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cmnybo / nrsc5-gui

A graphical interface for nrsc5
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Enhancement Requests: UI Tweaks for Usability #6

Open TripEricson opened 6 years ago

TripEricson commented 6 years ago

I have a question and a few suggestions for things that may make the software a bit friendlier. I love it as-is, of course, but could see benefits from minor adjustments.

1) Are the Station Logos, as opposed to the Album Art, shown anywhere in the software? I ask because on WTOP (for example) I see the logos in the appropriate folder, but didn't happen to observe them in the software. If not, perhaps this can be integrated somehow. I don't have any brilliant ideas off-hand for a good location. (I also cannot see Album Art, even though it's present in the folder. I assume I'm missing a dependency or something.)

2) Move the Frequency and Stream selector out of the Settings menu and into its own pane above the tabs. This is likely the most used feature in the software, and it would be much easier to not have to switch tabs in order to make changes to it, just Stop, change Freq/Stream, then Play and continue use.

3) When the gain is set to Auto, add the gain value to the status bar, perhaps to the right of the error count. It may also make sense to have Auto checked by default.

4) Make each of the current status bar entries one character wider. On my Linux system, the last "r" in "Error" gets cut off, as does the last letter in the call sign sometimes. On my Mac this does not happen, so I know it's ultimately a font issue, but widening it by one character seems straight-forward and might help people out.

TripEricson commented 6 years ago

Okay, ignore my first point. Not sure what changed, but I now see Album Art and Station Logos in the same spot. I just left it running on WWDC HD2 for a while and when I switched back to NRSC5-GUI, I happened to see the logo change to the album art at the end of a promo; maybe I didn't wait long enough.

Separately, how about the ability to log the track info to a CSV file or something?

cmnybo commented 6 years ago

I think I can probably add these features.

The station logos are shown when you start playing the station if they have been previously downloaded. They should also be shown when there is no album art for the current program.

The album art should be displayed. It doesn't use any libraries other than gtk to display it. The album art is not documented anywhere though, so the program displays it based on what I could figure out from my local radio stations. I wonder if the station sends it on a different port or something. Could you send a log file? Clear out the nrsc5.log file if it exists, then check the enable box in the settings and play a station that provides album art. Stop it after a new album art image is saved and disable logging, then attach the log file here.

cmnybo commented 6 years ago

OK, I moved the frequency out of the settings tab, I changed the spacing on the status bar, added the current gain value to the status bar, and I made the auto gain default when starting the program for the first time.

I will see about adding CSV logging for song titles, but some stations put ads in the song title field which will probably make a mess of the log.

TripEricson commented 6 years ago

I will get back to you in full, with the log file, in a few days. I've run into a family emergency that has me out of town now.

The album art seems kind of sporadic in when it starts, but once it starts it seems to be okay. I was showing your software to my father using WROV while visiting with my parents and it did not show up, even after waiting for the song to change. But I left it running overnight where I'm staying and it did eventually pick it up and start displaying it--or, at least, I can see the appropriate files in the aas/ directory.