Topic: UI comes across as dated (Read 4836 times)

wishyouwerehere · « **on:** August 12, 2020, 06:14:23 am »

Been a user of JRiver MC for many years - MC19 to present. And, for good reason. To rip CD's to FLAC etc. and enjoy to it's full functional effect in "Audio Only" mode either playing library direct, or streamed, using Windows 10. But, and the big but is. The UI is in desperate need of an update. Apart from Modern Cards Dark having a welcome tweak in a recent build the UI comes across as dated. I find MC a mostly smooth operation but it would be great to see a visual revamp to reflect the new decade. 2020+1 >

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** August 12, 2020, 07:47:17 am »

If you have any specific ideas, please post them. Needs an update is hard to interpret.

michael123 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 14, 2020, 06:40:29 am »

@JimH

There is no juke-box design anymore, and it is hard not to notice. Things should be simple, aka iPhone, not android. JRiver is complex to navigate, complex to use and memorize all the menus. Hire UX expert.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #3 on:** August 14, 2020, 06:57:43 am »

Here's my two cents... I'd imagine the majority of people either prefer how JRiver Media Center looks now or don't really care about how it looks, rather how it functions. Personally, I like how it is right now, changing that to make it more like an iDevice (eww, BTW, please no) would honestly turn me off a good bit. JRiver Media Center is for power users so there's a lot of controls, buttons, menu items, etc. and trying to make things simple might actually lead to more confusion.

Besides, overhauling the GUI isn't an easy task at all, it's potentially time consuming and could take an entire development cycle to complete. And I doubt JRiver wants to invest time and money in redoing the GUI only to alienate users who prefer how it looks like, and you can't have it both ways.

The best compromise is suggesting enhancements and improvements to the existing GUI, which is what Jim means above. Honestly if you care about looks that much, perhaps you should look into things like Roon instead and maybe MC isn't for you? But remember, the reverse (having looks over features) is also true and you get what you pay for; Roon might be flashy with its GUI, but it lacks features and apparently has bugs that haven't been fixed in years. So you really can't have it both ways and you can't make everyone happy.

So what if it looks dated (which IMO it doesn't with the Modern Cards skins), I don't care as long as it works. That's what actually matters to me.

tij · « **Reply #4 on:** August 14, 2020, 07:52:58 am »

It’s been said numerous time here ... there is trade off between ease of use and amount of things you can control

More things you can control ... more options/menus you need

As @Awesome said this is geared towards power user who wants maximum control over playback

Once everything is set ... can use less imposing interfaces ... like theatre view ... JRemote

Complex program never have pretty interfaces ... they have functional ones ... AutoCAD, Photoshop, Visual Studio

Great example of messing with interfaces and making it look prettier at the cost of harder to use is MS Office ... I still hate that ribbon UI after so many years

That being said ... Theatre View and JRemote can have improvements ... and specifically imo ability to search MC database using all those wonderful tags we so painstakingly put together

wishyouwerehere · « **Reply #5 on:** August 14, 2020, 08:59:24 am »

JRemote2 UI. Definitely the way forward to my eyes. Full colour. 100% functional. Uncluttered. Plain and simple. A joy to use. Easy on the eye. Windows 10 MC27 version would look great with a similar UI.
Skins such as Aruba, Blue Steel, Green Eyes, Pearl Baily, PixOS, Purity, Thunderstorm and Z are so visually dull. To me anyway...
Surely half-a-dozen variations of a JRemote2 UI would be nearer to being up-to-date.
Simplicity is a wonderous thing...

lepa · « **Reply #6 on:** August 14, 2020, 09:29:12 am »

Quote from: wishyouwerehere on August 14, 2020, 08:59:24 am

JRemote2 UI. Definitely the way forward to my eyes. Full colour. 100% functional. Uncluttered. Plain and simple. A joy to use. Easy on the eye. Windows 10 MC27 version would look great with a similar UI.

Sorry, I don't agree. It would work if someone else is managing the media library using powerful PC program (Oh, we have MC here!). For me MC would be useless with UI like JRemote.

JRemote is fine for playing and that is what it is designed to do. Of course that doesn't mean that both MC/TheaterView and JRemote couldn't be further developed to provide better user experience.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #7 on:** August 14, 2020, 09:29:34 am »

The JRemote UI makes sense on mobile devices because it's a remote and not meant to have all the features Media Center supports. However it would not function well on desktop devices because of all the options Media Center has in my opinion. It would get incredibly cluttered trying to integrated all the features Media Center has in a limited UI like JRemote has.

Media Center is simply not meant to be simple, it wouldn't work that way. Like I said, if all you care about is how good it looks and simplicity, perhaps Media Center isn't for you. Media Center focuses more on providing many features and options, instead of trying to be simplistic, because it can't be. However, perhaps JRiver can integrate Panel within Media Center as an additional view?

Manfred · « **Reply #8 on:** August 14, 2020, 11:08:17 am »

UI: User Interface

One should categorize the UI's

- UI for managing metadata, library etc like standard view. For the kind of functionality standard view offers there will be always a certain complexity and learning curve.
- UI for controlling MC like JRemote, Theater View

Ux: User Experience - that's what I think people are complaining about the Ux of the UI for controlling MC

- I have also an ATV 4K but I rarely use it. When it comes to Ux most people compare Ux of e.g. Infuse or roon with the Ux of the UI's for controlling MC. For example Infuse displays the last played videos in the top line of the entry screen. That's I think people are talking about or how roon shows artist/album information. There are different tastes what is better. If I am not exploring new music via roon I use to 95% MC through JRemote - its always around a sec to find what I want to play.

wishyouwerehere · « **Reply #9 on:** August 14, 2020, 02:55:36 pm »

Love all the DSP's. That's why I use it and upgrade every year. Bit perfect/perfect bit, etc. Just looks dull. Sorry. What's wrong with having a visual sweet spot to match the audio.

JimH · « **Reply #10 on:** August 14, 2020, 03:45:32 pm »

Quote from: wishyouwerehere on August 14, 2020, 02:55:36 pm

Love all the DSP's. That's why I use it and upgrade every year. Bit perfect/perfect bit, etc. Just looks dull. Sorry. What's wrong with a having a visual sweet spot to match the audio.

Can you be specific about "dull"?

wishyouwerehere · « **Reply #11 on:** August 14, 2020, 04:46:46 pm »

My use of the word "dull" means, not visually very interesting to look at. Or, with some of the skins just weird. As quoted above, some M.C.skins look so outdated they could possibly be replaced by a small selection utilising modern graphics. I don't doubt anyone to say the audio quality is equal to most or all other M.C.'s. That is why I/we use it. Personally, I am only interested in the "audio only" mode. Software moves on with refreshing new visual imagery to match. Just a thought.

gworrel · « **Reply #12 on:** August 14, 2020, 06:02:04 pm »

I haven't spent much time comparing alternatives but have come to really dislike the standard view. To me it is as if Windows did away with the desktop and opened up in File Explorer. I spend a lot of time in my home theater using JRiver to watch movies and listen to music while using a wireless keyboard with built in trackpad. Trying to navigate the scroll bars in standard view is difficult at best using a trackpad.

What JRiver needs is a "desktop" with shortcuts and configurable icons and gadgets. When I listen to music, I often go to a smartlist of 4 and 5 star selections that I have tagged over the years. Or I might just choose 100 random songs. I might also choose my most recent imports. For movies, I usually want to browse through my most recent imports. But to get there I have to click through several selections. Why not simple shortcut icons that would take me directly to my most frequent options. In smartlists, there seem to be 50 different options, most of which I never use, but they have the same priority or prominence in my choices as those that I use all the time. That makes no sense.

Dawgincontrol · « **Reply #13 on:** August 14, 2020, 06:53:26 pm »

I have come to the point whre I prefer Standard View after using Theater View for a couple of years when I first purchased MC.

There are ease of use / Quick access changes which could be improved. For instance, I would prefer not to have to toggle the tree open to access audio/video/playlists. If access could be available on the toolbar (which imo could be expanded on top and bottom to allow for such things).

Looking something like this for instance at the top:

File Edit View Player Tools Tag Options Audio Video Playlists Playing Now Help

The Audio, Video, Playlist options would expand with the same items the left tree does when toggled with a second click closing them back down. Leave the left tree toggled closed unless specifically opened. Now there is a "Playlist" icon you can put up, but what I would prefer is a dropdown list instead of what you get now, just a shortcut to add. Just an opinion.

Probably the same functionality in Theater View.

Skin expansion and customization would probably help some. I've customized mine, but the average Joe or Jill probably doesn't.

Jamil · « **Reply #14 on:** August 14, 2020, 08:26:02 pm »

I have one idea for a UI improvement related to the custom toolbar feature I learned about in this post: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,125940.msg872633.html#msg872633

When it is at the bottom or the top, it is not in an ideal location. I will mock my suggestion up in Photoshop to illustrate better places to put it for both top and bottom.

I am not a UAX analyst, but I can create mock-ups in Photoshop.

This is a minor improvement, but it would improve the current implementation for standard view skins.

yaz · « **Reply #15 on:** August 15, 2020, 12:48:28 am »

Having a dated looking UI is not a bad thing for me personally. However, the UX of JRiver is lacking for me.

I bought JRiver because I wanted to up my game and mindshare. Overall it feels a bit sluggish/clunky to use, and the extra bells/whistles don't add to the experience. Overall JRiver works great for the audio files I cannot play with Winamp.

I think an option to start JRiver without bloat would be nice. No remote, images, video, notes, playlist groups, browser, etc. Mini mode is not quite there

michael123 · « **Reply #16 on:** August 15, 2020, 01:45:08 am »

Quote from: yaz on August 15, 2020, 12:48:28 am

I think an option to start JRiver without bloat would be nice. No remote, images, video, notes, playlist groups, browser, etc. Mini mode is not quite there

What is bloat to you (or me), is not so for everybody else.
JRiver is not Winamp (hmmm. Isn't this something from 20th century?).
JRiver for me is running on a dedicated audio/video PC. Performance is very adequate even though my machine is 6 years old. Don't feel sluggish at all. Ahh, and I have anti-virus of course. No problems whatsoever

Jamil · « **Reply #17 on:** August 15, 2020, 02:02:37 am »

Quote from: yaz on August 15, 2020, 12:48:28 am

I think an option to start JRiver without bloat would be nice. No remote, images, video, notes, playlist groups, browser, etc. Mini mode is not quite there

I think this actually is a good idea. Out of all of the current features MC26 has available, I use it for just one thing-- playing music. I do not use it for anything else. It currently has many defaults to do a whole lot of stuff that I now have turned off. I do not use it for watching movies, recording anything, streaming anything, converting anything, watching television, etc.

JimH · « **Reply #18 on:** August 15, 2020, 06:11:55 am »

Quote from: yaz on August 15, 2020, 12:48:28 am

I think an option to start JRiver without bloat would be nice. No remote, images, video, notes, playlist groups, browser, etc. Mini mode is not quite there

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Simplified_Interface

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #19 on:** August 15, 2020, 07:21:31 am »

Yes, Audio Only Mode removes most if not all of the "bloat" you mentioned.

Daydream · « **Reply #20 on:** August 15, 2020, 06:04:00 pm »

No, no, no. We want the bling. We need the bling. Please put spinners on MC. Lots of them. It's well known it will sound better. And by that I mean louder, which is the same thing.

...
...
...

OK, just a bit more serious. I wouldn't say MC UX is dated, it's just stuck in doing one thing. It's functional, it works, it's been polished in time, it's fine. And there's nothing else. There are 5 views, and only Standard view scan be used for any serious work. Standard view which is Excel with Pictures. That's it. There are no statistical views (which other software much inferior to MC in every other respect, has), there is no extensive metadata views (in non-Excel mode)... The metadata editor it also stuck in Excel mode and for any tag value that is longer than 2 words the readability decreases fast.

On a different angle. People keep using descriptions (like "dated") and you guys come and ask "dated how?", "make a suggestion". That's not how it works. "From the outside looking in, you can’t understand it. And from the inside looking out, you can’t explain it." <- That's how it works. Feeling something is "dated" (or stuck, or pink with blue bubbles) it's a feeling. Nobody will take the time to explain the feeling, especially in terms that devs will understand. "You can't skin properly the tree structure on the left, you can't change the size of the search box, there are is no allowances for values XYZ for skinning variable v0, and there is no integration with non-euclidean math. Because of these all 128 inflection points of the interface score only average on any of the 6 metrics we can grade the UX on. There! It only took me 3 months of learning skinning for MC and now I can explain what I meant in a post that I only intended to spent 30 seconds with". Nobody will take the time to do that. They just tell you how they feel when they blink and they see the thing.

Let me try to drive the point home: how may times in the last decade did somebody come out to euphorically praise the UX because it's exciting, thrilling or attractive? Functional they say. Practical. Gets the job done. And then there's the small army of people who are afraid for their lives if MC gains any kind of more complex visuals, because it will snap their minds out of "Solitaire and Desktop Tower Defense" universe.

Isn't anybody there who wants to dream orange when they fly over Mars?

wishyouwerehere · « **Reply #21 on:** August 16, 2020, 02:49:11 am »

How can JRiver possibly sound better. Is it not bit perfect. To enhance MC all depends on your disposable assets tranferred into high flight audiofool equipment full of gold, precious things and snake oiling for the ultimate in the sound experience. Nice. We securely rip to Flac and download the high res files. Nice. And then have it all eloquently organised in the library ready to proceed. Nice. And then hit play to feed our ears. Nice.
The perfectly adequate HP Notebook Intel Core i5/Windows 10 Home 64-bit/JRiver MC26/Cambridge CXA 80/CXN v.2/Monitor Audio Silver 100/QED Revelation Signature cabling/Atacama Moseco, etc brings it altogether to produce a sublime sound. Nice...
Ultimately, do I really care about what MC looks like. Well, yes. Suggestion. We have paid for it.
All things Media Centre it certainly is. How about making "Audio Only" mode a distinctly seperate program and give the user that dedicated UX-UI-Yip-pee expereince. I am not interested in tv, blue ray, photo, internet radio, plugins, cloudplay, etc. People like myself are only interested in the audio so a less cluttered visual approach would be nice on the eye. I have been a fan since MC-19 and as far as I can detect there has been no changes to the UI in that time except in build 26.0.99. You cannot polish a turd but you can sprinkle it with glitter.
The universe of music is a magical and a wonderous experience, whatever your genres.
Rock on...

mattkhan · « **Reply #22 on:** August 16, 2020, 04:49:10 am »

to my mind there are multiple issues/gaps that could sit under the banner of "dated", a few of the things that could fit this label off the top of my head

1) The missing "admin" UI and associated features
* no way to see which clients are connected or the entire network of connected devices
* no way to see which streams are playing from a server
* minimal access control for specific clients
* no way to push new config to clients (or version configs and rollback)
* easy way to publicly share certain bits of config (e.g. view schemes or theatre view layouts)

2) Desktop UX for a media player (i.e. forget about the entire excel side of things)
* jremote is reasonable but only available on android/ios
* theatre view is somewhat configurable but requires reasonably in depth knowledge to get anywhere with it and (at least in my experience) invariably ends up with people dropping back to the main view when trying to use it
* standard view is not an easy thing to pick up and use
(NB: some of the UI problems could be ameliorated if it were possible to share certain configurations publicly, e.g. sharing a theatre view layout or some view scheme, and then allow users to pull those specific things into their MC instance)

3) Closed system
* database is in some custom format that is only accessible via the expression language which is a set of functions that have rather idiosyncratic behaviour at times & the excel function style to this is not conducive to doing complex things
* minimal support for plugins on c++ side, no support for plugins on web side
* no ability to use modern programming languages to interact with MC except as a wrapper for MCWS (which is itself a pretty idiosyncratic API that does not behave in a particularly standard way and covers a limited subset of the functionality exposed by the app)
* all of these points mean that MC has no ecosystem of extensions around it which arguably "modern" apps have and are designed to support

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #23 on:** August 16, 2020, 06:47:46 am »

Quote from: wishyouwerehere on August 16, 2020, 02:49:11 am

How about making "Audio Only" mode a distinctly seperate program and give the user that dedicated UX-UI expereince. I am not interested in tv, blue ray, photo, radio, plugins, cloudplay, etc. People like myself are only interested in the audio so a less cluttered visual approach would be nice on the eye.

JRiver already does two builds; 32-bit and 64-bit, for the Windows platform and I don't see them doing two more that are audio only for every release, especially when Audio Only Mode is already an option within Media Center which disables all the features like video, images, TV, etc. You can actually disable a lot of features in Media Center by going to MC's Options > General > Features and unchecking them.

wishyouwerehere · « **Reply #24 on:** August 16, 2020, 09:44:24 am »

It's FUNDAMENTALLY All About The PERFECT-BIT/BIT-PERFECT, Is'nt It...? Meat To The Beat.. LEISURES & PLEASURES...!
Classic Rock/Blues Rock/And The Other Rocks That Rock On and on (1960's/70's/80's+) After all, it's the MUSIC that MATTERS, 'tis but true...
And I have upgraded to MC's 27....
We all wait with great anticipation.... 2020+1>, and, look out for those clever graphic designers U.S.of the A.... They are everywhere....
Definitely ASIO for me. As recommended by Cambridge for the best sound reproduction....

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #25 on:** August 16, 2020, 11:49:00 am »

Huh? As long as you're not using any DSP whatsoever (including volume leveling, adaptive volume, etc.) and you're using ASIO or WASAPI exclusive, you'll output bit-perfect audio.

MagerClab · « **Reply #26 on:** August 16, 2020, 12:34:32 pm »

I don't ask Adobe's coders for a "nicer" PS GUI, and I don't ask for a "nicer" MC GUI - Such programs are tools for me, and - as with all tools - you'll get EXCELLENT results if you learn how to use them.

wishyouwerehere · « **Reply #27 on:** August 16, 2020, 01:22:48 pm »

Cripes... Seven years in on the excellent JRiver MC and "bit-perfect" is but thee ultimate audio perfection, is'nt it. Discovered that during day/week one. With predicted excellent audio results.
A tool is very useful. There are so many in Tools > "Options" > Audio > General > Media Network > etc, etc on the MC to fiddle with, and, indeed I have. Even a DSP. Not to mention those Convolutions.
That is not my question. See as above.
God had a rest after seven days.
And then so we relax...

lepa · « **Reply #28 on:** August 16, 2020, 01:23:01 pm »

Firefox for Android just "modernized" its GUI. I see mostly one star reviews for it on my language pages.

yaz · « **Reply #29 on:** August 16, 2020, 02:21:57 pm »

Quote from: JimH on August 15, 2020, 06:11:55 am

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Simplified_Interface

Appreciate the link Jim, and I will be giving this a shot this evening.

Quote from: michael123 on August 15, 2020, 01:45:08 am

What is bloat to you (or me), is not so for everybody else.
JRiver is not Winamp (hmmm. Isn't this something from 20th century?).
JRiver for me is running on a dedicated audio/video PC. Performance is very adequate even though my machine is 6 years old. Don't feel sluggish at all. Ahh, and I have anti-virus of course. No problems whatsoever

I know my expectations and/or wants could be meaningless which is why I added a disclaimer. Also,
what you think is snappy could be what I think is sluggish. Winamp may be old, but hey it still works

--

My apologies for not reading the wiki. Should have searched for a solution instead of settling for what I had. It might be nice to get a tooltip/dialog recommending audio only mode (e.g, opening mini mode for the first time). Obviously irrelevant for me now, but it may be useful for others
Edit: Nevermind, I actually had audio only enabled. I did disable several extra features I was not using

lepa · « **Reply #30 on:** August 16, 2020, 03:43:10 pm »

Quote from: yaz on August 16, 2020, 02:21:57 pm

..."I want to collapse side panel"...

Just double click the border betweeb the panels to collapse left panel

yaz · « **Reply #31 on:** August 16, 2020, 06:08:34 pm »

Awesome, thanks! Startup Interface -> Mode: Last Exit View launches the application with the panel collapsed

wishyouwerehere · « **Reply #32 on:** August 17, 2020, 05:47:35 pm »

Please, please do not go anywhere near that Graphical User Interface (GUI) on the MC. A male, female or a team of experienced GUI designers would relish the thought of designing a refreshing new look. What's to lose. As a result you may even find an increase in the subs base. Good for the future and beyond. Be brave and start the adventure.
It is still bit-perfect. With or without the tools.

tij · « **Reply #33 on:** August 18, 2020, 12:06:10 am »

Quote from: wishyouwerehere on August 17, 2020, 05:47:35 pm

What's to lose.

lol ... time and money of course

back in the days i did a logical circuit simulator for my engineering degree with GUI to place and connect components.

GUI took 95% of time to do ... so its certanly not easy

wishyouwerehere · « **Reply #34 on:** August 18, 2020, 08:16:07 am »

No one said it would be easy to accomplish any new refreshing GUI's.
Just a brave new adventure.
O.K....
I will stop suggestions from now on.
I will carry on with the "bit-perfect" and enjoy....
Look forward to the new surprises in MC27.
Rock On and on....

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Author Topic: UI comes across as dated (Read 4836 times)