Since eJ v3.98 Beta the Now Playing panel have taken a new dimension, in case someone isn't aware: Big cover arts look great!
However now I think the next step would be to allow some large buttons for the player controls:
There is a lot of unused space horizontally... So it just would be necessary to lightly increase the height of the buttons row. Plus a way to specify the exact position of each button in the nowplaying.dis file (like for the songlist history buttons in color.ini).
And maybe it would also be necessary to add a "minimun panel width" and a "minimum panel hight" parameters in order that the large buttons will never become hidden when the user reduce the panel.

Audiosoft, I'm sure this improvement would nicely put the finishing touches to the Now Playing panel!

Thanks.

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree.

This would be a GREAT option for those who need it. And Not only in the Now Playing panel... I'd love to have a larger triangle in the song list for Play Now. As a touchscreen user, when I flipped off of EJ for a moment due to the song limit bug, I was using a program that had bigger buttons, and it made a world of differece in useability when I didn't have to worry so much about exactly where my finger was landing. Almost made it a little more enjoyable. Upon returning to EJ with the latest beta, it was really one of the things that I missed.

Larger play controls would be nice. The only thing is eJukebox must still support 800x600....so the playcontrols would have to be able to skrink down enough to fit the left panel wifth. I will see what I can do. Maybe a total redesign of the play control area is in order. If you have any ideas feel free to post images of what you think it should look like.

Also, v3.98 final will be out this week and will, among other things, allow you to click the area around the play now icon in the songlist to play the song ....which will make it work nicer on touchscreens if you miss the actual play icon....kinda like how the v3.98 beta allows you to click the area around the songtitle to add it to the playlist.

OK Audiosoft... thanks for taking larger play controls in consideration. That will be great!

To keep 800x600 support: Maybe in this res you could remove the time counter and get back the free space for the new large buttons?
That could works like in the current playlist: the songs length appears automatically when you stretch the panel enough...

Hi Demnos! I waited your reply...
OK, of course I understand and I respect your opinion. I know the little space you have in 800x600...

1) So, maybe we could find another place for the time counter?

2) Or maybe Audiosoft will prefer to move (not remove!) 2 or 3 nonessential buttons using a trick so that they only appear when necessary:
Maybe a ">>" button on the right side (like in IE/Windows when you shrink a window much, a nice vertical stretching menu make up for horizontal space lacking...)
It's a good idea no?

3) Unless we opt for the solution proposed by rlailey: a 'supersize' skin? I think his idea is good too!

I don't know what Audiosoft will prefer to do, but now we have 3 acceptable solutions I think!

4) Open a subcription in order to give to Demnos a large touchscreen!
Well, I still joke of course...

Count me in as an 800x600 user. I don't quite understand (probably because I can't it) why you folks who run higher resolutions would want bigger buttons. Wouldn't you want larger fonts for text as well? Doessnt this then lead you down the road to using a resolution like 800x600? Just curious to see how the other half lives ...

Thanks,
Steve

Hi stsirois!
Ah OK... It seems you want to benefit from the subscription you too!? No no no... that will not work!

Steve, it's a shame that we don't talk the same language. As you know my english is very low... so I have some difficulties to explain me clearly, I'm sorry of that but I'll try even though:

1) You know my 15" monitor (800x600) is very old now... and it's only a CRT screen: I mean since I have a 17" LCD screen (1280x1024) sure I don't want to return to my old glassball! Of course I could eventually run eJukebox in 800x600 on my new screen, but LCD displays don't look great when you don't use their native res, so in my case it's 1280x1024 or nothing... It's the life! (The progress...)

2) When you increase the resolution, you increase the detail (finesse) of your display. So you can see much more things and elements on the page. A program like eJukebox which had been conceived for a lower resolution (800x600) needs a few restructuring, but at the end we will obtain a better version of eJ:
Big play controls and a lot of detail like a "true" playlist, a large nowplaying panel (nice cover art), a nice songlist, a comfortable albumlist.
You can't have so much things on only one page in 800x600... and I'm sure the day where like me you will try a larger screen res you could not return to your previous screen... OK I think it's a TV in your case! But the HD TV coming soon you know...

Thanks.

...the same for us widescreen 16:9 users as well 1184x666 - eJ stretches well at this res but this extra width make the buttons look a touch small

Even in 800 x 600 land I've always desired Finger sized buttons for my touchscreen, even if it's at the expense of the amount of information displayed. Maybe it could be a SWITCH or preference that one could Toggle. "Enable Large Buttons" or something to the like. It could even be a 1024+ add-on, kinda like the expanded info switch. What about the idea of a Tranport Bar that could sit on the bottom of the screen? It could act something like the artist panel does now. When it collapsed it could show all the things the current panel does now in the smallish fashion. Play, Foward, and time with the seek fuction etc... But when you hit a button on the side of the panel, it expands and you can have a large finger sized icons and perhaps a bigger time display. The icons could be resized from this "large" size down to the small requirements as has been done. This would also allow it to be used on a 800 x 600 setup as well.
This is just my inital brainstorm... Hopefully we'll be able to refine it a bit.

On a side note, the only reason I changed from 800x600 to 1024x768 was due to the fact that when I switched to a LCD touchscreen that was the native resolution.

I also feel that larger play controls would be a reasonable and benifical addition, as I run ejukebox in 1600x1200 Might sound like overkill, but it's not
The only problems I have are the play control buttons and the albumlist scrollbar which tend to grow too small.

How should the larger controls be implemented? Maybe a fast resolution detection on install is the way to go and install the correct play controls in accordance with that. This detection could also tell ejukebox if edv should be enabled or disabled, by default. I think many users running ejukebox for the first time, at a larger resolution (than 800x600), don't understand that the data view of ejukebox can be extended. This due to the fact that the edv function is disabled by default for these users too. That is before they accidently hit the edv button and get their "halleluja"

Also, when I am at it, I can't avoid noticing all the room in the playlist which comes available due to the now playing resizing. Together with song durability one could for instance add small coverimages, popularity meters and bitrate of songs. The possibilities are huge. Sorry for the long post

Good Fishy! Thank you for your support concerning large play controls. Yes, now I think it's a necessity...
Thanks also for your transcription in a more intelligible English!
The last reply of Audiosoft for this request was something like: "I will see what I can do". So I hope that Audiosoft is currently working on large graphics for play controls!

I think your idea of resolution detection on install is good.

Of course I also hope for small cover images in the playlist! (Like in Junks visions... ) And I agree that the addition of popularity meters and bitrate of songs would be very useful too.

Thanks.

hehe, I think you should stop complaining about your own english mate. I think its perfectly good and you make the stereotype stating that french people can't speak english seem.. not very plausible. It also seems to mature like a good french wine

Back at ejukebox I think audiosoft requested a draft on how these play controls should look like. I could probably draw them in my head, but since my drawing skills haven't developed much since kindergarden, I would like to hand that job over to someone more skilled in that art than myself. I have said and done a few things on this forum, but you will never see me draw :b Could you make a sketch Pirk?

OK Fishy. Mais si tout le monde parlait français, ça serait quand même plus simple, non? (But if everybody would speak French that would be more easy, no?)
Maybe the Americans will also adopt our language... like our wine!

Otherwise I'm not good for design neither...

It sure would be simpler, for you at least :b I for one had to use an online translator But it sure is a nice lanuage, sounds more sophisticated than english in many ways..

Men, kanskje alle burde ha snakket norsk istedet?

Quote:

Message original : Fishy Men, kanskje alle burde ha snakket norsk istedet?

Yepp we're coming to get you.. Hey, that's the way I talk daily

Du vil bli straffet for din holdning (you're attitude will be punished) hmm maybe from now on I should speak my native language and put english behind? Or maybe that would be a bad idea

Kvifor?

Stop så I to!

Hvordan?

Har alle blitt rablende gale?

Ofcourse, we need big buttons, and multiple "up next" songs with miniature album images. EJ has become very much like the program i so eagerly wished for it to be, and these abovementioned things are a few of the features i still miss from my old suggestion mock-up image.

Quote:

Message original : junk Har alle blitt rablende gale?

Quote:

Originally posted by junk Har alle blitt rablende gale?

A Norvegian monster?
Ah ok... That must be the terrifying "Monster of ices"!

I am having a hard time coming up with larger play controls.
Maybe someone can provide a screenshot of how you would like them to look so I can make it possible. Maybe just some controls from another program overlayed on eJukebox in Photoshop. I am not sure if just increasing the size of the current buttons or totally redoing the layout for them (and the progress bar/time) is in order. Regardless, I will make sure that current skins look the same as they do now in the future unless they are updated for larger controls.

I can't photoshop, so let me just say this...
The two most importanly buttons to have bigger for me are the PLAY?PAUSE and the NEXT button.
If you could remove those buttons from the row they are on now, and put those two underneath and BIGGER that would be a viable option, and wouldn't impact the layout or skins to a great extent.

Also you could place an optional overlay bar on the bottom of the screen that could be toggled on and off. This could contain a play toggle button, next and maybe even a larger version of the time bar . I'll try to think about it and be more descriptive when I have a little more.

Good idea... get rid of the option and viz button and put them somewhere else (maybe the bottom of the playlist?) You could even get rid of the volume slider, and that would help maintain button largeness when the Cover window isn't that large (I don't use it personally and keep it hidden)

if you prefer...

Mmmm... Tight counterpart

Seems like it'll work. I wonder how big it would have to be to be fingerable on a 10.5 1024x768 touchscreen...

How about skinnable buttons and slider with a layout something like this?

Whatever it ends up being it will have to fit this width. I do not want to make it show extra controls only when the width is larger. They all need to be visible at 800x600. << |> >> are essential. Feal free to post other images of what you want it to look like using this width. The buttons will be centered when the width is larger. The background will contain the button backgound/ slider which will be stretched horizontally to fill the width. If you can come up with a different layout with this same width and include skinned new or old time, volume, settings, vis, and show/hide right side buttons I will consider using it instead. It would be nice if it looked good with the default or other skin.

I think the skinable idea is a great idea, and what you've come up with it along the right lines.

I would remove the stop buttom entirely, merge the Play/Pause buttons into one as it is currently, and make the Play/Pause button take up the size of the 3 middle bottons with the foward on the last button, and the reverse on the first. The you woul have a BIG play pause button which is probably used most often.

The other option I thought of which I don't like as much, is get rid of the stop button, make the first single button the reverse, and then double the button sizes for play/pause and for the forward as well.

Those are my thoughts.

I like it. how about something like this?

if not we really need to figure out what to do about the rest of the controls because it does not look good stacked on top of the current time/slider and buttons.

I looks kinda weird sitting on the bottom like that. What if the time slider bar was above the transport buttons. It could be in a similar icon style (like if you mushed the foward and backward buttons together in a tube) and would fill up with blue or whatever color to show where in the song it was at. It doesn't even have to be as think. That would also make it easier for touchscreens to pull the song back and forth as opposed to the litttle triangle.

Nice work Pirk!

Hmm...maybe the vol, contol panel, and exp buttons can be to the left/right of the < |> > buttons instead of above/below. There is allot of usable space to the sides of those < |> > buttons.

Thanks!

Of course there is a lot of space when eJ is enlarged, that would be perfect all on one line!
But when eJ is in 800x600 I fear there is only room for 2 other buttons on the same line?

the only thing is the height of the play button is probally too much. how about this?

That's more along the lines. If we made the play button smaller maybe it could be a bit wider like an oval? Actually it could work as a whole with the round play buttong as long as the click area was larger than the actual buttons no matter what size. So there would be three big areas to click into, just the icon sizes would be smaller than the actual click area.

Yeah, maybe the play button could be oval. But I think the result when eJukebox is enlarged also matter a lot: I would not the buttons look too small again because of the compatibility with 800x600! That would be really a shame..
Furthermore, we need larger buttons precisely when the resolution is more than 800x600!!

So for large widths I think the play button need to be at least as large than on this paste-up:
Plus, all the other buttons would need to be on the same line..

So, for me, the 'best' look when eJ is enlarged would be something like this:

If the buttons are less large, I think that won't look so good when eJ is enlarged:

Pirk,

Looks nice but when it is at 800x600 there is no room for the time and smaller buttons. What if we just had the new large < |> > buttons above the current ones but with a transparent background on the sides so it is just centered over the bottom of the now playing background? That way the volume slider would not even need to be moved up and it would be white on the sides with the default skin.

Audiosoft,

Well, OK maybe that's the best compromise.. Provided you increase the height of the current now playing pannel sufficiently: I think that 50 pixels are needed at least. And the total width allowed for the 3 buttons could be 165 pixels.

After all, that doesn't look so bad like that:

The basic version:

I'm longing to enjoy this new feature.. And the album pop-up too!!

Thank you very much in advance Audiosoft.

Concerning the < |> > play controls, I think 3 skinnable GIF or PNG blocks of 55x50 pixels would be perfect..

Hello guys! Been following this thread, and perhaps it is about time i contributed.

Since the placement of the volume buttons now is an issue, I must yell: Put them on top of the panel, above everything else. It is a logical place to have them.

Three big buttons, beginning with a big rewind/previous button, that rewinds when pressing it down, and skips to the previous song when clicking it. An even bigger play / pause button in the middle, and lastly, a forward/skip. Incidentally, I see that this is iTunes' solution - but I salute it as a very logical and functional placement, which eJukebox shouldn't be reluctant to adopt.

Audiosoft's solution to the size issue.with allowing the edges of the button to become transparant and therefore exceeding their edges, seems very good, and I would go for this one.

And while we are at it, when can we get multiple "up next" song listings? I want to have an overview of what is to come the next 5 songs at least, and be able to remove songs just by right-clicking them and removing them, over even better, just dragging and dropping them somewhere that would take the song away from the list.

I must admit, I too have recently thought about modifiing the volume bar for size issues, especially now that I have music out on the porch where the only way to control the volume is BY that volume control on the touchscreen. Needless to say the girl has been bothered by it's size on the 1024x768 screen.

I realize this is a can of worms, and may be better suited to seperate thread, but instead of the volume fader, what about a + and a - button for the volum that would move in increments (akin to the button on the album list bar maybe... hold for scroll) the volume could then be represented as a number or a graphic of whatever. Just a thought to go along with big player buttons.

Thanks for your help junk!
I appreciate a lot your come back.. It seems your arrangement ideas for eJ start to take shape!

Pirk, thanks! We sure had some times in this forum... And yes, eJukebox has come very close to implementing all the functions I desired. Very happy for that!

It is also interesting to watch the trenoud in the development of such programs. I have to admit that though haven't paid that much attention, it seems that most developers are well content with a one-line text-based interface, such found in iTunes and Winamp Media Library. I haven't tried Windows Media Central yet, but wonder how it will feel. For me, the cover-based albumlist and the "physical" (as opposed to computerized) feeling of eJukebox as always been its major strength.

Lately, I have been thinking about new ways to navigate and compose a realtime playlist that can be progressive, and I have come up with some sort of system that might work, but it is still in the early planning stages. The idea is that one could set up a progression to go from, say the genres "ambient" to "funk", where you could specify the amount of time it would take to finish the journey. All could be done very visually and easy, point 'n' click operations. But all that is another story.