[vlc-devel] Re: Suggestion

[Stephan Assmus]

Maybe this is just one more hint that in most (all?) interfaces, the 
way preferences are displayed sucks. The current GUI is just a 
visualization of the programs structure of modules and preferences. It 
has nothing to do with how a user tries to find an option. For example, 
deinterlacing is supplied by a video filter module. Accordingly, the 
deinterlacing setting is found in two places, which is enabling the 
module in video filters, and actually configuring the modules settings 
themselves. Of course, this reflects only the internal structure of 
vlc, but is just plain confusing or requiring way to much clicks for 
the user. I can understand the way the settings windows are currently 
implemented, since they will adjust dynamically when new options become 
avaible in vlc. Saves time for the programmers. However, maybe this is 
not the way to go. Most options suggest nothing about how they even 
work and in what form an options value must be given. When I have time 
to work again on the BeOS interface, I will probably rework the 
settings window to have a static page for the "fast access to the most 
frequently/likely used options" and another page with the dynamic 
generation of the settings GUI. I have not looked closely yet, but 
maybe I can even find a way to have both at the same time. For example 
by using drag and drop with two listviews, one for available modules, 
and one with the active ones. On the side of the active modules list, I 
would place a view with dynamic content, allowing the options of the 
currently selected active module to be configured. I would maybe even 
go as far as making checkmarks in front of the active modules to enable
/disable them on the fly. Then the listview with the available modules 
can be optionally hidden, so the user can make his own list of plugins 
he is interested in only once, then hide the other available modules to 
clear things up even more. The way "active" modules can be enabled on 
the fly also suggest to the user that their settings will be preserved.

> > Hi, I want to suggest to you a very important thing
> > that VideoLan need and it doesn´t has it. What it need
> > is one option to let us change the aspect rartio like
> > other players, I mean ti can watch a video in 16:9
> > aspect, 4:3 aspect, and the most important aspect is
> > the free aspect, that can let me the sice like I want,
> > this aspect is very important because when the people
> > download a film from internet, it sometimes com very
> > wide or narrow, and i want to put better, is very
> > important that when I fix the ideal sice, I can put it
> > in full screen and stay like I fix the film. You can
> > see the program RadLight, Web page:
> > http://www.radlight.net/ If yuo are going to add this
> > function to videolan it will be the best player on the
> > world. If you are going to add this function please
> > contact with me al shonki31 at yahoo.com  Thanks, and
> > sorry for my bad english.
> 
> Have a  look at  the "aspect ratio"  parameter in the  video tab  of 
> the
> preferences, advanced settings enabled.

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