Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

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Barry4679
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Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by Barry4679 »

The UI doesn't always show when it is busy.

ie. click #1 as shown here. https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7b8d8chfiwtr ... s.png?dl=0

I estimate the delay for my 40,000 track library at about 8 seconds. I start to think that MM has frozen. I click on #2 on the illustration. nothing seems to happen. ... until the end of the 7 seconds, and then both actions are actioned at once, the 2nd wiping out the 1st.

In a similar long duration situation in MM$ (eg. File|CreateReports|Statistics), you used to popup the empty results panel immediately. This was a sign that something was happening in the background. ... You also used to switch the cursor icon to a spinning wheel (eventually ... it was too slow arriving in IMO).
Also it would be good if the UI was monitoring the Esc key, so that a long running request could be cancelled.

Filtering Improvements:

is this still open? http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14293
some points were addressed ... are points 3 & 4 still be considered?
3. Per user's request at http://forum.mediamonkey.com/viewtopic. ... 45#p437140 [^] item 3., it'd probably make sense to add checkboxes to temporarily enable/disable individual conditions.

4. Also a request to save/load individual filters seems to make sense. I can imagine a '...' icon there with 'Load', 'Save' a possibly some kind of Delete available. That said, I wonder then how to position this wrt AutoPlaylists - does it make sense to have these as two separate approaches? Would a unification work without sacrificing simplicity of the Filter functionality?
I think that both would be excellent additions.

The search facility (looking glass icon at top right): This has a dropdown control, but its storage capacity seems to be set to 1. ie. I do successive searches, but the dropdown combo-box always just contains the most recent search term

The looking glass search facility has global scope, which may not be ideal ... ie. if I am in SomeMediaTreeNode|Album, and I do a looking glass icon search, my scope is reset to Home|Search (ie. moved away from SomeMediaTreeNode|Album|Search) .... I guess that people will become used to this ... and I know that they could have got a local search by just typing a search string without pressing the search icon. ... but the behaviour was unexpected ... the other controls up on the top right don't change scope (ie. the filter funnel,or the matrix|list icon, or the view dropdown icon) ... also the looking glass icon has no tooltip saying "GLOBAL search"or something like that ... IMO it would better if the control respected scope, and I had to press the Home icon, or went somewhere on the media tree if I wanted a change of scope.
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by jiri »

1. This happens with "Show all nodes" script installed, but will be fixed.

re. Filtering - yes, hopefully most of it will get to MM5.0.

re. Search suggestions - when the edit line is empty, dropdown shows recent searches and when you start typing, it shows searches that start with that letter(s). Isn't it this way for you?

re. Search scope - we tried to make this clear by showing the Search in the very top right, unlike e.g. Filtering, which is aligned to the main view (when Now Playing right panel is shown). But I guess that e.g. a tooltip could make this even clearer.

Jiri
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by Barry4679 »

jiri wrote:1. This happens with "Show all nodes" script installed, but will be fixed.
Maybe I don't understand what you are saying, but just to be clear ... I haven't installed any optional scripts.
jiri wrote: re. Search suggestions - when the edit line is empty, dropdown shows recent searches and when you start typing, it shows searches that start with that letter(s). Isn't it this way for you?
I see how it works now.

I didn't see that before because the current search string is never cleared. eg:
* press the magnifying glass search icon
* type a search string
* display is filtered as expected
* change scope, ie click Home, or Music, or one of your custom indices
* the search control snaps shut, but the current search string is not emptied
* go back into search some time later, the old string is still there ... (it even survives a MM reboot)
* press it's down arrow, only the current string is in the list (because it is filtered as you described)
* you need to clear the search string, by backspacing or something, before you can see the list of previous search strings

It would help if you cleared the current search string when someone explicitly changes scope or reboots
jiri wrote: re. Search scope - we tried to make this clear by showing the Search in the very top right, unlike e.g. Filtering, which is aligned to the main view (when Now Playing right panel is shown). But I guess that e.g. a tooltip could make this even clearer.
I "now" know how it is supposed to work, but I still think that it is initially potentially a confusing UI decision.

eg:
* go into some custom filtered index
* then type a search string, ie. without opening the search widget
* what happens is that the search widget auto-opens, and the characters that you typed appear in there
* and the search results are filtered by the scope of the custom index

Now do this:
* clear out the search string
* go back into the custom index
* manually open the same search widget, and type the same search string
* the results are not filtered by the custom index

It is great once you know what to expect, but the extra flexibility makes the UI more complex IMO.
And there is no great gain, because scope can easily be set by the Media Tree

Nothing else in that top line changes scope.
If the search icon is going to change scope, it would be clearer sitting alongside the other things which change scope, ie. in the Media Tree.
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by jiri »

Maybe I don't understand what you are saying, but just to be clear ... I haven't installed any optional scripts.
Well, the script is actually currently installed together with MM5, but we plan to move it to SampleScripts folder only. Anyway, the issue will be fixed... ;-)
It would help if you cleared the current search string when someone explicitly changes scope or reboots
Right, makes sense, we'll implement it.
If the search icon is going to change scope, it would be clearer sitting alongside the other things which change scope, ie. in the Media Tree.
I'm still not sure this is the best approach, but we'll discuss this internally, whether we could improve it in any way.

Thanks!
Jiri
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by Barry4679 »

A few more comments about the new UI

Firstly I am now at the stage where I am disappointed when returning back to MM4, ie. I prefer MM5 ... I just say this, to balance the series of problem related posts.

Every time I change tabs, the Player panel gets turned back on (ie. it is displayed, even when I have set it off last time I was at that tab).

In MM4, tab labels used to show the collection name ... now they show just the collection sub-node name ... ie. for Music>Albums, the tab label is just Albums ... not Music .... the change is not very good for Gold customers, who mad have custom collections.

When I change tabs, the expected panel is re-displayed, and selection is where I last left it ... but the Art&Details "Selected" panel is not refreshed ... until I change selection on the now current tab ... a few times the Art&Details has become disassociated with one of the tabs ... I I can make selections on the newly current tab, but Art&Details is not updated ...

Adding a new tab: there is a + icon inside a circle to add the first new tab ... this seems to disappear once the 1st new tab is created ... ie. it was big bold & black & on the right & on the control widgets row ... it is now tiny barely noticeable & pale blue & on the left & in the headings row .... it would better if the the big black one also remained, so that I don't feel lost and confused

View|MediaTree doesn't work the same way with addition tabs, as it works with the initial tab ... ie. go to an additional tab, with View|MediaTree turned on and the leftmost icon set on (looks like a list besides a block ... the one next to the back arrow ... nb. it would help if they had too ltip names) ... if you set off View|MediaTree, the grid doesn't expand to reclaim the same where the MediaTree was ... it does so on the main tab

The Art & Details toggles between Selected & Playing ... this isn't initially obvious until you happen to click or hover over the heading ... ie. "where did my Selected panel go?" .. there is a 3 dots menu, but it has no item for Selected|Playing toggle

The NowPlaying panel is confusing ... I don't use MM for playing, so I am not really familiar with this aspect of MM ... but If I open the Now Playing Panel and the Art&Details panel ... they are stacked vertically ... if I click the NowPlaying it puts a big gray panel over my grid ... for album art presumably ... if I now close the NowPlaying via its little x, it does not close ... it moves itself alongside the Art&Details column, ie. into its own column ... it now has no x for closing ... I can't get rid of it via the View menu either ... the only way to get rid it is by changing scope using the Media Tree

There is a 7 second delay when pressing the trailing ">" on "Music>Albums>" ... I have 3,400+ albums ... there is no change to the cursor to indicate that anything is happening ... it looks broken ... same thing with "Music>Artists>"

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f9zj3oosm288l ... d.png?dl=0

The above page isn't as clear as it could be ... it is not clear that there are more artists or albums ... it is not clear the the Artist and Albums headings are buttons .. maybe also use the last grid position for each row, for an button with an icon saying "+ More" ... also, what is the selection criteria for the albums and artists portrayed in this little selection? ... they are not most recent played , nor top rated, nor recently ripped ... they are no always the same ... they are not random .... what are they? ... does somebody at MM like the Kinks, as they always seem to be represented?

Album&Tracks view is still truncating album art ... roll quick (using scroll bar)... pause, and then roll slow by dragging the grid up or down ... it seems as if the album which is just off view after the quick roll, will be truncated when it is slowly scrolled into view ... it happens nearly 100% of the time for me ... ie this doesn't seemed to be closed: http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14445

https://www.dropbox.com/s/70gkb6cxfwoxy ... g.png?dl=0

If I have Column Browser showing when in Music>Album and in Art view, and I use the column browser to filter, the album count in the heading is not updated ... eg. from Music.Albums(3000) to Music.Albums(12) ... if I touch an album in the grid, the count is updated ... if use the column browser to turn the filter, the album count is updated immediately, ie. it is updated immediately when turned off, but not when it is turned on.
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by jiri »

Replying only to some issues, other are directly added to Mantis and will be fixed. Thanks for reporting them!
In MM4, tab labels used to show the collection name ... now they show just the collection sub-node name ... ie. for Music>Albums, the tab label is just Albums ... not Music .... the change is not very good for Gold customers, who mad have custom collections.
OK, added an idea how to change to http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14457 .
Adding a new tab: there is a + icon inside a circle to add the first new tab ... this seems to disappear once the 1st new tab is created ... ie. it was big bold & black & on the right & on the control widgets row ... it is now tiny barely noticeable & pale blue & on the left & in the headings row .... it would better if the the big black one also remained, so that I don't feel lost and confused
You are right, that it isn't too consistent approach. That said, I'd probably rather get rid of the big + in circle altogether than to keep it there all the time. There's quite a lot of other methods to open new tab now (+ in tabs bar, View menu, Ctrl+click on hyperlinks, etc.), so this icon is probably superfluous.
The NowPlaying panel is confusing ... I don't use MM for playing, so I am not really familiar with this aspect of MM ... but If I open the Now Playing Panel and the Art&Details panel ... they are stacked vertically ... if I click the NowPlaying it puts a big gray panel over my grid ... for album art presumably ... if I now close the NowPlaying via its little x, it does not close ... it moves itself alongside the Art&Details column, ie. into its own column ... it now has no x for closing ... I can't get rid of it via the View menu either ... the only way to get rid it is by changing scope using the Media Tree
It's supposed to be used pretty much for playback only. There might be some rough edges, but generally speaking I'd say that it's quite well designed for its purpose (btw, can be easily modified by Addons in order to show whatever user wants and can look pretty good particularly in the full-screen mode). Wouldn't it be easiest for you to just disable this tree node (since you don't use MM for playback).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f9zj3oosm288l ... d.png?dl=0

The above page isn't as clear as it could be ... it is not clear that there are more artists or albums ... it is not clear the the Artist and Albums headings are buttons .. maybe also use the last grid position for each row, for an button with an icon saying "+ More" ... also, what is the selection criteria for the albums and artists portrayed in this little selection? ... they are not most recent played , nor top rated, nor recently ripped ... they are no always the same ... they are not random .... what are they? ... does somebody at MM like the Kinks, as they always seem to be represented?


You are right that it isn't perfect, we plan to improve this view. Not sure yet about the details, but some tweaks are needed.

Thanks for all the feedback,
Jiri
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by Barry4679 »

jiri wrote:There's quite a lot of other methods to open new tab now (+ in tabs bar, View menu, Ctrl+click on hyperlinks, etc.), so this icon is probably superfluous.
Initially I only see the View menu method.

ie. The + in the tabs bar is only available after you had created the 1st new tab ... there is no "tabs bar" before that

And I have tried ctrl clicking on everything that may be a hyperlink, but nothing creates a new tab ... ie. entries in the MediaTree, everything on the Home screen, including the headings that are hyperlinks?
jiri wrote:It's supposed to be used pretty much for playback only. There might be some rough edges, but generally speaking I'd say that it's quite well designed for its purpose (btw, can be easily modified by Addons in order to show whatever user wants and can look pretty good particularly in the full-screen mode). Wouldn't it be easiest for you to just disable this tree node (since you don't use MM for playback).
Yes, I will disable it ... I was just testing it.

It still seems partially broken to me. ie. if I close it via its small x, why does it replicate itself in its own column? this time with no "x" for closing.

I didn't open it via the Media tree. I didn't even notice it in there. ... I opened it via View|NowPlaying ... it opens into the same column as Art&Details ... if you try to manually close it behaves as above, which is confusing.

jiri wrote:You are right that it isn't perfect, we plan to improve this view. Not sure yet about the details, but some tweaks are needed.
There also seems to be a new bug with it. Some albums go into a jerking fit. The panel drilling down into an album partially opens and shuts many times per second ... it keeps going, and never opens properly, like an annoying fluro lamp ... the red arrow shows the part which flashes open and shut.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4hm91trjc4549 ... o.png?dl=0
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by jiri »

And I have tried ctrl clicking on everything that may be a hyperlink, but nothing creates a new tab ... ie. entries in the MediaTree, everything on the Home screen, including the headings that are hyperlinks?
You are right that there are still quite a few places where it should work and doesn't. Will be fixed as http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=14395
It still seems partially broken to me. ie. if I close it via its small x, why does it replicate itself in its own column? this time with no "x" for closing.
The idea there is that the Now Playing view either contain its own NP queue sub-window, or it's replaced by the NP sidebar (which is available thorough the application). That said, you are right that it's currently quite confusing. We'll try to implement something clearer.
The panel drilling down into an album partially opens and shuts many times per second ...
Thanks, will look into it.

Jiri
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by Barry4679 »

Lots of nice changes and fixes in 2081. Thanks. Some observations:

Media Tree row sequence:
Up|Down changes made by Tools|OptionsLibrary|MediaTree are not always effected. ... I made multiple up|down changes, and also changed the visibility of a row. ... Not all changes were acted upon. I closed and restarted MM ... still some MediaTree rows were not as sequenced as per my new setting ... I moved affected rows up or down a bit, and it seemed to come right ... left me know if you can't replicate... I will try to be more specific.

Track|Album selection:
Current track selection is lost when changing view modes. ie. be at Home->Album in ArtView. ... Select a couple of albums ... change to Albums&Tracks view .. the current selection is not retained ... nothing is selected ... same thing to|from listview .... MM4 didn't work this way

Also the selection status bar has changed, and is less useful now. ... in Albums&Tracks view the status bar shows the number of tracks and total track play duration that I have selected ... but in ArtView I only see the number of albums selected ... could you include track count and total duration here also? This was available in MM4.

How do I make a multi-album selection when in Album&Tracks view ... I can select an album by clicking it's art ... but I expected that shift or control clicks would allow me to add other albums to the selection.

Horizontal scroll:
There is no horizontal scroll bar when I switching from List view to Album&Tracks view ... I need to toggle screen size (to maximised and back) in order to get a horizontal scrool bar.

Selected display in Art&Details freezes
I am in Home>Album in Art view. The Selected display in Art&Details shows my initial selection, but it is not updated if I navigate to a different album ... occasionally I get lucky ... but mostly it is frozen.

Full sizeArt.
If I am at Home>Albums, and I double click an album, the tab changes to a drill down view of just that album. If I click the album art, it opens a popup window with full sized art view. .. This is good.
Back at Home>Albums, if I single click the album, a drill down panel is inserted inside the existing art matrix. It would be good if a single click on the album art, in that inserted panel, opened the full view window also.

Icons
If edit a collection, I get opportunity to set the collection's icon. Can the Choose dbox have a link to wherever you have stored the icons?

Filtering:
Could the Filter (funnel) icon change when the filter is active? ... ... ie. like the view icon alongside it, which changes to show which view is active ... I do see that the breadcrumbs show that the filter is active, but the icon would help IMO ... the UI is relatively complex due to the power of MM
The check boxes for each criteria line is great. ... Possible to have a checkbox for the full filter set? ... at the moment I have to uncheck each line ... there is no way to temporarily turn the filter off ... except uncheck each line, or delete the filter set ... there isn't a way to clear the whole filter set either if I want to create a new set, without going back to the breadcrumbs, which closes the filter panel ... The filter hamburger menu could have clear and activate toggle options to add to the save & load options.
It is a bit confusing that the filter icon is a button, while the view icon alongside is just an icon, and you need to use the 'v' alongside to get to its menu. ... maybe show the dropdown menu if I click on the view option icon ... I would expect that the view icon would be clickable ... everything else on that row is clickable
Could the filter save default be to the standard Windows location for MediaMonkey application user data?


Album art cache:
Can I clear this? How? I am still seeing some vertically truncated album art in the Art&Details panel and in Album&Tracks view. I don't know if there is still a bug, or I am just seeing the effect from a bug which has now been fixed.
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by jiri »

Thanks for a lot of suggestions, as usually. ;-)
Current track selection is lost when changing view modes. ie. be at Home->Album in ArtView. ... Select a couple of albums ... change to Albums&Tracks view .. the current selection is not retained ... nothing is selected ... same thing to|from listview .... MM4 didn't work this way
There's sometimes a slightly different logic in MM5, so this might not be easy to implement, but we'll look into it sometimes.
Also the selection status bar has changed, and is less useful now. ... in Albums&Tracks view the status bar shows the number of tracks and total track play duration that I have selected ... but in ArtView I only see the number of albums selected ... could you include track count and total duration here also? This was available in MM4.
Similar as above.
How do I make a multi-album selection when in Album&Tracks view ... I can select an album by clicking it's art ... but I expected that shift or control clicks would allow me to add other albums to the selection.
Not yet implemented, but planned.
Album art cache:
Can I clear this? How? I am still seeing some vertically truncated album art in the Art&Details panel and in Album&Tracks view. I don't know if there is still a bug, or I am just seeing the effect from a bug which has now been fixed.

Maybe there are several issues, if you continue to see this, try to send me some more screenshots. Btw, the cache is in Temp\Thumbs (system temp folder).
If edit a collection, I get opportunity to set the collection's icon. Can the Choose dbox have a link to wherever you have stored the icons?
They might not necessarily be accessible from the filesystem, but we'll try to figure something out.

Jiri
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by Barry4679 »

jiri wrote:Thanks for a lot of suggestions, as usually. ;-)
Current track selection is lost when changing view modes. ie. be at Home->Album in ArtView. ... Select a couple of albums ... change to Albums&Tracks view .. the current selection is not retained ... nothing is selected ... same thing to|from listview .... MM4 didn't work this way
There's sometimes a slightly different logic in MM5, so this might not be easy to implement, but we'll look into it sometimes.
Also the selection status bar has changed, and is less useful now. ... in Albums&Tracks view the status bar shows the number of tracks and total track play duration that I have selected ... but in ArtView I only see the number of albums selected ... could you include track count and total duration here also? This was available in MM4.
Similar as above.
Jiri
Thanks for looking into these two items.

The current situation is going to be hard to defend IMO.

Use cases for you to consider:

In Art view selecting some albums for a playlist or to sync to a mobile device.
I would like to synch say 4 hours of music
I can see how much music I have collected, and I can't change to another view to see it either, because the selection would get lost.

Or I have some albums selected in art view, and I want to check whether they are all mp3 files ... I would really like to see List view or Album&Tracks ... and btw, it would be really good if once there, there was a display toggle for selected|everything.

Or if I am in Art view, and I multi-select a couple of albums ... so now I am unable to drill into a an album (see the inlaid track list) due to a MM5 restriction ... the only way to see whether an album contains a track I am looking for is to deselect everything, check the tracks, and then start selecting everything again from the beginning.

And the worse thing is that I can't use the new MM5 Manage Views facility as I would like ... ie. I set up a couple of Art views, one sorted by Album title, and another AlbumArtist|ReleaseDate ... I select a couple of albums, then want to switch views to find another couple of albums using the alternate sort sequence ... and bang, my selection is gone.
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Re: Some UI observations: filtering, also busy indications

Post by jiri »

You are right, we'll try to fix this soon, but it probably won't be right away, since there quite a few higher priority items. Anyway, we'll look into it...

Jiri
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