[vlc-devel] Re: Mac OS X interface

[chris wild]

Evening all :)

I like Davids new interface much better than the old one. Nevertheless some
suggestions/comments on previous mails regarding the interface:

What about using some kind of drawer approach like the DVD player from apple
does to hide some controls in a "second layer". If we perhaps could reach a
decision about which controls *need* to be in the first layer, and which
could be hidden in a second (a drawer) work on a final would be easier imho.

> The text 'VideoLan client * mac os-x' and 'www.videolan.org' are not
> really
> needed and are in fact distracting. The user already knows he or she is
> using VideoLan because he or she can see it in the title of the window
> and
> the menu bar. Repeating it 2 more times is cluttering the interface
> with
> elements which are not really needed.

I agree. Also the font for "Videolan" (could you please tell me where I can
get it David ?) could become a font used for a logo/corporate design of the
videolan products in the future. (Perhaps recreating the the yellow-white
hat as some kind of pencil drawing coloured in an aquarell way in
combination with that modern font could be a beginning for this).
But until then I'd also not use it in favour of a inter-platform consistency
of the appearance. 

>> The box containing the current position in the movie is a nice touch,
>> but I
>> think it is also not consistent with the general look and feel of
>> Aqua. The
>> main reason for this is the size of the font, which is far too big.
> 
> I don't know i kinda like it. It makes it a little bit less boring.
> (The text shouldn't be selectable though)
> I don't think it is really interfering with the user experience.

My two cents on that: if the LCD contains *only" the playing time I'd
construct it a bit smaller - In this I agree with Niels. Otherwise I'd try
to get some more status information into it liker maybe the selected
subtitle language, a volume indicator etc. and make it much bigger (like in
iTunes ?)

> I do agree that the current grouping could be improved. especially the
> current position of the stop button is terrible.

Do we really need a Stop button ? QT-Player and iTunes only have Play/Pause
but no stop.

> There is one big disadvantage to that  widget. Officially it does not
> exist. It is not part of the controls specified by apple. This makes
> using this control extremely difficult and hard to implement.

Well if one really wants to deviate from a "standard" GUI I think it might
be a bit hard do stay only with the standard controls and widgets. Perhaps
the "bible" the Aqua Human Interface Design Guidelines can help us in
finding some decisions:

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Essentials/AquaHIGuidelines/index
.html

It is about 300 pages, but it is very much worth reading to understand some
of the principles behind doing interfaces for aqua imho.

Regards,
chris

---------
Here are some examples for those who are not familiar with the OSX
MediaPlayer Apps:

http://maclux-rz.uibk.ac.at/xtoph/videolan/

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