Pedia GUIs

[Zearin]

Hello,

A list of my suggestions for the GUIs in the Pedias:

iTunes-ify. I've suggested before that the not-quite-iTunes UI of the Pedias makes it feel slightly “off” from most similar apps on my system. Bruji responded that this was intentional in order to keep the feel of their apps unique.

After several months, I still feel that these differences hinder Bruji’s UI more than they help. Both Apple and other independent developers have made large efforts towards unifying extremely common parts of the GUI (the Source List, icons, and so on). Examples include Leopard’s Finder, Mail.app, and iPhoto ’08.

I believe Bruji’s unique branding would be better represented by improved icons for each app. That said, here are some specific suggestions along these lines:

• Source List.
  • Match background-color. According to Pixie, the background color of iTunes' Source List is rgb(209,215,226) or hsb(115,19,226).
  • Combine Pedias. Provide built-in “Library” with sub-items for each Pedia. Alternatively, a single app where you could toggle the Source List to DVDs / CDs / Games / Books.
• Icons. Collections, smartlists… Match iTunes icons for Playlists and SmartLists, respectively. (For Playlists, this would involve removing the musical note and using the icon beneath. Dunno if this icon exists as such in XCode / Interface Builder.)
• Bonjour. Bonjour rocks. Syncing via Bonjour would be even better, but if that's impossible or time-consuming to implement, then it would at least be useful to view my laptop's Pedias from my desktop and vice-versa.
• Drag-Drop Feedback. When dragging items to a Collection, have the mouse cursor display the “Red Badge” with the number of items to add (currently displays the “Make Alias” arrow).
• Ability to edit multiple items. While this can be applicable in any number of situations, it's particularly important when mass-editing My Rating and Tags.

And here are some other suggestions not related to iTunes-ifying the GUI:

• Views
  • Cover Flow. The animation in Cover Flow view seems a little “stiff”, as if it either has a lower framerate, shorter animation time relative to Cover Flow in iTunes / Leopard's Finder. Also, it seems that the animation does not have an "ease out" effect that other Cover Flow animations have.
  • Hybrid View. A “List+Cover View”, similar to iTunes' “Album View”, to display cover art alongside list data. Mmm, that would be great.
  • Wide View. For users with large widescreen displays, it would be great if the Info pane could be displayed to the right of the List/Cover/Cover-Flow View. It means that when I click an item, I don't have to scroll down to read all of its Info—it's already displayed. (Note: I have both a MacBook and a 24” iMac, so please do not read this as any disregard for laptop owners!)
  • List View in DVD Pedia
    • Allow pref to display “Duration” as #h #m
    • Allow rows to display icons (rather than text) for Rating & Sound
    • Change “# of Discs” to “Discs”. There's really no way to misinterpret the shorter heading, and this column will almost always have single-digit data.
    • Add “Season”. TV Shows are DVDs, too!
    • Add a column for Movies, TV Shows, etc. (Or, add separate items for each of these in the Source List.) I hate when the Genre column says “Television”. That's not a genre, and it doesn't tell me what genre that TV Show is. I realize this is the fault of whatever website the Pedia pulled its information from, but if I don't have a way to fix this without data loss then I'm stuck with it.
• Remove pointless confirmation. When deleting an empty collection, the Pedias ask me if I'm sure that I want to delete it. Well, it's empty—it's not like I'm going to lose anything.
• Create Collections where I say so. When right-clicking a folder to create a Collection / Smart-Collection, place the created item in that Folder. Currently, it's added to the end of the Source List. This makes me manually file it when I thought I was taking care of that by right-clicking on the folder I wanted it to live in.
• Add “Edition” Column. Consider adding an “Edition” attribute to the Pedias so that the Title column displays only the Title, and the Edition column displays stuff like “Special Edition”, “Director's Cut”, or “Game of the Year”. I consider that information important, so I'm reluctant to delete it…but I hate how much space it takes up in the Title column in List View.

Finally, as much as I would love to see the above features make it into the Pedias, don't let that paint an unseemly picture of my opinion of the Pedias. I love the Pedias! And in fact, if I didn't love them so much I wouldn't have bothered writing all of this.

Keep up the great work, Bruji!

[Conor]

Thank you for such a detailed message, being so specific is always great feedback and helps us improve the Pedias. On the iTunes look feedback we always lag a bit behind as they are always changing and we have to catch-up. For example our background color is the previous background color that iTunes used to have before it went dark. We have planned a Snow Leopard kind of release for the Pedias, where instead of adding new features we are going to polish the existing ones. Changing the background color look of the collections area fits into this release, since I agree that the background should match the new OS X style. As you mentioned Leopard has made great strides in unifying the look for applications. But that doesn't mean that Apple always adheres to that standard (the iTunes scroll bars are an example). So we can't be exactly like iTunes, nor would we want to. We originally though about using the page icon for the smart collections, but although it would be easier for users to recognize a smart collection it would be taking too much from iTunes and leave no space for originality. Those icons are not available for developers on the system; hence, some would go as far as saying that using the same icons would be a copyright violation of Apple's work. I agree with you that Apple should provide more icons to signify different operations. This is actually the case on the iPhone where Apple has provided a lot of artwork so that small developers can get on with their ideas and the UI remains consistent. Hopefully will see this happening with Snow Leopard. Speaking of icons we had new application icons commissioned (we need 512 x 512 version) and although they were great icons, they did not feel enough like us, so we are still working on that front.

view my laptop's Pedias from my desktop and vice-versa.

While Bonjour comes along you can point several computers to the same data folder for sharing. You would have to mount the second computer's hard drive on your network and then launch DVDpedia while holding down option key to point it to a new database. If you keep distinct databases on each computers then this is not as useful.

Drag-Drop Feedback.

Where are you dragging items from? It should display the cover of the last selected item, plus a red badge on the bottom corner indicating the number of items that will be added. We used to let the built in table view take care of the drawing that would show the rows and the alias arrow, but we gave up waiting for Apple to add the badge and have switched to doing our own drawing, since we were already implementing it for the Cover View.

Ability to edit multiple items.

Select multiple items and use the edit command, this should result in a new window that will let you edit multiple items at once, including My Rating and Tags. On the Tags it's not additive (it will replace the current tags), the additive ability is on the request list.

Change “# of Discs” to “Discs”.

Consider it done for the next release.

Remove pointless confirmation.

Done as well.

Create Collections where I say so.

Taken care of.

Custom fields can be very useful in creating a "Season" and "Edition" field for your movies.
To test the above changes feel free to download the beta.
Once again thank you for all the feedback, it's all very useful.

[Zearin]

Thank you for such a detailed message, being so specific is always great feedback and helps us improve the Pedias

It's kind of an exciting time to be a geek! I love the very idea that independent devs get to interact with their users in such a personal way, and that users can choose to participate in shaping the future of their favorite apps by starting/joining a conversation on the web. It's not quite democracy, but it feels like something similar without all the B.S. of politics. (At least, when dealing with independent devs like Bruji. I can't say the same when corporate deals start getting involved, but that's a world I only know enough about to be cautious and a little skeptical.)

We have planned a Snow Leopard kind of release for the Pedias, where instead of adding new features we are going to polish the existing ones. Changing the background color look of the collections area fits into this release …

Oh, great! I am excited about the whole idea of Snow Leopard, and if it's inspiring devs, even better.

As you mentioned Leopard has made great strides in unifying the look for applications. But that doesn't mean that Apple always adheres to that standard (the iTunes scroll bars are an example).

Yeah, I noticed. Weird, huh? This was one of the things that was touted in Leopard's list of improvements. I was a little curious how something so obvious (well, at least it's obvious to me…) got overlooked. But I'm still enjoying the steps closer to unified UI.

(OTOH, some critics went a little overboard complaining about the lack of unification. Stuff like the brushed-metal / textured window discrepencies never really bothered me. More important in my opinion is stuff like the Source Lists in various apps and consistent placing of the Search Bar.)

We originally though about using the page icon for the smart collections, but although it would be easier for users to recognize a smart collection it would be taking too much from iTunes and leave no space for originality.

*nod* To an extent I agree with the principle, but I must respectfully disagree on the specific topic of Smart Collections. I cited iTunes because it's the easiest and most well-known example. But the icon for Smart Collections has identical or near-identical counterparts all over OS X: saved searches in the Finder, saved searches in Mail, smart collections in iPhoto, smart groups in Address Book, and so on. Even the latest release of Firefox (v3) adopted the same icon for saved searches in Bookmarks. May I humbly ask you to reconsider?

Those icons are not available for developers on the system; hence, some would go as far as saying that using the same icons would be a copyright violation of Apple's work.

I don't know about that. I already cited Firefox above. The financial organizer Cha-Ching (by Midnight Apps) also uses the same icon. Your main competitor, Delicious Library, uses a custom icon, but it features a purple gear, making its "smart" nature immediately recognizable at first glance. (Don't worry, Delicious Monster has received no money from me, nor will they.

Speaking of icons we had new application icons commissioned (we need 512 x 512 version) and although they were great icons, they did not feel enough like us, so we are still working on that front.

Glad to hear it. I think the Pedias would really benefit from some updated app icons.

I wonder you could hold a contest among the Pedia users for some new icons? I doubt I could make something good enough, but it is always fun to get a bunch of people to play around in Inkscape to see what you get.

Where are you dragging items from? It should display the cover of the last selected item, plus a red badge on the bottom corner indicating the number of items that will be added.

Oh! I don't know what I was doing before, but I see the badge now. Sorry for the slip-up!

Select multiple items and use the edit command, this should result in a new window that will let you edit multiple items at once, including My Rating and Tags.

I'm scratching my head. Again, not sure how I missed this. I'm a little embarrassed! Sorry, totally my mistake.

Regarding the various “Consider it done for the next release”…
You rock.

Custom fields can be very useful in creating a "Season" and "Edition" field for your movies.

Oh! Now there's something I remember finding AGES ago and wondering, “I wonder what I could possibly use this for? There's already a field for everything I could possibly imagine and then some!”

Thanks for reminding me.

(It would still be nice to see this supported by default. Would you consider making a request for this? In the meantime, I will definitely take your suggestion, and I appreciate it very much!)

To test the above changes feel free to download the beta.

If I download it, will it jeopardize any of my data? I don't mind dealing with little glitches here or there as long as my data is safe.

Once again thank you for all the feedback, it's all very useful.

You're welcome! And thank you for taking the time to respond in such detail. I really appreciate it, and it feels good to have some small level of involvement.

[Conor]

I love the very idea that independent devs get to interact with their users in such a personal way.

We enjoy it as well, if we had the resources we would implement every single request from our users. Any independent software developer will let you know that the hardest thing is saying: "no", we aim to please, we want to do it all.

More important in my opinion is stuff like the Source Lists

I love the Cocoa framework that Apple provides, it makes many aspects of developing Mac applications a lot easier. But they still need to go a bit further, like provide an actual Source List option for their developers to use, this way making it easy for everybody to add it to their programs. The good news is the are headed that way, it exist in a preliminary form in Leopard and will most likely be even better with Snow Leopard. Because we still support Tiger we can't use it just yet.

May I humbly ask you to reconsider?

We will definitely look at it again, with our Snow Leopard release. What I meant to say is that Apple should provide a PNG image for developers to use (it doesn't even have to be part of the built in system, a sample with the Human Interface Guidelines). It would avoid any questions if it's okay to use the same image as the Finder and iTunes, it would guide developers and let them know what the appropriate sign/icon is for a smart collection or folder. As you mentioned a lot of programs use it, and I am sure it's fine to use it, but this way it would be perfectly clear what the expected icon is.

hold a contest among the Pedia users for some new icons?

That is a good idea.

If I download it, will it jeopardize any of my data? I don't mind dealing with little glitches here or there as long as my data is safe.

Your data should be safe, the public beta only has small tweaks, large tweaks like database changes go into a private beta that you need to be on our tester mailing list to receive access to. That said always have a backup of your data. Simply copying your data folder at ~/Library/Application Support/DVDpedia is enough or using the built backup export that creates a zipped version of that folder.

[TheMatador]

A design contest for some new application icons (including pocketpedia) really would be a great idea .