UI tweaks

[JasonLG1979]

There are a few minor changes that could cleanup and extend the UI.

1st a few questions:

1. Do we really need a "maximize" button in the button controls? How many people use Pithos maximized?
2. Do we really need a volume button? When do you listen to 2 different audio streams so that you need to turn Pithos down in the app? The system volume controls do just fine for volume changes. It always baffled me as to why music players had volume controls. Seems kinda redundant...
3. Why a whole different row in the UI for 1 menu button/text? Why not put a settings menu icon to the far right like in my mockup?

Next a couple suggestions.

Remove the "Pandora info" button from the top of the UI and either make the album cover clickable or put it next to the album cover like in my mockup.

As I've said a few times a plugin icon tray would be a neat idea also. In the interest of keeping the UI uncluttered the icon dumpster could be hidden until you mouse over the song text/album cover/icon dumpster area.

[logannc]

1) We probably don't. I'm unfamiliar with how to remove it, though.

2) I use this feature ALL THE TIME. I have a voice chat server and I like to listen to music at the same time. Yes, technically you can do this from the sound settings, but it doesn't clutter up the interface for an appreciable function.

3) I don't quite understand this.

The hidden-until-mouseover plugin tray is a great idea, dunno how feasible it is.

[JasonLG1979]

Ok then for 2 then at least make the play skip and volume icons fit in the space above the album cover and not go any further then the width of the cover.for 3 - In the staging ppa there's an extra row in the UI just for one menu item the "Pithos" text and in Unity by default it puts that menu on the top bar. There's plenty of unused space to put a menu button on the right of the station name dropdown.

[JasonLG1979]

See what I mean Here's how it functions in unity.

[JasonLG1979]

And here's how it looks in Kubuntu(album art is also missing from the staging builds in Kubuntu 13.10 but it was there just fine when I installed the same version in a Ubuntu 14.04 daily build LiveUSB, but that's a seperate issue :) )

[TingPing]

1. I believe thats up to your window manager, on Gnome it does not show a maximize option, as for disallowing maximize, maybe. I would be interested in using a GtkHeaderBar but I have a feeling non-gnome users would dislike this.
2. Its very convienient to do this in app.
3. We use a standard gtk 'app menu'. In gnome, unity, and osx this shows up in the top not taking UI space.
4. I agree the info button is useless, but that button is for the station not the song.
5. I hate icons, so I'd rather them not be there at all, but again it seems I've been overruled on this one. But using a GtkRevealer for them could be nice but that would depend on using a GtkListBox as mentioned earlier, which while nice it's extremely poor performance in comparison to a GtkTreeView, so I'm not really in favor of that (for silly icons).

Also just to expand on my headerbar idea, it would look something like this It could possibly have the play/pause button in the center, a nice searchable and sortable station list via popover. Just an idea though I've yet to try it out.

[gregsheremeta]

Do we really need a "maximize" button in the button controls? How many people use Pithos maximized?

+1

Do we really need a volume button?

-1. I don't personally use it, but it can be useful.

Why a whole different row in the UI for 1 menu button/text? Why not put a settings menu icon to the far right like in my mockup?

+1

[JasonLG1979]

Counter points/questions @TingPing:

1. Fair enough, does gtkheaderbar fall back to normal window controls?
2. I conceded on 2. People use the volume controls.
3. Well if you use Pithos on any other DE it adds an extra row to the UI. It didn't used to be that way. There used to be a settings button.
4. If it's useless then ditch it.
5. How bad is poor performance?

[TingPing]

@JasonLG1979:

• 1: No but it just looks like a larger toolbar at that point, try out any modern gnome app to see what it looks like on KDE.
• 3: Not my fault your DE likes the old/ugly/bad classic desktop paradigm. ;)
• 5: It doesn't natively support scrolling so you have to put it in a viewport, my biggest use was ~400 labels and it was not smooth but usable. once Pithos has been playing for hours, no clue.

Also implementing this things would either limit us to Gtk 3.10 or 3.12, so not even you could use it.

[JasonLG1979]

1. I'll tryout some GNOME apps on Kubuntu 14.04 in a day or so.
2. That really has nothing to do with it. KDE can easily be made to function like GNOME. The point is even on your target DE's the intended behavior is to create a menu in the top panel for an app that is rarely if ever maximized. Seems less then ideal...
3. Why does Pithos keep such a long list? It doesn't seem necessary. Seems like there should be a config option to set how much of a "history" Pithos keeps.
4. Ubuntu 14.04 and it's derivatives will have GNOME 3.10.

[TingPing]

Why does Pithos keep such a long list? It doesn't seem necessary. Seems like there should be a config option to set how much of a "history" Pithos keeps.

Because it doesn't matter at all currently, it performs well and takes little memory.

[JasonLG1979]

And also regarding 2. if you look at GNOME files and other new or revamped apps they use a single menu button on the far right.

[logannc]

For what it's worth, 400 songs is like 20 hours of music (conservatively).

Also, rather than a GtkRevealer, we could still put the plugin code in the CellRendererSongText class. We'd have problems if you have 50 plugins, but otherwise it'd work fine. We could also set it such that the buttons only appear when the song is selected. On Feb 27, 2014 11:28 AM, "Jason Gray" notifications@github.com wrote:

1. Seems like there should be an option as to how much of a "history" Pithos keeps.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/pithos/pithos/issues/81#issuecomment-36267541 .

[TingPing]

And also regarding 2. if you look at GNOME files and other new or revamped apps they use a single menu button on the far right.

For context specific settings, not for global application things such as preferences.

[JasonLG1979]

So having an app that takes up something like 500x400px place it menu on the top panel so you have to mouse a thousand px's to to get to it is ideal?

[TingPing]

@JasonLG1979 Application level settings are something a user accesses rarely, it being up top stays out of your way but is also always accessible in multi-window applications. But I'm not here to argue gnome design choices...

[JasonLG1979]

A settings icon in the actual app makes more sense, as it sits in every other DE besides GNOME the "Pithos" menu just looks like a redundant app title until you click it and realize it's a menu.

...And last time I checked Pithos was a single windows app.

[logannc]

The point is largely moot. Unity is moving the menubar back in-app for non-maximized windows and if you're using Gnome 3 this is one of the design choices you've accepted rather than switch DEs. It is one reason among many I switched to Cinnamon.

[gregsheremeta]

I <3 Cinnamon lol

[JasonLG1979]

@logannc.

1. See if you can figure out a way to get rid of the "maximize" button.
2. Get the love/ban icons to hide unless you mouse over the song.
3. Move the station info button to right of and right next to the station dropdown box.(sucked up tight no padding)
4. Get rid of the divider between the pause/play, skip and volume buttons and make them take up no more space then the width of the album covers.
5. Move the menu to a menu button to the far right.
6. Mess with the last.fm plugin so it drops an icon next to the love/ban icons.

[logannc]

1. No. It doesn't cause clutter someone, for some reason, might like it maximized. Maybe they made a jukebox on a tiny screen, idk, but I don't think we need to remove it.
2. I'll check into mouseover but onselection might be the best I can do.

3, 4, 5. Why? All that looks just fine to me.

6 I don't actually even know what the plugin does. Don't have last.fm so I never paid attention to it. lol But I'll look into it though.

[JasonLG1979]

Something like this maybe?

Ok or not... ;P

[TingPing]

@JasonLG1979 Here is what the info icon linked with the combo box look like, but stock icons are deprecated and it is a pain to use a stock button w/o text but with an icon... =\

EDIT: Nevermind the gtk folks helped me out:

[JasonLG1979]

I like the icon only combo box. With the down arrow in the box I like the icon how you have it, on the left. I really like it joined it really makes it more apparent that they are connected.(no pun intended) If you need a icon made let me know.

[JasonLG1979]

Now how about doing the play/pause, skip and volume icons like the previous, play/pause and skip icons in GNOME Music and make them lineup with the album cover. https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Music

[logannc]

Implemented suggestion 2. Love/Ban now only displays if selected, on mouseover, and if there is a previous rating (ie, it shows the heart if it is "loved"). See #65

[JasonLG1979]

Right on. We're getting there(well you guys really you're doing all the work ;P)

[JasonLG1979]

Now if I could talk you guys into the menu button on the far right we'd be set,lol!!!

[JasonLG1979]

@logannc how about taking a crack at the last.fm plugin? I don't use it either, but a lot of people do I guess? It would be really nice if it showed an icon in that row and behaved in the same way as the love/ban icons. I also really like the idea of being able to arbitrarily decide how much of a history pithos keeps. Although that's not really a huge issue. Pithos seems to very well behaved when it comes to memory usage. I ran it for a little over 2 hours and it only grew a couple MB in usage.

[logannc]

Then we'll need an icon. Also, I'm unsure what the behavior of the icon callback is since I'm not really sure what Last.fm DOES...

[JasonLG1979]

I got an icon. Last.fm is kinda a music centric social media site. When you "scrobble" a track the plugin reports to last.fm that you listened to said song. You can also "love" tracks. Last.fm uses the songs you listen to and love to recommend similar songs and bands and it lets you connect with people based on your similar music tastes.

[logannc]

Okay... so what does clicking the icon do?

[JasonLG1979]

It loves the song on last.fm

[JasonLG1979]

Or unloves it if it's already loved

[logannc]

Okay, well, link the icon and I can implement it.

[JasonLG1979]

This icon actually looks better at 24x24px. At 16x16px it looses a little bit of legibility. I'd say line up the bottoms of all the icons but keep the love/ban icons 16x16px. https://www.dropbox.com/s/a5e6ueg87vsfgah/lastfm.tar.gz

[JasonLG1979]

@gregsheremeta: Kinda off topic but I've tried Cinnamon but it didn't really run that well on my ancient Dell Inspiron 1525, but it's been a while it could be better these days. Anyway how does Cinnamon handle the menu? Does it look like a redundant window title? Could it possibly at least be named "settings" or something like that so it's apparent it's a settings menu?

[TingPing]

If you need a icon made let me know.

No offense, but the less icons you make the better, we should be using standard system ones where available.

Now how about doing the play/pause, skip and volume icons like the previous

Will do.

[JasonLG1979]

I agree. If the stock icon set has an icon we should use it to maintain consistency. You just mentioned the icon was deprecated, or were you talking about the method for placing the icon?

[TingPing]

You just mentioned the icon was deprecated, or were you talking about the method for placing the icon?

Yea the docs were not too clear, none of the icons are deprecated just the names to reference them.

[JasonLG1979]

Got ya

[JasonLG1979]

I really like the stripped/streamlined look of the new set of GNOME apps. It would be nice if Pithos could mimic them in some ways. The button attached combo box and attached play/pause, skip and volume buttons will go a long way to that end.

[TingPing]

I really like the stripped/streamlined look of the new set of GNOME apps.

Glad to see you change your mind =) You should stop by #pithos on freenode so we talk about this over something better than an issue tracker.

[JasonLG1979]

That's nice!!! Is that 3 way combo button the same width and lined up with the album covers? I'd like to see a full app shot.

I didn't change my mind. I've always liked the look of the new GNOME apps I'm just not a fan of GNOME shell. I tried it for a couple months a while back, thought it was a step backwards in usability. And I'd still like to see a menu button on the far right or at the very least rename the "Pithos" menu something like "Settings" so it doesn't look like redundant window title. I'm no good at chatting. I'm an old man, I type slow,lol!!!

[JasonLG1979]

I'd like to see something like this as far as the menu/control bar is concerned.

I think if you guys also incorporate the plugin icon dumpster, love/ban icons and last.fm plugin changes that @logannc is working on, and the plugin settings improvements you were talking about in #25 you should be golden. And while you're at it since we won't need a right click context for love/ban you could use the right click context to address #71.

[gregsheremeta]

This is what it looks like on Cinnamon / Fedora 20. I'm not a fan of the "Pithos" menu option.

[JasonLG1979]

I know right, like I keep saying it just adds extra height to the top of the app and it looks like a redundant app title.

@gregsheremeta what do you think of my latest mockup?

[gregsheremeta]

@JasonLG1979 I really like it.

[TingPing]

@JasonLG1979 Sad news, there is a bug in gtk where the volumebutton is the wrong size:

(also that shows the album width)

[JasonLG1979]

@TingPing Well that sucks. Are you stuck with a set size for all buttons or is there anyway to workaround it by changing the size of the other buttons?

[JasonLG1979]

@TingPing: Well I installed Kubuntu 14.04 beta 1(my 1st choice) last night but ran into a horrible bug that causes Dolphin to lock up, so that was a no go. I then in an effort to actually use 1 of the main target DE's installed Ubuntu. WoW!!! Unity really does suck!!! Unity dials home to Canonical every time I sneeze,lol. You'll be happy to know I'm going to install Ubuntu GNOME so I'll be able to full appreciate natively your interface rework when it's done. :P