View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0004406 | MMW v4 | Properties/Auto-Tools | public | 2008-02-17 16:59 | 2008-04-04 20:14 |
| Reporter | jiri | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | immediate | Severity | minor | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | closed | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 3.0 | ||||
| Fixed in Version | 3.0 | ||||
| Summary | 0004406: Entering masks isn't as easy as it used to be | ||||
| Description | Several users have already complained about this and I recently confirmed that entering masks from the mask dropdown is a little harder than it used to be in MM 2.5. To clarify, MM 2.5 presented all available masks in just one toolbar line where user could have selected any item by just single mouse click. Currently it's necessary to do significantly more in order to achieve the same goal. I'd propose modify the pop-up window we show in MM 3.0 - instead of the vertical list, I'd rather show a horizontal toolbar (or two). It could look like: --------------------------------------------------[ close button ] --- | Basic: \ - <Artist> <Album> <Album Artist> ... | More: <Conductor> <BPM> ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The pop-up window wouldn't close after a click on any of its items, it would close either aften clicking 'close button' or clicking outside of the window. I believe that it would significantly simplify entering masks. Note: We should make sure that it's still easily possible to use keyboard in order to use this pop-up window. At least it would be nice... | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Fixed in build | 1155 | ||||
|
|
unless I'm mistaken, this is what's been requested in 4113, although in 4113, the suggestion was to continue with the current UI, but avoid the need to re-open the mask dialog with each click of a mask. i.e. I agree with the idea of eliminating the multiple clicks, but I think that the current vertical layout is more usable/understandable. |
|
|
Yes, it's really a duplicate (we can probably close 0004113 now, since here it's discussed in more details). Re. vertical layout - although I like the idea to nicely structure individual masks, I suggested the horizontal layout because the current vertical arrangement shows only a small fraction of masks, user has to scroll down for many of them, even for very often used ones. We certainly can fix this by increasing height of the window, but it could then often obscure imporant parts of dialog below (particularly filenames in Auto-Tag from Filename dialog). The horizontal layout wouldn't occupy that much of important screen space. |
|
|
I think nice idea could be some kind of virtual keyboard where every key will represent one mask. So this "keyboard" will show up when user click on >> button (or CTRL+Space hotkey as is now) and should look like : |----------------------------------------------------------| | C:\Music\<Album Artist>\<Album>\<Track#> - <Title> | <- current edit line |----------------------------------------------------------| | [Artist] [Album] [Album Artist] [Title] [Track#] [Disc#] | | [Playlist] [Composer] [Conductor] [Date] [Bitrate] | ... | [Custom 1] [Custom 2] [Custom 3] [Custom 4] [Custom 5] | |----------------------------------------------------------| This window will be visible until user will click out of this window or edit line. |
|
|
The reason the vertical layout shows only a subset of the masks is that we're currently limiting the size of the list. Can't we make it so that when the user clicks the mask editor, a much longer list appears? Here are the reasons why I prefer the vertical layout: 1) Descriptions of the fields are provided 2) Fields can be better organized 3) Link to mask help is available 4) It looks better 5) It works for all dialogs without increasing the size of the dialog significantly We could probably deal with some of these items if we switch back to horizontal layout, but I don't think it would be as effective. What if it would work in the following manner: Clicking '>>' would expand the dialog to include a vertical list of masks. e.g. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | Destination______________________________<< [ ] | | |-------------------------------------------------| <Artist> - Track Artist | | | <Album> - Album | | ... When the user Clicks '>>' the dialog expands to show all the masks in a scrollable textbox. When the user clicks '<<' the dialog collapses. |
|
|
First of all some notes to your reasons: 1. Well, yes, but almost all descriptions equal to field titles, i.e. I'm not sure whether they are really useful. 2. Maybe, but it probably depends on users preference. 3. It was also in the original horizontal version. 4. It looks good, but as in 2. - it depends. 5. This doesn't affect the size of dialog - both vertical and horizontal would be pop-up windows, i.e. independant of the underlying dialog. As for the docked idea - I don't think it would work well for various reasons. E.g. Now this mask component is available to scripts and it would be hard task to properly dock to all kinds of dialogs. So, to summarize, I can see several options with various usability: 1. Leave it as is in MM 3.0, but make some small improvements: a. Make the pop-up window tall enough to contain all the masks. b. Hide descriptions, or at least make them as narrow as possible so that the pop-up window doesn't obscure the underlaying window which prevents user in decisions which mask to use. c. Single click should choose any of the masks and wouldn't close the window, it would only be closed when user clicks outside of the window (or a small close button that would be added). 2. As 1., but the pop-up window would have masks arranged horizontally, i.e. occupying as little space as possible. 3. A mixed approach where the pop-up window would be a kind of resizable tool window, i.e. either more horizontal or vertical and movable (undock Standard toolbar in main MM window and try to resize it in order to see what I mean). This might be the most usable solution, particularly if position of such a window would be saved relatively to its parent window and so it would be always restored in the same position. |
|
|
Raising to Immediate, since it would be nice to try to resolve this for MM 3.0.3. |
|
|
Re. 1b) I would also suggest that the popup should appear to the right of the [>>] button (as it does in the 'Set Destination Wizard' [the simplified masks dialog]) as that prevents the mask list from obscuring the dialog. As far as preference (1 vs 2 vs 3), I think '1' would yield the 'cleanest' UI by far, but if technical considerations make '2' or '3' easier to implement and you think that we can achieve all the attributes of solution '1' using '2' or '3', then that would be fine as well--though I'd suggest doing some sort of mockup to prevent wasted time. |
|
|
Assigning to Petr to review and think about technical issues so that we can discuss it then over IM. |
|
|
I've changed popup helper in way as Jiri's described: - only masks are visible in this list - descriptions are as hints of the masks - optimized lines heights for make it shortest as it can be - added transparency (so user will see what's on the dialog) Also transparency for this popup window is able to set using ini file (for testing purposes) : [System] MaskHelperTransparency=0-255 (default is 170) |
|
|
Tested in 1143. It looks pretty good except for: -issue1: once the mask dropdown is open, clicking the '>>' button again should cause it to close. -issue2: clicking the 'Help' causes the help to appear _in back_ of the auto-organize dialog. Also, there's no way to close the Help window, except to first close the auto-organize dialog. -issue3: the '>>' button in the set destination wizard should work in the same manner -issue4: the 'Main Directory' browser in the Set Destination Wizard for Burning and Synchronization is disabled. -issue5: if the user selects a field via the new dropdown, then clicks a specific portion of the mask in order to position the cursor to the correct location for the next mask ---> the mask moves on its own within the textbox and the position is lost. This one is really annoying. |
|
|
Note: I see that issue4 is fixed in bug 0004452. |
|
|
fixed items 1,2,5 |
|
|
MaskHelperTransparency default 170 is unreadable on higher resolutions 1600x1200+ even on 22" monitor. |
|
|
Fixed issues reported by Rusty and also changed default transparency constant to 220. Will be in 1145. |
|
|
It's working mostly well, I just found some minor issues: 6. When mask pop-up window is visible and I click mask edit line, the pop-up window doesn't disappear. This actually doesn't seem to be a problem to me, I rather like it this way. However, problem is that I can't type anything using keyboard at this moment - whatever key a press, nothing appears on screen. 7. The dividing lines in the pop-up window can get focus, they should be disabled instead. Not a big issue though. 8. Losing caret position: The following combinations of shortcuts: Ctrl+Space {mask selection} Enter Esc causes that whole mask gets focused and so further typing causes the whole text to be lost. Would be nicer to not select the whole text in such a case. |
|
|
Also, issue 5 is still open. Here are exact repro steps: -click auto-organize -click the browse button and choose a directory (it can be the current one). The point of this is to ensure that the Destination text box is completely filled. -click >> -position the cursor somewhere in the destination box -click <Year> -repeat these last two steps several times. Once the width of the text in the textbox exceeds the width of the textbox, strange repositioning of the cursor starts to happen. |
|
|
fixed items 6, 7, 8 |
|
|
Verified 1153. |
|
|
Small annoyance: 9. <Skip> is missing |
|
|
Note that <Skip> should be present only in Auto-tag from Filename. |
|
|
Added <Skip> to AutoTag preset. Will be in 1155. |
|
|
Verified 1155. |
