whether it'll be used much if there are dedicated audio and
> video players already - especially if they meet the user's demands
> better.

Agreed.

-Sean




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