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[gkerber]

Doof,

I've been playing around with Quick Tag, pretty neat and pretty easy to screw up.  With care, it will work pretty good.

Thanks for the excellent explaination.

[Matt]

What needs to be done so it's intuitive -- without reading a big explanation?

[sraymond]

Matt,

I know you didn't ask me, but I thought I'd jump in with my $0.025.

I think tagging is already pretty intuitive, once you get past the concept that "tags" are nothing more than entries in multi-value list fields.  But I can see where confusion can arise from the difference between tags and fields.

Scott-

[Doof]

I think having the panes open is a pretty big necessity.

Maybe Nila's suggestion of popping the panes open halfway when the Tagging Mode button is pressed (if they were closed, previously) has some merit?

It's one of those 6 of one, half dozen of another scenarios... do you suddenly pop open the panes that the user explicity closed earlier? Or do you have a button that seemingly doesn't do anything?

[gkerber]

What needs to be done so it's intuitive -- without reading a big explanation?

Not sure I have an answer for that, I wish I did.  Many new features are introduced without any explaination.  Some are intuitive, others are unknown.  Some who have the time and interest will hack at the new features until they make sense.  Those people are useful!

Even Doof's great example text is good, but unless someone has used a list field before (I have), even it may not make sense.

Myself, I write and fight software all day at the office, it's hard to get motovated when I come home to do more testing and the invevitable frustration.  I do some, not as much as others here do.  I guess we all have our places and roles, a good mix of users and motovations.

[Matt]

I think having the panes open is a pretty big necessity.  

Maybe Nila's suggestion of popping the panes open halfway when the Tagging Mode button is pressed (if they were closed, previously) has some merit?

The last few build do this.

Any other ideas would be very welcome.  Could the instructions that popup be more helpful? ( Doof's won't fit )

[Doof]

How about a 12 step interactive tutorial with 640x48x16 training videos running at a full 30fps, all voice acted by Jim?

[NoCodeUK]

Seriously though I mentioned about videos before.  I would happily make sme training videos for various aspects of MC if there was a need.  I have Camtasia which records a "moving screen grab" of whatever is happening.  I could then compress them into a suitable format for people to download...

Adam

[graham131]

Seriously though I mentioned about videos before.  I would happily make sme training videos for various aspects of MC if there was a need.  I have Camtasia which records a "moving screen grab" of whatever is happening.  I could then compress them into a suitable format for people to download...

Adam

That sounds like a brilliant idea - JRiver - sign this man up.

MC is fantastic but complex, training videos for more advanced features showing screenshots and the effects of changes would be awesome.

Keep up the good work Adam

[Stilton]

Wow TaggingMode, I've finally found it :-) These functions really need to to me in the Tools menu as well!

Now I've I've tested it, it seems really useful and it's pretty intuitive. Thanks to the reliable undo/redo, it's pretty safe to have a play around without really screwing this up.

A couple of initial reactions;

- Checkboxes imply that more than one option in a scheme can be selected. From what I can see, this isn't possible (I've only tried with Artist and Album, but I'm guessing that's the case). The fact that it's a 'tick' helps slightly, but it's still unintuitive by not following windows standard. Other options would perhaps be bolding the selected option, or putting a border around it, or using more Radio Button (option buttons) type design.

- This was a little off-putting; I was messing around with tagging mode with the album Keep It Unreal, by Mr Scruff, with the panes 'Artist' and 'Album'. It's the only Mr Scruff album I've got. I changed the artist to Black Sabbath. Mr Scruff then dissapeared from the panes list. I think it would be a lot more friendly if it had stayed in the list.

[Doof]

- Checkboxes imply that more than one option in a scheme can be selected. From what I can see, this isn't possible (I've only tried with Artist and Album, but I'm guessing that's the case). The fact that it's a 'tick' helps slightly, but it's still unintuitive by not following windows standard. Other options would perhaps be bolding the selected option, or putting a border around it, or using more Radio Button (option buttons) type design.

I agree. There are list type data fields (like People) that allow multiple values, so these should use checkboxes. Single value fields like Album should use radio buttons.

- This was a little off-putting; I was messing around with tagging mode with the album Keep It Unreal, by Mr Scruff, with the panes 'Artist' and 'Album'. It's the only Mr Scruff album I've got. I changed the artist to Black Sabbath. Mr Scruff then dissapeared from the panes list. I think it would be a lot more friendly if it had stayed in the list.

It doesn't stay in the list because you no longer have any files with Mr Scruff as the Artist. MC can't just make stuff up on its own. But that's why the <new artist> option is there. Click that, and you can type in Mr Scruff and be all set. Or use Undo like you mentioned before.

[LisaRCT]

Quick Tag??
I musta been sleeping  

Either that or this is another of those "call it something" features with multiple unofficial names?

Is there a thread still available with Doof's explaination as mentioned above?  Link Please  

[Doof]

Check out the "Instructions for Version 9 (partial)" thread at the top. JimH put a link to the thread in there. I believe it's under the header:

Doof Gets Steamed and Explains Tagging Mode

[Stilton]

It doesn't stay in the list because you no longer have any files with Mr Scruff as the Artist. MC can't just make stuff up on its own. But that's why the <new artist> option is there. Click that, and you can type in Mr Scruff and be all set. Or use Undo like you mentioned before.

It doesn't need to make stuff up because Mr Scruff is clearly an album that could be chosen. I realise why it's not there (because no files actually have that tag as an album any more) but it still seemed unintuative. What I was suggesting is that perhaps the list should be static until you go out of Tagging Mode. So it doesn't refresh the list of existing albums/artists until you've finished the tagging job.

[Stilton]

Quick Tag??
I musta been sleeping  

Either that or this is another of those "call it something" features with multiple unofficial names?

Is there a thread still available with Doof's explaination as mentioned above?  Link Please  

It's not called Quick Tag anymore, rather TaggingMode. you can only get to it by clicking on the pencil icon when in panes view.

[Doof]

I see what you're saying now.

Yeah, that would be kind of handy. Just in case you accidentally cleared the box, you could just check it again to fix it.

[V-Man]

Suggestion: In the Fields list, for each List-type field, put a little button on the right that has the same function as the Tagging Mode function. This would introduce users to the feature that otherwise didn't pay attention to that toolbar.