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[gkerber]

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system....

Quick, what are these little toolbar icons?  What function do they call?

No cheating.  (and the X delete button is way too easy)

(toolbar text please....)

[nila]

The first one if I remember was to copy the playing now file to clipboard or something.
second one I have no idea.
third is playing now?
fourth I'm guessing is to delete a file
fifth is properties?
sixth is import media - i use this one REGULARLY
last is something or other


I agree - preferably configurable text labels so we can choose which ones get labels.

[Doof]

1. Copy Listening to.
2. Artist Info.
3. Playing Now.
4. Delete.
5. Properties.
6. Import Media.
7. Recently Imported.

How'd I do?

[mijkuf]

Yes, yes, yes--a billion times, YES!  Toolbar text would be most welcome.

I would take the news that toolbar text was immenent the same way I would a glass of water after four days in the desert.  I've been using MC9 for weeks, but the icon-only toolbar STILL drives me absolutely nuts.

[gkerber]

Doof - you score 100%

You obviously have a very good memory.

I sure don't.....all those little picture icons look alike to me, so I have to keep very few toolbar items, so I don't get lost...  The extra seperators also help keep them apart and easier to hit with the mouse.

[Doof]

Well, I may have scored 100%, but that doesn't mean I disagree with this whole topic. In fact, if you search through Interact, you'll find a post made by me with the same kind of toolbar test.

The toolbar buttons HAVE gotten better, but they are still a long way off from ideal. Hopefully with JRiver's new focus on appearance and GUI, we'll see friendlier toolbar buttons as well?

And I could have sworn that toolbar text was an option at one point instead of just selective text on right...

[gkerber]

I got into v9 late, so I don't know if tool bar text and icons was ever an option.

In v8, there was

Icons
Icons and Selective Text
Icons and Text

The Icons and Text option did take more room, since it put the text under the icon, but that was the trade off for being able to instantly figure out what each button was for.

An older version of Netscape went one step farther, they offered a "Text Only" choice, the buttons were only text.  I always used that option.  It looked like the pull down menus look like, no sissy icons for pull down menus, so why are we forced to guess at what each button is for with the rest of the toolbar?

Choice is good, I wish we'd get choices back.

[Doof]

Another thing I wanted to point was, I managed to get 100% because I was able to just look at them and make an educated guess, although some were easy because I used them all the time.

But looking at them and making an educated guess is completely counter to the whole point of having a toolbar in the first place. Even though all toolbar buttons have to be learned initially, there are some images that are more easily recognizable than others.

[phelt]

As stated in other threads, I agree that the toolbar needs more options - "Show all with text" and "Show text only" would be welcome.

As to the interpretation of the icons' functions, Doof's "educated guess" comment is telling. If J River are trying to expand their user base and make things simpler for new users, perhaps showing those icons to people unfamiliar with MC could be revelatory. I doubt that most would achieve >50% recognition. I'm not harshing on the icons themselves - it's very difficult to relate some tasks through a small glyph. But it could underline the importance of more flexible toolbar display options, including the default.

[Doof]

Keep in mind though, that if someone is unfamiliar with MC, then in a lot of cases it won't matter how good the icon is. If you don't know what features are available, then it's really hard to understand the toolbars.

Take IE for example. MS has thrown gobs of money at this thing and I still have trouble finding Favorites or History without the text. And they've only got a small fraction of the amount of available toolbar buttons that MC has.

[gkerber]

About IE....

They have an option "Show Text Labels", turn that on and presto, no more icon confusion.

That IS EXACTLY what is needed in v9, like we had it in v8.

[Doof]

I agree. Although I tend to turn off all text labels since I tend to use so many toolbar buttons, which just adds to the confusion for me.