Re: Denemo user interface
On Tue, 2012-05-08 at 16:49 +0200, Éloi Rivard wrote:
> Hello.
> First of all congratulations for making Denemo, gtk wysiwyg
Denemo is not wysiwyg. It displays the music only well enough to allow
you to see what your music is. The output (ie what you get) is typeset
by LilyPond which takes many minutes to do, which makes wysiwyg
impractical, except for simple music cases, which other programs can do.
> partition editor are rare and denemo is the more complete I've seen.
> I wish Gnome had a reference partition editor, and denemo has the
> potential to be this, but I've noticed some defects.
>
> I think the main denemo defect is its unfriendly and non-intuitive
A lot of people feel this way about the interface, and I hope one day
someone will write another one (although I might not like to use it).
> interface. I don't know the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines by
> heart, by I could notice several ergonomic aberrations, like:
> * Detachable menus (if you have to see permanently the content
> of a menu, then the content belong to a tool bar) and floating
> toolbars (Articulation).
Detachable menus are not permanently on view. I use them occasionally,
if I am doing work in one particular area (say, Voices).
> * The "title" button being the only button on its line.
That line can be populated with any menu items you like (right-click the
menu item and choose "place command on button bar" - the idea is (or
was) to allow the user to create a series of custom toolbars.
> * Does "create snippet" and "delete snippet" deserve a whole
> line too ?
yes, when you create a snippet it appears as a button on this line, from
where you can use the snippet.
> * The overcrowded preference panels.
> * The unfixed "tempo" and "volume" sliders lenght.
> * Text in buttons where it can be expressive icons (For example
> Loop).
yes, that might be nice, though I notice that I prefer text to icons,
*especially* when the icons all change when I do an upgrade of the o/s
(that is something that really slows me down, recognizing some new set
of icons that someone has decided is better than the old ones).
> * Shortcuts are not aligned on the right in menus, and they are
> blue.
Yes, they are a custom implementation of the short cut mechanism to
allow the user interface more flexibility than the built-in ones permit.
> * Tiny buttons ( like # ), it's hard to click on it !
Set the font size in the preferences menu (those are not icons, but font
glyphs).
> Why distinguishing notes from rests ? You could divide the number of
> buttons with "duration" buttons plus one to toggle rest and note mode.
> Why is there two note bars ("notes and rest entry" and "Title, button,
> etc") instead of one ?
As I mentioned above I planned to allow as many as you wish - in fact
there is another one already which holds Movement Title etc, but it
doesn't appear until you set something on it.
>
> I'm sure there are reason behind all those points, but they shocked me
> at first sight. I made an approximately drawing of how I wish denemo
> could be.
Your image shows only a small horizontal area devoted to displaying the
music. This would not be practical for entering large amounts of music
(hundreds of bars of music) as you can only see a little bit at a time
and can lose your place. However, Denemo does have a feature that would
allow such a layout - if you press Esc it takes you to a mode where all
the menus are suppressed, and in this way you can work on the score
taking up as much of the screen as you need.
>
> Images intégrées 1
>
> Here, everything that is often used
Different users have different sets of "often used" items. I have the
figured bass items on my toolbar, but nothing for dynamics. That would
not be popular :)
> is displayed on the top tool bars, everything that is occasionally
> used is displayed on the right tool bars. Menu and hidden windows are
> strictly reserved for rarely used stuffs. Everything that can be
> illustrated have an icon.
>
> There are interesting UI ideas in other programs. Gimp (2.8) and
> Inkscape for instance manage well the large number of tools.
> Noteworthy is very clean for instance.
>
> Also I think denemo should be translated
This is a big undertaking.
> in order to be used by more people. (More people gets more bug
> reports :) ). And maybe denemo should get a stronger graphical
> identity (for instance, the icon look like a 90's program icon :).
>
> I hope my critical are constructive and give you some ideas about
> design.
Yes, very constructive, thank you. I hope someone with an interest in a
graphical approach to the program will take this up. Denemo has never
been used from the mouse, it is primarily a keyboard program - you enter
music using the numeric keypad and a MIDI keyboard, it is several
hundred times faster than mouse methods.
Richard
> Also if my English is not clear, don't hesitate to make me explain a
> point.
>
> Eloi
> --
> Éloi Rivard - azmeuk <at> gmail.com
>
> « On perd plus à être indécis qu'à se tromper. »
>
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