Knob push

I'm sure that this has been said before, but I am officially sick of accidentally changing my balance (or fader, whichever it is) when I accidentally press the knob when trying to change the volume. Please change this to something more useful and less ``dangerous'' in a future release of the software.

And I'm fully aware that I could run Hijack, but this seems like bad UI design to me, especially given the squatness of the knob, which makes it overly easy to accidentally press, and I think that it should be fixed without having to resort to third-party changes. And I still love the empeg. This is the only thing that annoys me, but it annoys me a lot.

A config.ini option (set using emplode's player configuration dialog) to be able to lock things like this down would be pretty cool.

This can be put into the player's settings menu as well, just like the volume lock. I don't use any of these (fade, bal, vol) on my empeg, so I'll be reassigning that button-press function with hijack (I'll be using it to support a new kenwood steering wheel remote already anyway :)

Bruno

I respectfully disagree. I think that the knob push defaults to the correct behavior.

Although I think it would be fun if we had the option to make it cycle through the info screens (built-in, without needing Hijack).

We only just changed it to this functionality - you can't please everyone.

What would you suggest it should do?

Rob

I am with Rob and tony on this one the knob press is excellent as it is

I'll jump in on wfaulk's side. I think sound settings should be in the Sound menu. I have fat-fingered my loudness settings away on occasion, and I don't know anyone who feels the need to change any of those sound settings but once or twice when they first dial things in.

As I stated elsewhere, I think a single knob press should be used to toggle the knob between a volume knob and a seek knob. This means the seek feature would have to be in good working order. I know right now the seek is tied into the Seek Info mode, but I would like to decouple the control of the song position from the info mode, and instead use the knob push to switch between them.

I will keep saying this until someone tells me why it's a bad idea.

That would also be my preferred method of operation - but if it's annoying to accidentally change your loudness setting, how annoying would it be to skip through the track when you try to change volume?

Rob

Good point. It would surely be very annoying to skip through a track when you try to change volume. So how about a little visual indicator which tells you which mode you're in. And a distinct sequence of short beeps to give you the audio feedback (low-beep high-beep to indicate seek mode, high-beep low-beep to indicate volume.) This wouldn't stop the fat-fingering from happening, but at least you'd know which mode you were in to start with.

Or the alternate solution (which I also recommended previously) would be to have the seek mode "time out" after 5 seconds or so... So when you casually reach for the volume knob, you know you're going to get volume, but when you tap the knob then turn it, you'll get seek.

It will be obvious what mode you are in - the scrolling indicator bar will tell you. The issue is with pressing by accident and then adjusting the wrong property.

Rob

It will be obvious what mode you are in - the scrolling indicator bar will tell you

I wasn't thinking the indicator bar would be present the whole time you're in seek mode. I imagined it being a pop-up kinda like the volume indicator is. So one wouldn't have to choose between seeing their visuals or the seek mode. I would retain the existing seek info mode as a more detailed view of the seek graph, but I think a more compact "seek bar" with just the song position (no phrases pictured or anything) would be sufficient for the pop-up I'm talking about.

Umm, yeah, that's exactly what I meant. The popup thing is a scrolling indicator bar.

Rob

Not nearly, in my mind. Accidentally changing the loudness or fader or balance or whatever requires that you either remember what it was set at before, forcing you to look at the screen, which is likely what you were trying to avoid when you committed the error in the first place, or recalibrate your system from scratch. Accidentally fast-forwarding or rewinding is easily undoable, and certainly doable without resorting to looking at the screen. Not that I suggested that FF/REW is the proper operation here (not that I disagree, either).

With the possible exception of loudness (and obvious exception of volume), all of the things that can be controlled from the knob presses are things that are, more than likely, going to be set once and forgotten. I mean, how often do you change the balance and fader in your car?

Seriously, how often do you adjust these things?

Seriously, how often do you adjust these things?

I do not adjust them very often.

The reason I say that the DEFAULT behavior is correct, is because that's how most other car stereos with encoder knobs behave. At least most of the ones I've seen are like that.

Having an option to change the knob's behavior is a good thing and I support that idea. I just think that its default behavior is currently correct. (Although it's missing a Bass and Treble control. )

So you're saying that just because that's the way other people do it, that's the way we should do it? I knew there was a reason you were a MSWindows admin. (Just kidding! Just kidding!)

I knew there was a reason you were a MSWindows admin

Snap! That was definitely a low blow! Let the Windows/UNIX wars commence! Let's turn this damn board into Slashdot!





(I'm also kidding.)

That was definitely a low blow!

Dunno, I thought it was a fair cop.

Chicken .

Ok, let's ignore the fact that "the competition does it that way, therefore it is the right way" and look at the reasons.

It seems to me, that there are two "modes" of operation that are involved. The first mode is "SETUP OF OPTIONS" and the second mode is "PLAYING OF MUSIC" -- it seems to me that if you are in the former mode, it is invaluable to have all the common options (fade, balance, loudness, etc etc etc) all in one place. However, Set-up is basically a one time affair, and once it is done, it is *done*.

It seems to me that after the "SETUP" mode is complete, the needs of the user changes significantly.

Is it possible to declare this "mode" so that while the player is in SETUP, you can easily change all the options. Perhaps even the up-down-left-right buttons can be used to aid setup as well. ? Then when SETUP is complete, and the player goes into "PLAYBACK" mode, it would be great is all the buttons, twists and pushes, holds, etc, all aid the playback of songs.

Calvin "2 cents"

Brilliant.

That has to be the best idea I've seen on this board yet. It is so true, when you want to tweak your settings, you want to fiddle with everything, until you have it absolutely dialed in. And when you're done, you don't touch the adjustments at all. Having two modes, setup and playback, would be perfect.

Just to add another 2 cents about the proposed setup mode, it would have to have quick access to the current EQ settings as well, IMHO.

Seriously, how often do you adjust these things?

I adjust the loudness every day. I use it as my bass control, depending on the song / genre / car speed / windows up or down, etc.

I agree the fader and balance are a one time deal, but they don't bother me because the loudness setting comes first.

Tom

Yep, I agree there. Clearly, if the empeg interface is split by mode, then EQ belongs in SETUP. Looking at the current user interface, it is a very delicate balance of setup features and playback features.

It seems to me among the fundamentals of modern UI's are 1) it has to be simple yet feature-rich 2) the most common functions are obvious/second nature the rest are suppressed in some manner. One of the techniques for accomplishing the above is to identify all the popular features and put them right in the front somehow (e.g. you have to do more work to get to the advanced stuff). Another way is to build heirarchical structures to bury stuff deeply to simulate a simpler interface.

That said, the empeg player software has become incredibly feature-rich that what is considered to be common is different depending on the context of what the user wants to do. Without declaring "setup" and "playback" as the only two modes, even if we made these two rudimentary buckets and tossed things like "clock settings" in one and "visuals" in another --- then set things up so that when one mode is declared, all the other irrelevant features are completely suppressed and effectively gone. Poof. Now you have a nice clean interface, and supposedly (not sure if it is true) you'd then have the buttons mapped to further benefit the common features of the mode rather than the common features of the features.

Calvin "another 2 cents"