#6119 NORM Never A: TamTamEdit design issues and suggestions

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#6119: TamTamEdit design issues and suggestions
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 Reporter:  HoboPrimate      |       Owner:  Nat           
     Type:  task             |      Status:  new           
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:  Never Assigned
Component:  tamtam-activity  |     Version:                
 Keywords:  design           |    Verified:  0             
 Blocking:                   |   Blockedby:                
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 After translating the TamTam suite, I got really interested in them. Of
 them all, there was one which using is quite a chore, and that is
 TamTamEdit. Here are the problems I had with, in no special order:
  1.The musical notes are very slim for the current screensize. The cursor
 changes over different parts of a musical note, allowing you to move them
 right-left, up-down and enlarge to the right. With such a horizontally
 thin line, it's quite hard to: first learn all these possible ways to
 modify them; two, actually click on its area to do what we want; three, to
 move them up/down 1 scale at a time . The reason they are so thin, is that
 there are 4 instruments and 1 drumkit, and each row for instrument allows
 around 30 note scales. My suggestion would be to either decrease the
 number of scales for each instrument by default, and have a zooming
 feature for kids who which to have all 30+ of them.
  2. I couldn't find a one to select more than one page at the bottom (to
 delete many for example).
  3. The pages at the bottom don't have palettes with the option to delete
 them, so you only kinda figure it's possible, by trying the erase key.
  4. The instrument palettes are not discoverable according to sugar normal
 way. This because they don't have prelight like normal buttons. Also,
 since clicking them doesn't immediately make a change, the palettes should
 show on hover.
  5. The "plus" buttons in the instrument boxes are hard to click and don't
 have a tooltip to what they do.
  6. In the instruments palette, the volume controls aren't clear what they
 are for. First, the volume icons aren't used, and Mute is represented in a
 checkbox with the letter 'M'. I would suggest to use "volume muted' icon,
 'volume minimum' icon, slider bar, and 'volume maximum' icon. The volume
 minimum icon ccrossed over icons to be used instead.
  7. In the instruments palette, it isn't clear the relationship between
 the instruments category chooser and instrument chooser.
  8. The palette of the 'plus' sign in the instrument box doesn't make it
 clear you'll be adding a new instrument, as it looks exactly like the
 instrument palette. You could add a Secondary title "add new instrument',
 but if that could also be shown visually would be nice (for kids/adults
 who can't read).
  9. The 'record keyboard' and 'record to .ogg' icons aren't clear. The
 first uses the letter 'K', which is not international, and the 2nd uses a
 wave line, when a 'musical' note icon would be more apropriate.
  10. When you click record keyboard/to .ogg, nothing happens. You have to
 figure that you need they are modifier buttons, and you'll need to click
 play to begin the actual recordings. I don't know what to suggest. Would
 it be a good idea for 'record to keyboard' and 'record to .ogg' be
 alternate states of a combo-box 'play' button? Or is a 3-state toggle
 button not a good idea, workable?
  11. I still have no idea what the common control that 'select', 'draw'
 and 'paint' tools have does. It's just an icon showing a cursor over a box
 with multiple vertical slices. Perhaps just using text in that non-
 intuitive control would be best? Also, shouldn't the combo-boxes for those
 tool controls be insteader slider bars?
  12. The 'duplicate' button tooltip could say 'Duplicate page', although
 the icon is pretty good in conveying what is going to be duplicated.
  13. There is plenty of space in the toolbar, why are volume and tempo
 associated to the same button? If separated, each could have use a more
 signifying icon, the first would use the 'volume' icon and the second the
 'running man' icon from TamTamJam. The current 'sliders' icon for both
 controls doesn't really tell you much, except that they will contain 2
 slider bars :)
  14. In the generate toolbox, why is there a play and stop button as well?
 For convenience i bet, but since buttons aren't duplicated between
 toolboxes anywhere else, one wonders if they are going to do a different
 thing, and it makes less clear the special-purpose of the generate
 toolbox. On the other hand, only having the play/stop button on the
 compose button does mean you'll have to switch to it constantly, and they
 are very used controls, so ignore this point.
  15. Why are 'Generation' and 'Properties' buttons toggles? Are they
 configuration options of the Generate button? If so, why do they have
 apply/cancel buttons, are they like a 'Generate' shortcut? Both these
 button palettes aren't very clear to me how they work.
  16. The Cancel and Apply buttons ('Cross' and 'Check' icons) on the
 'generation' and 'properties' palettes aren't labeled, and aren't pre-
 lighted. As it's the first time they appear in a palette, labeling (I
 think there is space) and pre-lighting them to show they are buttons would
 make them more immediately understandable.
  17. Properties button seems to have configuration for 2 things: Global
 page properties, and Selected track properties. I would really separate
 them more than they are.
 In the selected track properties, many of its options can be individually
 generated, is that so? Could be shown more clearer, for instance if the
 checkbox to open the 'Generation' palette had a "dice" icon as a label for
 the checkbox. Aditionally, if the generation palette expanded bellow each
 property (like gtk's right-arrow for closed, and down-arrow for expanded
 options feature) would make their individual relationship more clear
 (plus, you currently can have multiple checkbox checked, which I don't
 understand).
  18. Finally, I would switch the "1-dice" and "2-dices" icon meanings.
 1-dice looks more like "configure the dice before throwing", i.e. modify
 randomization options, while the 2-dice looks more like "throwing the dice
 to the table", i.e. execute the randomization.
  19. I would suggest some rethinking to be done on the ordering and naming
 of the toolboxes and of the
 'Duplicate','Volume/Tempo','Generate','Generation', and 'Properties'
 buttons, with an eye for the different "things" to which they apply: all
 the pages (or the entire melody), current page, selected track(s).

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Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6119>
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