After more than some thought, I think I could throw a couple of ideas out
there too. As Will and Kristian suggested, tabs as a favourite-like
mechanism would facilitate quickly navigating through favourite sounds.
But, as Kristian suggested, there are some issues. Such as loading sounds
that do not pertain to open tabs. Or the fact that many windows would need
to be designed (e.g. for checking/unchecking elements from list of banks)
and much specialized functionality to be coded. I definitely cannot still
see the full picture that Will projects though, so excuse some of my
ignorance. Just some observations, that will, hopefully, lead to a not so
stupid suggestion.
The navigation is very specific. Bank root directory -> Bank -> Instrument.
It's not like we have a huge amount of breadcrumbs that would justify a
fairytale.
We could have 2 or 102 bank root directories. Same goes for banks, same
goes for instruments. It would be nice to allow some flexibility concerning
the amount of elements in each level of the hierarchy as far as displaying
is concerned.
It would definitely be nice not to visually diverge much from the current
implementation.
Quick and intuitive navigation (and easy to implement!).
Long story short, here are my influences:
- Program select screen from m50. I took the lousiest photo ever (from what
I call my phone) and uploaded it here -> http://imgur.com/G5LIvh4 <- to
give you an idea. I personally like the scrollbar and the tab concept. The
touchscreen has a lot of limitations, but the general concept feels good.
- Miller columns in general. And specifically as implemented in Rhythmbox
-> https://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2008-July/jpgG5TZfp9qPg.jpg
<-.
- Unprocessed thoughts.
To (finally) give you my two euro-cents, I could think of Bank root dirs at
the top left with a vertical scrollbar, Banks at the top right with a
vertical scrollbar, and Instruments at the bottom, below both. I could
imagine a horizontal scrollbar for instruments, exactly like m50's. Only
instruments should be buttons, like they are now. The ones at the top could
be Rhythmbox-like list entries. The width and height of the instrument grid
part that is visible at any moment could be configurable (from 8x2 to
32x5). Same goes for bank root dir height (and, therefore, since they are
next to each other, bank height).
I definitely cannot still see the full picture that I project though, so
excuse some of my ignorance.
Harry
On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Kristian Amlie <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 07. des. 2014 21:36, Will Godfrey wrote:
> >
> > What an exciting subject for a Sunday evening discussion :)
> >
> > After much thought, coffee and bouncing ideas off other people I'd like
> to put
> > this up as a proposal (whether we can actually code it is another thing).
> >
> > Currently we have Instruments nicely laid out in a grid, banks in a
> scrolling
> > list that doesn't always play nice, and can give us duplicate entries
> with
> > funny *'s and bank roots that can only be changed by shutting down and
> > re-starting Yoshi.
> >
> > This is not ideal!
> >
> >
> > How about, we have instrument grids in bank tabs rather like a web
> browser so
> > you can quickly select an instrument from one bank, click on another tab
> and
> > get a different grid of instruments and pick one from there. The bank
> tabs
> > would have their leafname and slot number, in the same way as the
> instruments
> > (banks would also develop a preference for numbered ones like
> instruments).
> >
> > The existing Instrument swap/move command would be extended so that you
> could
> > swap instruments between banks.
> >
> >
> >
> > To get new bank tabs you'd click on a 'Banks' icon and all the banks in
> the
> > current bank-root dir would be displayed in a similar grid layout as the
> > instruments. Ones that have been selected would be highlighted, they
> could be
> > deselected or new ones could be selected. Creating new empty banks would
> be at
> > this level, not the instrument level.
> >
> > The banks grid would also have tabs, but these would be of root dirs
> and you
> > would be able to move whole banks from one root dir to another (provided
> the
> > destination was writeable).
> >
> >
> >
> > To get new root dir tabs you'd click on a 'Roots' icon but in this case
> you'd
> > open a standard file browser and select directories for inclusion in the
> > standard way.
> >
> >
> > I would suggests a maximum of 16 currently active bank tabs from those
> > available, and 8 root tabs. This is so we don't overcrowd the tabs or
> make
> > excessive memory demands.
> >
> > Thinking about it, to be positively identified, the bank tabs would also
> have to
> > have the root leafname
> >
> >
> > Your current tab selections would be automatically saved in the
> 'settings' file
> > when Yoshi exits.
>
> Would the tab selections influence how banks are selected? Because if it
> does I don't think there should be any cap on the number of active tabs.
>
> Thinking some more about I'm thinking that it might not be a good idea
> to let tabs influence bank selection, because loading up old songs with
> bank selections is going to be completely dependent on which tabs you
> have open. Better to handle this according to file system structure and
> bank numbering I guess.
>
> I like the idea of tabs though, but I see it more as a "favorites" tool,
> kind of like how (in Ubuntu at least), the file selector allows you to
> have favorite locations on the left, so you can get to that folder
> quickly without having to go through a whole hierarchy.
>
> > Cake Icing :)
> > Provide a MIDI CC (NRPN?) to change current bank root dir
>
> That is a good idea. But I'm a little skeptical of NRPNs, not all
> devices/software have support for them. And even if they do have
> support, they're often hard to use. But refresh my memory again, how
> does it work right now? Bank MSB selects the bank, regardless of root
> directory, and Bank LSB is used to select the final few >127
> instruments. Did I remember that correctly?
>
> Maybe bank MSB should select root dir, and bank LSB select the bank
> within the dir. That would be a more "natural" way to work, I think. Of
> course it leaves the final instruments >127 in the cold, but if we're
> going to overhaul the bank selection GUI, perhaps we should consider
> sticking to 128 instruments per bank for compatibility with the MIDI
> standard. There can't be that many banks that use that many slots, and
> you can always split it into "InstrumentsCategory_1" and
> "InstrumentsCategory_2".
>
> Anyway, I'm just rambling random opinions here. :-)
>
> --
> Kristian
>
>
>
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