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[Marko]

6. Action Window navigation.
From AW home, click on "file properties" and we see a sub-menu (tag info, image, file type info etc etc) Go into any of these views, then click "back". Instead of going back to the "file properties" menu, it goes back to AW home.

This is by design.  Sorry.  It's less confusing for new users and a small price to pay for more experienced users.

You have to be kidding right?
Even a new user would expect "back" to do just that. ie, go back one step. Surely it's more confusing when "back" actually doesn't do this, it goes "home" instead.?

[JimH]

I'm serious.  It isn't going to change.  Get yourself a wrist bandage.  You'll need to make the extra click.

[Marko]

[Marko]

As tlongacre might not make it back within an hour or so, I took the liberty of quoting him here.

Wow, Jim, I could not disagree more. Personally I was totally confused when I clicked what clearly appears to be a "back" button and it did not take me "back" to where I had come from but all the way to the beginning.

This is completely counter-intuitive. Every single time it happens, I have to stop and think and look at where I am and figure out how to get back to where I was. It feels like walking into a room in my house, then when I walk out of the room, I am not in my house, but outside, and quite surprised.

And it is not a small price to pay. This is a major PITA if you are actually trying to edit things. Why do you put that selection of things in the File Properties window? Is it not because they somehow all go together? Except the way this is working now, you cannot use them together!

Besides. I can always get directly back to the Action Window because it never disappears. If I go into Image or Tag Info, there is the Action Window, one click away, right below it. But I cannot get back to use any other File Properties.

I only make this quote because it shows that I'm not alone in my incredulity. My own personal feelings are that this impending release has made a number of changes to help new users that are so counter-intuitive it's hard to see how they could possibly not be confusing.
One of the first things a new user does is learn their way around internet explorer. It's less than a day before they are familiar with what the "back" button does. Then along comes MC which changes the command to really mean "home".
How is that more intuitive and less confusing ?

I also feel that this discussion is as pointless as any other regarding MC and how it does things these days. The decision has been made and that's that.
Changed days for sure ?

Please tell me that all this "online" stuff that's driving things atm will be config'ble when it goes live. ie. Will those of us who will never, ever use such things be able to turn it off, completely? One of the things that drove me towards MC was the simple fact that it was software for managing and playing your media files, not a sales machine like all the other big players.
-marko.

[Matt]

We watched this repeatedly confuse people in a usability lab so we changed it.

If you're going to use an AW again, just leave it open.

Is it really that big of a deal?

[Marko]

>>> If you're going to use an AW again, just leave it open.

Am I missing something here? What does this statement mean?

at the moment say, I have a list of files and I want to see the tag info window, so, I click "file properties" then "tag info". All is well. I now wish to see the images associated with this same selection of files, so, I know it's there, just below "file type info" on the previous menu, so I click "back".......

What am I doing wrong?

[JimH]

Marko,
Alt-Enter will get you Tag Info.

Try this.

Open Image Window.

Now click Alt-Enter.

Repeat.

[Matt]

If you're using two pages a lot (images and file properties in your example) then open them both and leave them open while you run the program.  Then they're one click away no matter where you are.

Otherwise, you'll have to do the extra click.

[Marko]

Seriously, if I need to rethink my entire approach to the AW, I'm willing to learn. It's just that atm, in this here "useability lab" it's just irritating.

How do you use yours? <--- (humerous take on a sweetie ad here in UK) Link to sweetie page

and also, thank you (jim and matt) for replying.

[Marko]

You both beat me there, that last post should have been before you!!

OK, I'm now playing with the action window....

"open them both" ahhhhh, I see what you mean now...

[jleerigby]

I'm certainly not going to lose sleep over this one but I think Marko is right to point this out.  He's upholding the principle, and I reckon many newbies will agree, that back should mean back.  I just don't understand the results of that usability test. Anyhow isn't this forum a sort of UAT?  It's not a big deal but surely a newbie will not get confused if back goes back one step and back again goes back to home.

I like the way that you don't see a navigation button if you are already at home.  I'd just like to see a back button go back and a home symbol go to home.

[JimH]

I just don't understand the results of that usability test. Anyhow isn't this forum a sort of UAT?  

I'm starting to think of it as more of a UFO.

[jleerigby]

I'm starting to think of it as more of a UFO.

Now that would clear things up.  It certainly sounds like the testers may have been from another planet.

[tlongacre]

Wow, I've never had this experience with J River before. We, the users, the beta testers, have no say in this? Why did you bother opening a separate thread then?

Did we do something to piss you off?

If you were Microsoft, I would have expected this, but I'm pretty shocked. But I guess none of that matters to you.

[EpF]

Without wanting to associate myself  with the sentiment expressed in the last post by tlongacre, AND having gotten used to the functioning of the AW now, I just wanted to say that as a newbie I immediately found that the AW did exactly what I expected it to do when I started using MC (v10.0.38).  I was confused by the inconsistency of 'back' not meaning 'back' in the AW (as it does everywhere else in the program), when that was changed...  But like I said, I'm used to it now.  I think that if you're computer-literate but new to MC, the inconsistency will confuse you at first.

I do think that the new stacking feature of the AW is very useful - maybe the icon on the AW shouldn't be a backarrow, but a home icon, making it clear where it leads to...  

BTW, why is there no horizontal scrollbar above the AW?  (I know this doesn't belong here, but it seems related).  If you're drilling down to a folder in My Computer, you can end up having to continuously expand the left pane, which quickly becomes a right pain (! - sorry, couldn't help it!), and have to rearrange every thing again when you're finished...  I'd love it if I *never* had to change the width of main content pane.

[Marko]

OK, so putting all the "back" and "home" issues aside, this actually works quite well. It's only shortfall is that it doesn't remember its state across sessions.

Any chance of working that into it somehow?
Please

[Matt]

OK, so putting all the "back" and "home" issues aside, this actually works quite well

Hehe.

Any chance of working that into it somehow?

It's more complicated than you might think.  Maybe in 10.1.

[Quisp]

Actually the point about making the back button a home button was a good one (as I recal, I think there is one from an older version lying around somewhere), nothing like an icon that does what it looks like it will do. Granted, there may be some differences of opinion about what constitutes a "home", but....

[RhinoBanga]

We watched this repeatedly confuse people in a usability lab so we changed it.

Do these people use browsers too?

The concept of back taking you to the last place you visited is ingrained into the mindset of hundreds of millions of browser users worldwide.

Change it to home or something, but don't call it back.

[Matt]

There isn't a back button on the tag info window.  When the back button is there, it goes back.

[RhinoBanga]

Correct, but you still recognises my mouse "back" button on screens that don't have it so I expect it to behave as such.

[EpF]

Yes, the only way I used the AW was with the mouse 'back' button, never the icon.  So maybe the icon IS the issue, and the mouse action should function as 'back', as per normal browser usage.

BTW;

OK, so putting all the "back" and "home" issues aside, this actually works quite well

Hehe.

This discussion is called "AW Navigation" after all, so putting 'back' and 'home' issues aside is kinda missing the point - although I agree that the AW remembering states accross sessions would be great...  

[tlongacre]

There isn't a back button on the tag info window.  When the back button is there, it goes back.

Here's a suggestion that I think will at least make it clearer that the button that used to go back does not do that.

Currently there is a button that looks like this:

/\
\/

And what it does is close the AW you are currently looking at. So, why not make that look like this:

X

like other "Close" buttons in Windows.

At least for me, I'd stop thinking it should do something other than close the window I'm looking at.

[Matt]

It is an 'X' in the newer builds of MC 10.

[tlongacre]

It is an 'X' in the newer builds of MC 10.

Ah, great minds think alike <g>. Haven't downloaded .74 yet, so I didn't see this.

[tlongacre]

Hmm, in my version of .74, the "close" button on any Action Window is NOT an X but /\
         \/  I only even know it is a "close" button because if I hold my mouse over it for a second a little tool tip comes up and says "close". But it is definitely not an X.