GUI changes

[Christian Weilbach]

Hi,

Well the point why I have been posting my suggestions is that the mockup looks 
really great. The reason why it looks so great is that the interface is less 
cluttered by controls. If you have a closer look, there are even no borders 
inbetween the collection list and the search box. Or between the play buttons 
and the equalizer. I think that adding the tabs on top and having the search 
box outside the collection list widget is no problem, but adding too many 
buttons, seperators and stuff is simply more stressing for the eyes. I 
suggest some policy like: 
'Move everything not needed for a 'normal' session to the menus and make it 
addable to the toolboxes for power users who use it more often. Everything an 
average user only changes once per release lifetime should go to the 
configuration dialog.'

1. The vertical bar
Additionally the vertical bar is missing in the mockup. It wouldn't be half as 
beautyful. I don't think that the argument that we have that in other KDE 3 
applications really fits the problem and stresses my eyes less ;-). 
First of all Konqueror, which has a comparable vertical menu, is replaced by 
Dolphin for that purpose, which uses a horizontal list of places and has a 
clear focus on recent usability thoughts. Maybe one could show the bar on 
mouse over only or when getting near to the left border of the window. This 
would be a great choice for other applications like konqui, too. Make the 
widgets animated and more organic (I love Apple for that ;-) ). This makes 
them more usable, too.

2. The search options
I think that there should be a search menu for choosing stuff like the view 
(list,ipod,...), show divider and choose a filter. You change these options 
very rarely once you know what you like. You don't need the controls in every 
session. Maybe you can add them through the tools configuration to some 
toolbar (besides the play buttons, maybe?). 
The drop-down menu to choose whether to search the 'entire collection', 'added 
last week', ... takes too much space. Maybe one could move that to the search 
menu, too or show an arrow for the menu only (maybe too hidden :-( ).

3. About the tabs
Well the same argument as above. I don't think you change the tabs very often. 
I don't. If you consider changing them less than once in a session I would 
consider moving them to the bottom. Probably the general to power user uses 
them much more often and then you should keep them at top. Actually I don't 
see a big problem leaving them at top. 

4. About making everything configurable
I agree in not making everything configurable. In my opinion many less used 
options should be moved to menus and the user should be able to add them via 
the tools configuration (I don't know the exact English names). Tabs need not 
to be configurable in my opinion. It is simply too much work for no feature.

Well I've tried to collect some of the recent ideas in this thread and make 
the discussion a little bit more differentiated. And once again I am no 
usability pro, these are only my two €-pence ;-)

Cheers,
whilo

P.S.: The new interface looks much better than the old one. Great job and a 
great application.