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jamulussoftware / jamulus

Jamulus enables musicians to perform real-time jam sessions over the internet.
https://jamulus.io
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When not connected: "Please connect to a server to hear yourself and others" #847

Closed dcorson-ticino-com closed 3 years ago

dcorson-ticino-com commented 3 years ago

I see repeated problems with new users not realising that it is necessary to connect to a server to hear ones self and set the input volume. I see this both on the forum and among the groups I am helping to get up-and-running with Jamulus. A startup wizard would be a neat solution, but an even simpler solution could be a message in the center of the mixer window when it is empty, i.e. not connected to a server, to the effect of "Please connect to a server to hear yourself and others". A second Connect button could be placed under the message. Further the Input level "LEDs" could be grayed out when not connected to pass on the message you need to do something before you can hear yourself.

Strangely enough the biggest problem I have seen with the new groups around me is setting the input volume correctly. Not too quiet so you can't be heard, but not too loud to cause clipping distortion, which is always blamed on poor audio quality in Jamulus. Once the input volume is set right everyone is smiling. Don

ann0see commented 3 years ago

Further the Input level "LEDs" could be grayed ou

I think this is something for the UX/UI team. @mulyaj

I already thought and implemented this once in my fork (I went a bit further than that): https://github.com/ann0see/jamulus/commit/fb5e038af87fd6094422005895b165ef1b470e45

Also see this: https://github.com/ann0see/jamulus/tree/SetupUI

corrados commented 3 years ago

There is already a feature request for showing input levels when not connected, see: https://github.com/corrados/jamulus/issues/712

corrados commented 3 years ago

Further the Input level "LEDs" could be grayed out when not connected to pass on the message you need to do something before you can hear yourself.

Well, the LEDs are black in idle right now. If a new Jamulus user (i.e. a user which has not used Jamulus before at all) sees the current LED color, I think it does not make any difference for him if they are black or gray. Both colors could indicate that the LEDs are disabled.

dcorson-ticino-com commented 3 years ago

Yes I saw 712, but don't really see the need to be able to set levels when not connected. I think just adding this message would be simpler than adding a new data path for the sound when offline and be just as effective.

Your objection about the leds is true, and graying the whole field is maybe not so simple, I am a programmer, but have no experience in Windows object oriented systems. Throw assembler and microcontrollers at me.

pljones commented 3 years ago

I am a programmer, but have no experience in Windows object oriented systems. Throw assembler and microcontrollers at me.

I was a mainframe programmer when I started looking at Jamulus code... (Admittedly, I took a while to start looking at the UI code... but it's all just code.)

ann0see commented 3 years ago

I think the initial request could be easily implemented (since I already did it on my branch). Would it be worth to modify my code and merge it to master? Speaking of: https://github.com/ann0see/jamulus/commit/e1f95195954937368e2bd5ef945c7b33b3036150

Without the buttons

dcorson-ticino-com commented 3 years ago

I have made a fork with an UI with icons for mic and headphones that (IMHO) shows better what is happening at any time /dcorson-ticino-com/jamulusUI-01, but still think that a text message showing up at start and after the first connection disappearing would be a good idea, especially for newbies.

ann0see commented 3 years ago

I'd like to include ann0see@e1f9519 without the buttons and just with the text in a new version of Jamulus as part of a UI test. @jamulussoftware/maindevelopers @jamulussoftware/designers would you be ok with that?

gene96817 commented 3 years ago

How will the user select (activate) this configuration and then return to a "normal" configuration?

ann0see commented 3 years ago

Sorry @gene96817 but I don't get your question. If a user is connected, this message is shown, if he isn't, it's hidden. See the PR for more information.

gene96817 commented 3 years ago

@ann0see I misread the context. I withdraw my question.

gilgongo commented 3 years ago

If only it was easy to also say "... and if you can hear yourself now, you're doing it wrong!" :-)