MusE
Status bar #1163
Replies: 9 comments
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I'm not against adding stuff, at least if the old way can be conserved. :)
However, I'm a bit manic about conserving screen estate so I would probably
disable it... even though I can see there is some info that would be good
to present there.
If I could I would remove toolbars until I had only one row (and now you
made me think about how to achieve that :D - I would want an alternative
version of the 'edit tools' toolbar as SNAP is the only feature on that one
that I use, then I could have only one row...)
Another thing that I sometimes wonder if we should find an alternative is
the Transport panel. A remnant from Cubase of 25-30 years ago... I don't
know, maybe it is an acquired taste and you can learn to use it, but I'm
thinking there is a reason it's not very common these days... personally I
never use it.
Den tors 19 mars 2020 kl 18:56 skrev kybos <notifications@github.com>:
… I think MusE would deserve a status bar. There are several things that
should or could go there, especially the CPU/DSP/XRUN "toolbar", which in
fact is a global status display, not a tool. There are already so many
other toolbars and buttons... XRUN reset could be done e.g. by
double-click, no need for another button.
And there would be room for message output on the left. In some cases
better than just stderr/stdout where most users don't see them...
What do you think?
Something like that:
[image: image]
<https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/10009541/77093840-e48f4300-6a0b-11ea-849b-0dbb11d02dc1.png>
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Probably not a good idea to have the CPU/XRUN in 2 different places/widgets...
Yes, could be a good idea to separate the Snap dropdown.
Absolutely, this is a relic from times where there was no multitasking and screen resolutions of 640x480 (or even x400). I don't use it either because it's just too annoying, staying on top of other apps and can't be closed... The problem is that it contains functions that don't exist anywhere else, so there probably should be another toolbar for them, at least as an alternative. There are many other "relics" and UI problems, I started trying to improve/change some of them in a separate branch, but after reading lot of the older issues and topics from the mailing list, I got the impression that the MusE team is more on the conservative side in this respect so it would be difficult to find a consensus ;-). |
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Den fre 20 mars 2020 kl 17:30 skrev kybos <notifications@github.com>:
I'm not against adding stuff, at least if the old way can be conserved. :)
Probably not a good idea to have the CPU/XRUN in 2 different
places/widgets...
Do you think it would consume resources, cpu?
That would be an argument against but otherwise I don't see why we can't
have alternative approaches. Same way we have toolbar, menu alternative and
keyboard shortcuts. People have different workflows.
We could move to a status-bar design but keep a toolbar around that is not
enabled by default (for people like me that may not want the statusbar)
I could go further and say that we might even have different versions of
toolbars, like the toolbar in question could exist as 'Edit Tools' and
'Edit Tools Extended', don't know if that specific toolbar makes sense
besides to prove a point. My personal opinion is that toolbars (and other
kinds of presentation/functionality too) can overlap to some extent.
I can't remember what application it was but I remember back in the day
there was at least some developer application for Windows (Delphi?) that
had completely modular toolbars. You had all the toolbuttons and were free
to compose your own toolbars from scratch. A bit overkill but pretty cool.
If I could I would remove toolbars until I had only one row (and now you
made me think about how to achieve that :D - I would want an alternative
version of the 'edit tools' toolbar as SNAP is the only feature on that one
that I use, then I could have only one row...)
Yes, could be a good idea to separate the Snap dropdown.
Yes, that's another way, pretty reasonable.
Even if I am not so manic about screen space, I think there is a lot of
room wasted by superfluous labels in the toolbars, where it is quite
obvious what the widgets mean (Tempo, signature, cursor...). I removed some
of them in my "experimental" branch:
[image: image]
<https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/10009541/77180669-8ecda000-6aca-11ea-9872-294133867f24.png>
Looks good!
Another thing that I sometimes wonder if we should find an alternative is
the Transport panel. A remnant from Cubase of 25-30 years ago... I don't
know, maybe it is an acquired taste and you can learn to use it, but I'm
thinking there is a reason it's not very common these days... personally I
never use it.
Absolutely, this is a relic from times where there was no multitasking and
screen resolutions of 640x480 (or even x400). I don't use it either because
it's just too annoying, staying on top of other apps and can't be closed...
The problem is that it contains functions that don't exist anywhere else,
so there probably should be another toolbar for them, at least as an
alternative.
Yeah, haven't gone through them but that would probably be good.
There are many other "relics" and UI problems, I started trying to
improve/change some of them in a separate branch, but after reading lot of
the older issues and topics from the mailing list, I got the impression
that the MusE team is more on the conservative side in this respect so it
would be difficult to find a consensus ;-).
Hehe, well..we're getting old and grumpy ;)
I'm not sure which changes you are thinking about specifically. The ones I
remember I think were more about personal chemistry than the actual
changes.. I could be wrong. Personally I really don't like redesign in the
way that many commercial programs do (I'm looking at you Photoshop!), feels
like they change things randomly to make it look new and to sell new
courses.
MusE is a bit long in the tooth but I don't think that is all bad, in the
same way that many big opensource applications are a bit ugly but
dependable (like Gimp, Audacity, VLC).
Still, we were offered an UI redesign some years ago by a graphics
designer, cant remember his name, and it was pretty neat! It would have
been a nice improvement. As I recall it fell mostly because it was such a
huge undertaking to implement, we simply did not have the resources.
If we can redesign/refresh a bit more incrementally it is hopefully more
doable... and we have a chance to acclimatize ;)
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Don't forget that the toolbars are configurable and can be hidden and moved
I was a fanatical Delphi and C++Builder user. Its innovative design was the reason I
That is Budislav the Artist. [Edit] I'll point out five words that made a difference here: "I am not a coder". It's a world of compromise. Of give and take. I try to please everyone but there's only |
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True. But the status bar is normally used for message output, infos, errors etc.. If you can hide it, then you would have to think of alternative output for these. All doable, sure, but perhaps not really necessary. And then, the status bar does not look especially nice on many themes, it takes more space than I would like it to, so I am not quite convinced myself...
Yes, several big IDEs and other apps have that. As you say, probably overkill, and hardly feasible in MusE IMO, with all these different GUI Styles and complicated toolbar handling...
So we do it in master? I.e. remove labels from toolbars where the meaning is clear from the context (or from reading the tooltip once at last ;-) )?
True. But many of the big OS applications are transforming (often because of the GTK2 to GTK3 move nightmare) and put a lot of effort into a clean and modern UI in the course (look at Inkscape beta, not to mention Blender).
It was Budislav. I read the discussions and the guy really knows what he is talking about, I could subscribe to every word he wrote. Have you still his designs by any chance? They are not available any more in SF, except for the mixer strip (also very nice). He seems involved in Zyn, Inkscape, LMMS... |
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Den fre 20 mars 2020 kl 22:36 skrev kybos <notifications@github.com>:
We could move to a status-bar design but keep a toolbar around that is not
enabled by default (for people like me that may not want the statusbar)
True. But the status bar is normally used for message output, infos,
errors etc.. If you can hide it, then you would have to think of
alternative output for these. All doable, sure, but perhaps not really
necessary. And then, the status bar does not look especially nice on many
themes, it takes more space than I would like it to, so I am not quite
convinced myself...
Okay, maybe it's better to improve the toolbars then.
Another criticism of the status bar is that you can only present one line
of status so if there are several
A related idea of more practical nature is to get around to making our own
logger class so we can have logfiles (and maybe make it possible to display
the log from inside MusE).
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/10009541/77180669-8ecda000-6aca-11ea-9872-294133867f24.png
Looks good!
So we do it in master? I.e. remove labels from toolbars where the meaning
is clear from the context (or from reading the tooltip once at last ;-) )?
Yes, I agree with this. :)
MusE is a bit long in the tooth but I don't think that is all bad, in the
same way that many big opensource applications are a bit ugly but
dependable (like Gimp, Audacity, VLC).
True. But many of the big OS applications are transforming (often because
of the GTK2 to GTK3 move nightmare) and put a lot of effort into a clean
and modern UI in the course (look at Inkscape beta, not to mention Blender).
Could be. Though I guess part of my point is that 'modern' in this context
means that it is updated to what is in fashion right now. In ten, or even
five, years, it won't be.
Maybe I have already talked about it, seen the SerenityOS videos on
youtube?
One guy writing an operating system from scratch with the gui aesthetics
from Windows 95 (or there around). Listening to him talking about this (or
anything he talks about really) is very interesting. It is not that Windows
95 is that "good looking" but that it is very well thought out, everything
has a purpose. ...and in that way sort of timeless...
Anyway, the videos are very nice and I have, not the least, learned a bunch
of new tricks with modern C++ :)
Don't get me wrong, I don't say it's all bad, just the opposite. I am
convinced that MusE is the best midi sequencer for Linux, has a very good
overall workflow and a lot of potential. Otherwise I would not spend so
much time trying to improve it, obviously ;-).
Good of you to say that ^.^ ...even though there are always things to
improve, more than we can ever complete...
On the other side, I would not underestimate the fact that the attitude
toward UIs has changed radically in the last couple of years, mainly due to
the spread of the mobile devices with their simple and clean UIs. The
people (especially the younger ones) now expect exactly that also from
desktop apps. Even companies that never cared (e.g. business software) are
now in UX fever because of that (I have to know, I work for one of them ;-)
).
And my personal experience (my son and other young people): MusE has good
functionality, but the UI looks like it was 20 years old. The other big
point: Current version not easily installable, no PPA, AppImage...
As my argument goes above, I fear 'modern' will change more quickly than we
can adapt..
But of course I understand, if it does not look attractive, it won't be the
first application people try...
As for ease of installation, yes, we need to get our act together.
Still, we were offered an UI redesign some years ago by a graphics
designer, cant remember his name, and it was pretty neat! It would have
been a nice improvement.
It was Budislav. I read the discussions and the guy really knows what he
is talking about, I could subscribe to every word he wrote. Have you still
his designs by any chance? They are not available any more in SF, except
for the mixer strip (also very nice). He seems involved in Zyn, Inkscape,
LMMS...
Looking through old mails I have found some!
This one was a (early I think) mockup for a one-window UI
Here's a more traditional version of the arranger
Mixer
And this one from 2017, I believe is the most recent one (the previous are
from 2015), which comes closest to what we already have (curiously I don't
remember this.., pretty nice)
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Unfortunately the pictures are not accessible, there are only placeholders. |
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Oh, silly, replied via mail, maybe that doesn't work with images... Here's a more traditional version of the arranger Mixer And this one from 2017, I believe is the most recent one (the previous are from 2015), which comes closest to what we already have (curiously I don't remember this.., pretty nice) |
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Thanks for the pictures (now the links to them appeared even in your first post, they were not there yesterday for some reason...). About "modern": It's my fault, I used this negatively connotated word, but this is complete misunderstanding. I am really the last person chasing for fashions. What I mean is ergonomics, clean design, symmetry, ease on the eye. UI/UX design is an autonomous science (a mix of art and psychology), and there are universal rules and best practices which are fashion-independent. Of course almost every company/software tries to create its unique look on top of that, but that's another matter, and can become an end it itself in the worst case (like with Photoshop...). Good you mention Win95: That's a beautiful, ergonomic and successful design indeed (I've always used this "classic" look even in later Windows versions, with a single colour background - so much about me and "fashions" ;-) ). The best prove is that you can still find this basic design in most desktops now, in small variations (except Apple, of course). I guess my theoretical talk must be confusing, better to become more concrete ;-). I will start another thread with UI issues which IMO are not good and should be improved. Some more concrete points here, to the pictures above:
I don't want to be pessimistic, but the comparison of MusE with other "ugly" apps like Gimp or Audacity is not quite correct, because there are no real alternatives for them in Linux. But we have QTractor with nice clean UI (just look at the mixer ;-) ), which will probably stop to crash permanently at some point; we have LMMS, very active development there, adding the badly missing functionality, with a good theme it also has a nice UI; and perhaps Ardour will add a proper midi editor in future (don't like the UI much personally, but it's OK). |
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I think MusE would deserve a status bar. There are several things that should or could go there, especially the CPU/DSP/XRUN "toolbar", which in fact is a global status display, not a tool. There are already so many other toolbars and buttons... XRUN reset could be done e.g. by double-click, no need for another button.
And there would be room for message output on the left. In some cases better than just stderr/stdout where most users don't see them...
What do you think?
Something like that:
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