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[JimH]

...smashed off me dial in a corner....

That's down-under-talk, I guess.  It don't mean a thing here, but it's a great idiom (no offense).

[KingSparta]

smashed off me dial in a corner....

i think it means he was in the corner of the shower using "Dial" soap and he steped on the soap and smashed it.

[Soundman]

Doof wrote:

When you move your mouse on fullscreen mode, navigation bars appear at the top and bottom. From there you can drag the slider, but there isn't any kind of actual fast forward control you can use with the mouse. This would be nice. Along with some way to just hit one button on a remote and have it start fast forwarding until you hit the button again. Currently there is NO way to fast forward with a remore other than the 5 second skip command. Which in all practical terms is pretty much useless.

Now that I look at it again, I do see the nav controls at the top.  I think what happened is that I was using a Television set as my monitor, and it actually clips the top 10-20 pixels off the screen, so I could not see the nav controls!

Thanks for your replies, Doof.

[Ken Brookings]

ALL of the features are too complex and all are unnecessary - except for the 10% that I use, they're great!

[BarryD99]

Is Media Center Too Complex?

Depends on your target audience.  For computer Wizs, Geeks, and those that are willing to invest a bunch of time learning to use it, not.

For the average pc user, probably yes.

By adding so many features and options (which are great for those who want them), I think MC becomes overwelming for the masses.

Most of my friends wouldn't have the patience for it.  Music  (and other media) just aren't that important too them.

A downloadable manual would be a help to us want a be geeks.

[skeeterfood]

A downloadable manual would be a help to us want a be geeks.

Something like this?
http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/help/default.htm

[xen-uno]

Doof > But the => would mean Equal To Or Greater Than. How would you get that with just >?

He means the syntax order. In VB, C, C++, and so on, you would write "Tempo greater than or equal to 100" as [Tempo]>=100, just like it was spoken. "Greater Than" would be [Tempo]>100. "Not Equal To" would be [Tempo]<>100. Standard mathmatical/programming syntax is easier to read (for some), especially when you start nesting mutiple criteria.

10^-27

[mkutsen]

1) I agree with most here that showing the Media Library tree and the panes at the same time is confusing.

I believe tree sorting is easier for the beginners and shoud be the default.  

Pane sorting is more powerful and should be an option for power users.  However, once pane soring is selected the tree should only include the key actions (Playing Now, Media Library, TV tuner, etc. ...).  It should not display sorting schemes, since that is the function fo the panes.  Perhaps, Media Library should expand to Image libraray, video library and music library as some suggested before.

2) I also agree with showing buttons in the drop down menues.

3) Continuous, suffle and DSP buttons should be more prominent.

4) New users don't know about the target, some sort of a pop up that explains it's funcion would helpful.  Maybe activated by hovering a mouse over it.

5) Selective Text for some buttons.

6) I suggest a poll to sellect default buttons for the tool bar, and organizing them better.

7)Double clicking the bar in Hairstyle should switch back to Mega-Me.

8 ) Auto importing media like WMP9 is a good feature.

9) Real time Fast Forwarding and Rewind with audio and video feedback is wat most people expect when they hold the Fast Forward and Rewind button.  WMP9 even has playback  at 2x and 4x.

10) Crashes are very offputting for beginners, so stability should be a priority.

11) I think Interact is great but there is no commitment from JRiver to answer all support requests from paying customers within reasonable time.   Most of the time questions get answered, but they are occasionally ignored.  MC is less likely to turn away novices if JRiver commits to answering all questions posted by registered customers within some period of time by e-mail as well as interact.

[johnp]

Complicated, no.  A bit overwhelming at first, perhaps.

The first thing I noticed was that there were way to many views and options available to me right out of the gate.  It was pretty easy to get things looking pretty unusual.  Many non-power users might find this intimidating.

If I were to change anything, it would be the ability to turn off unused/unwanted features in the left tree pane.  For example I don't use the My computer, TV Tuner or Web Media trees and I would like them to be gone.

I would also like tho see the default skin dedicate a little more real estate to the playback transport buttons

Everything else is pretty good.

[tlongacre]

Complex? Yes. Too complex? well, that's a judgement call.

If you're interested in appealing to a wider audience, you can do what some programs do and have a "beginner" menu and an "advanced" menu. That would help a lot.

The biggest problem I see is that by putting everything and the kitchen sink into MC, you have created a behemoth that will really only run well on a pretty high-end machine. You'll simply eliminate a lot of potential users for that reason alone. If you made things more modular, so that we could install the pieces we are going to use and not the thing we aren't going to use, that would help a lot, I think.

I, for one, love MC for it's ability to manage music. That is all I use it for. Never gonna watch TV on my computer. Don't even understand why anyone would want to. And I have much better programs for dealing with photos. Can't use MJ because I have an iPod. And there are things I would like to do with MC, which it probably does (print CD labels?), but all the other stuff gets in the way.

[Stilton]

That sounds like a great idea gmonkey...  
I'd say by default clicking on 'Music' brings up a pane split by Artist / Album, as I think this is the most obvious display of music (this is the default in WMP).

I'd also put Rip and Burn CD on the panel bar too.

[Soundman]

Doof > But the => would mean Equal To Or Greater Than. How would you get that with just >?

He means the syntax order. In VB, C, C++, and so on, you would write "Tempo greater than or equal to 100" as [Tempo]>=100, just like it was spoken. "Greater Than" would be [Tempo]>100. "Not Equal To" would be [Tempo]<>100. Standard mathmatical/programming syntax is easier to read (for some), especially when you start nesting mutiple criteria.

10^-27

Hi, Doof & xen-uno.

Actually, it is worse than that. In MC:
[Tempo]=>100 means temp is greater than 100, not greater than or equal to.

[Tempo]>100 is not even a legal expression.  It will not match anything.

There is no way to say denote greater than or equal to, AFAIK.

Now, that is what I call confusing and strange!

That being said, it still beats anything any other music software has to offer, and I, for one, am willing to put up with it.  But, you asked how to make it less complex.  So, one idea is to use syntax that makes sense.

Soundman

[kiwi]

I'd be a big fan of a simple and expert mode.  There are times when I really want to just use it, or have people over at a party, and I want to let them select music or put together a mix.  

Sure, it means developing two different (or 1.5) interfaces, but it would be nice to have something that was simple as an option.  

Something gmonkey's idea with Music, Images, Movies, CD/DVD Drives (potentially one for each device on the system) going down the side and a simple two pane or three pain display.  

kiwi

[aussie1]

Just starting to play with 9.1...It took me a little while to adjust to the panes. Now I'd say I like them better than the tree. I like having both options available.

As for complexity:

Making all of this technology work together is complex even for many of the techies. This is not an MC issue.  The industry needs to make all of this more consumer friendly. It gets better each year, but we are still many years away.

Learning to make full use of the MC features currently requires lots of trial and error. So many commands are buried in so many different menus, I find that I have to read each option in each menu to see what all is offered. 9.1 is better than 9.0. But you still need to clean up the menu structures.

You should produce a manual in pdf format. The help file is good for looking up a specific function. But if I want to learn the whole program, it would better to read or print a manuscript.

Many people do not read manuals, so you should also produce a series of "how to" movies, perhaps make them available on the web site using flash. A good example is the product intro video that comes with Zone Alarm Pro 3.0. It shows the acutal screens as it walks you through how to perform key tasks.

The vast capabilits of MC combined with the versatility of the user interface is part of what makes MC great. Each user has different preferences for displaying and acessing information. MC's flexibility allows it to meet these different desires. Don't lose that. And, please, keep growing the capabilities.

S

[aussie1]

One more idea I'm sure you have already thought about it - all software companies seem to do this now)

Commission and publish a book on how to use Media Center.  Add lots of hooks about how to build a home enterainment network easily, etc.  Get you name on the bookshelves.

[lee269]

Many people do not read manuals, so you should also produce a series of "how to" movies, perhaps make them available on the web site using flash. A good example is the product intro video that comes with Zone Alarm Pro 3.0. It shows the acutal screens as it walks you through how to perform key tasks.

I think this is an excellent suggestion. Ive always thought that CoolEdits tutorials were particularly effective examples of this sort of thing. I found them extremely useful when I first got the program, particularly the 'short course in digital audio'.

More cool, but possibly more complicated, would be a JRiver tutorial media server of how-to videos.

[Sam]

I'm jumping in late, but I love UI issues; so here goes...


Here are a few suggestions.

1.  Clean out the right-click menus.  They're designed to allow the user to do everything.  There are about a dozen ways to play a selected song.  One or two will suffice.  People will say a program is too complex when they see many things on the screen or in a menu that they don't understand.  So giving users too many choices can be a bad thing.

2.  Make MC an audio player by default, and make an obvious switch to photo album mode or video mode.  Show only the functions that are relevant to each respective mode.  (You can do this with Tabs and Colors.  There are other ways.)

3.  Focus on the most used functions.  Based solely on my judgement, they are:
Get music: import, cd rip, download
Play music: direct select, playlists, filters
Export music: burn cds, mp3 player
Edit music: edit tags, attach images
I think MC would be better if it were organized around these major functions.  And use Big Buttons!

4.  Always keep the navigation buttons on the screen.  This is extremely important for ease of use.  

5.  Make it more obvious where you are.  Use bigger or bold fonts for location labels (e.g., "Media Library: Audio") and column headers.  Use big navigation buttons on the left.

6.  Change "Go/Start" to "Help" or "Getting Started".  The Help links on the start page are few and easy to miss.  Integrate all the help screens into MC.  I think someone here provided a good example in HTML.  You already have pretty thorough documentation, but many users have been trained to ignore Windows Help.

7.  Hide all text-based modifiers for smart-lists and searches.  We live in a Windows world; you should be able to do this with control boxes.

8.  Don't gray out the toolbar.  In Windows, gray means the button is not usable.

9.  (You're probably doing this, but just in case...)  Do market research.  Give MC to a broad range of people (including users of competing products and users with little PC knowledge), maybe a few dozen, and ask them what they think is good, bad, or ugly.  You want to cater to the masses.

[jleerigby]

2.  Make MC an audio player by default, and make an obvious switch to photo album mode or video mode.  Show only the functions that are relevant to each respective mode.  (You can do this with Tabs and Colors.  There are other ways.)

Well you just never know... He says trying to find ways to pass another 2 hours or so...

The countdown has begun!

[Charlemagne 8]

Uh ... What was the question?

[Soundman]

I just read Sam's list of suggestions, and I Second the bulk of it, pertaining to organizing around major functions.

However, I urge caution about using big buttons and labels.  I hate big anything because screen real estate is a precious resource.  I think think button and label size should be a function of the skin, right?  Maybe offer a few more skins and make the default use big labels, but offer a variation that uses small buttons & labels but still looks as good in general.

I also agree that there do not need to be so many different ways to play something.  That is not to say that the Send To / Playing now menu should be trimmed, however.  Every one of those selections is useful.

The one that bothers me is that whenever I double-click on a label in tree view, I am expecting it to simply expand the tree a level, just as Windows Explorer does.  But instead, it replaces Playing Now with everything under that tree node!  I sure wish there were an Undo for accidental changes to Playing Now.

As for thinning out context  menus, you could do like some Office programs that hide menu choices rarely used but will show them if you click on the chevron symbol.  I personally dislike this feature, but I can see how it would reduce intimidation of novice users.

Thanks for listening,
Soundman

[Sam]

However, I urge caution about using big buttons and labels.

"Big" is a relative term.  With the exception of the first line of the player window, it looks like every other instance of text in MC is 8pt plain font.  "Big" can mean 10pt bold; some disctinction.  A picture is worth two or three words.

It's rare to find an app that is so uniform.  Not WMP or MMJB.  (I've never used iTunes, but from the screenshots, it looks like it uses at least three different font styles.)  Not Office XP.  Not Photoshop or Illustrator.  Not Amazon.com or Yahoo.  Even jrmediacenter.com has 6 font styles, as well as 14 big buttons.

Note that DOS seems simpler than Windows, but is much more complex to use.  And the Web goes further past Windows in terms of varying buttons and labels, and is even easier to use.

I also agree that there do not need to be so many different ways to play something.  That is not to say that the Send To / Playing now menu should be trimmed, however.  Every one of those selections is useful.

How many of these have you used?  Excluding "Add to Playlist," the right-click menu has about 195 items.  And there are two instances of both "Play" and "Add to Playing Now," without any difference.  And if either one was the last used function, then that function will appear four times, again , without any difference.

As for thinning out context  menus, you could do like some Office programs that hide menu choices rarely used but will show them if you click on the chevron symbol.  I personally dislike this feature, but I can see how it would reduce intimidation of novice users.

I hate this too.

[Cindy_B]

I remember when I first tried the product and I somehow managed to hide the left-hand window (the tree-view). I searched for about an hour trying to work out how to get it back.

These needs to be menu items for these things to show/hide all the windows. The only way (that I've found) is to double-click/drag the splitter, which isn't very obvious when you didn't purposefully close it in the first place.

That's so funny...... The same thing happen to me.  

[h3dge]

Take this for what it's worth...it is not intended to be a flame or negative...just an observation of my own experience:

Before I begin this, let me give you an idea of where I stand on the technical proficiency scale.  I have been involved in PC support and troubleshooting for 10 years.  I am *very* computer savy.

I've been with Media Jukebox since V7.  In my experience, version 7 was quite buggy and I eventually stopped using it for this reason.  Version 8 has been the MOST stable and usable version of the product for me.  The interface was powerful enough to do what I wanted, but easy enough to navigate and use.  This is when I got hooked to MJ.  Version 9 has seen a return to the problems of stability in v7.

Over these 3 product releases I have come to following conclusions:

1.  More attention is given to expanding the feature set than to squashing bugs.  Many bugs continue from release to release.

2.  The "sliding" feature set tends to leave certain aspects of the program in an unfinished or unusable state.  I would consider hairstyle to be a good example of this.

3.  The constant addition of new features results in there *always* being something not working.  Never do we get a complete program with everything working.  There are certain releases that are exception to this...but on the whole....

3.  The user interface has become increasingly complex over time....so much so that with v9 I find myself using the program less and less.  This is not because I don't understand the interface....its because the interface is *unwieldy*.

I guess the long and short of this is...I am not using your program much anymore.  I used to love it, but I am now actively looking for another program for cataloging and playing music.  

If I could make suggestions:

Locking down a feature set for a particular release, then quashing *all* bugs on that feature set until there are almost none left ( I realize its near impossible to be competely bug free).

Slowing down your release cycle (even betas) to concentrate on more stable releases....in other words less rapid fire fixes that take care of a small amount of problems....concentrate on larger releases that take care of *lots* of problems.

Continue to work on the UI.  I think a "3 click" rule is a good idea.....most tasks should be completed in 3 clicks.

I hope this helps....I hope I begin using the product more in the future, but as it is now, I won't be.

For the record:

I like the MJ community

The MJ developers take input from their users (they listen) and I consider this a good thing

[JimH]

Hedge,
I just took a look at your posts.  They deal mostly with cover art problems.  

The problem you reported switching from visualizations to hairstyle may be a video driver issue.

If you think there are bugs remaining, please either report them in the release thread or start a new thread on your problems.

Thanks,

Jim

[Pink Waters]

i have a suggestion related of some organization suff..
is it possible for now and we have the new action window.. that contains the playing now.. and make the playing now item in the tree view shows the vis..and track info..and this stuff in the hole right section in the library.. and i think that would give an ease of treatment ..coz you know trackinfos with lyrics requires us to scroll up and down.. and this idea will give the free lock..

thanks