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[Lespaul]

Ok guys, the new version is out.

As mentioned in the release notes, I expect there to be a few bugs in this initial release.
I am eager to fix these as soon as possible, so please report back here or contact me directly.

Also, please report any performance issues. I initially had partial transparency for top and bottom bars on the iPad version,
but decided to drop that since only the latest iPad Air performed reasonably well.

[tyler69]

Thanks for this nice app. Newest version runs fine on an iPad Air & iPhone4s until now. After the update, my server was lost so I had to connect again, no big problem.
Maybe you can help me out with two things though:

1. Is it planned to make streaming MKV files possible?
2. Is it possible to add a "trackpad" functionality to the "Remote" part of the app?

Thank you.

[glynor]

Ok guys, the new version is out.

Oooooh.  Shiny.

Well, good.  My JRemote had been working entirely too well lately, making my beta-testing-muscle twitch.  I'll get on it asap.

[FastKayak]

First impression - I could maybe skip the new font....maybe it will grow on me!  The changes to the GUI, especially the playing now progress bar look excellent.

The couple of v2.x bugs I reported seem eradicated.  Overall, a very positive impression.

FastKayak / Larry

PS  Welcome to the JRiver team.

[cgf]

Ok guys, the new version is out.

As mentioned in the release notes, I expect there to be a few bugs in this initial release.
I am eager to fix these as soon as possible, so please report back here or contact me directly.

Also, please report any performance issues. I initially had partial transparency for top and bottom bars on the iPad version,
but decided to drop that since only the latest iPad Air performed reasonably well.

First impressions, UI excellent, very fast on my IPad Air. I will come when I have some working experience.

[Zero_G]

Feels snappy on my iPad Air.  Nice job.

[locust]

Really like it haven't had much time to play around with it.

The one thing happened that made me panic, adding authentication, I thought it was broken I kept tapping on the Username & Password text & it wouldn't let me enter the required data. Luckily though I eventually tapped to the right and it worked. Perhaps make the text tappable would be good. Being a lefty it's just intuitive for me to tap furthermost left.

When streaming to device, if you play audio then immediately go and play video the video will play but the audio will also continue as well. Another note when you drill down in video you can't just press and play you have to long press, intentional?

I hope the video get some tlc like an option that when an item is clicked it drills down to another level showing the movie cover or tv image with a few key tags like description.

If using expressions for video like [Episode]//[Name] Delimit(Watched(2), , / ) it adds an extra drill down grouping that one particular file by itself. Is this avoidable? If not, more so the reason I'd like to see the description tag included with an optional drill down.

Will keep playing great work can't wait to see whats next

[Zero_G]

When in the dark theme the search text field is dark type on dark background.

[sunfire7]

Nice update LesPaul  

Tested on iPhone 5s and iPad Air, I liked the new GUI except the progress bar is too flat for my taste, as other said I hope it will grow up on me.

The "Wake" button that appears when you cannot connect its a very nice feature, it works only in LAN, do you think you can implemented for Wan?? (I have port 9 open).

[rikard]

The new version looks great! Lovely work and again the main reason for me to use JRiver... and I think it's awesome that you're joining the JRiver team!

I had an idea which would probably be a quite small change yesterday which I think would be nice... I'm most of the time using the "Play all now" or "Play all next" modes. What if you were automatically transfered to the the "Playing now" screen when using those modes, which is a much nicer view of what's going on... and when the album or playlist has finished, it could close again. Maybe an optional feature, but I think it would be sweet....

Cheers!

[Fred1]

Does the new version overwrite the old one or can i test it without losing my working version of JRemote?

[Lespaul]

1. Is it planned to make streaming MKV files possible?
2. Is it possible to add a "trackpad" functionality to the "Remote" part of the app?

Thank you.

Streaming transcoded video is something I will start work on for the next version. It is also something I have tried before
without success. I know the JRiver guys have done a lot of work in this area, so I may just get it to work now.

Regarding a trackpad functionality, I am afraid you need to explain that a bit. A new theater remote is also something I plan to implement very soon.

First impression - I could maybe skip the new font....maybe it will grow on me!  The changes to the GUI, especially the playing now progress bar look excellent.

The font is pretty much the default font for iOS. Do you mean in general or a specific part of the app?

The one thing happened that made me panic, adding authentication, I thought it was broken I kept tapping on the Username & Password text & it wouldn't let me enter the required data. Luckily though I eventually tapped to the right and it worked. Perhaps make the text tappable would be good. Being a lefty it's just intuitive for me to tap furthermost left.

When streaming to device, if you play audio then immediately go and play video the video will play but the audio will also continue as well. Another note when you drill down in video you can't just press and play you have to long press, intentional?

I hope the video get some tlc like an option that when an item is clicked it drills down to another level showing the movie cover or tv image with a few key tags like description.

If using expressions for video like [Episode]//[Name] Delimit(Watched(2), , / ) it adds an extra drill down grouping that one particular file by itself. Is this avoidable? If not, more so the reason I'd like to see the description tag included with an optional drill down.

Will keep playing great work can't wait to see whats next

Great feedback. Need to make the whole username/password areas clickable. Long press is not intentional on videos, I will look at that. Will make sure to stop sound playback when starting video.
I will admit that video has not been a first priority so far, much more can be done to make that experience better.

When in the dark theme the search text field is dark type on dark background.

Always? If you restart the app, is it also dark?

The "Wake" button that appears when you cannot connect its a very nice feature, it works only in LAN, do you think you can implemented for Wan?? (I have port 9 open).

It should also work for WAN connections, the wake call is sent to all saved addresses.
But actually there is a "bug" here. Even if you add a connection using IP address, that IP address may be overwritten later. So make sure the IP address is still the same as you initially entered.

Does the new version overwrite the old one or can i test it without losing my working version of JRemote?

yes, it will replace the old version

[tyler69]

Thanks for replying. What I mean by trackpad is that you can use your finger on your device to move the mouse cursor around (Rowmote offers something like that).

Until now, when I want to change some settings for example, I have to exit JRemote and open up a VNC Viewer in order to move the mouse through the settings.

[dtb300]

Nice improvement for Playing Now when not in Landscape mode.

Nice improvement in Connection information (when you cannot connect)- bet it cuts down on questions

Nice improvement with the controls on the bottom of the screen.

Possible Bug:   Have one song playing (one song in playlist) and change selection to "1+" to add song to playlist.  When I select a song to add, it starts to play instead of being added.

Features:  When will auto Zone Switching be added - manual now.  (did not look in configuration yet)
Features:  I have not tried it with new version, did streaming music to device get addressed?  If I remember right playback stopping with an error after the first song.

[locust]

Long press is not intentional on videos, I will look at that.

More details, it's only happening if I use an expression in the view such as the [Episode]//[Name] Delimit(Watched(2), , / ), no expressions & it works ok

Ah whoops, the expression is grouping the files as it's category based, I don't think there is a way around this?

[6233638]

Nice update. Iʼm not sure that I like the misaligned volume and seek bar, but I also donʼt have a better suggestion for that right now.
One thing Iʼve noticed—and itʼs not new to this version—is that seeking through videos only uses high-speed seeking. I canʼt move my finger up or down to have finer control.
 
While the update has been done in the spirit of iOS 7, I would like to see it expanded to use a more native colorscheme, and follow the HIG a bit closer.
 
Using system colors on window controls, and only adding borders where the system apps do feels a lot more “native.”

• Current Colors
• System Colors

 
Please be consistent with using the accent color on controls.
Drawing your own system widgets (e.g. clock) to preserve alignment looks a lot better, in my opinion. (edit: or remove it to free up some space)
Iʼm not a fan of the wireframe playback controls at all.

Hereʼs an updated main view incorporating these changes, and a native colorscheme:

• Current Colors
• System Colors

 
Some things may look a little wiry, but thatʼs only because I didnʼt want to spend too much time with Photoshop to properly anti-alias my selections, and downscaled to hide a lot of that. Here it is at full resolution.
 
The A-Z down the right-hand size now seems to only display every third letter, rather than the full list.
It seems like the top & bottom panes should be transparent?
 
The currently playing zone is pushed to the top of the list, rather than being highlighted in the list as it previously was.
Controls like this should have a fixed position rather than moving.
 
Edit: Another suggestion; perhaps you could combine the buffer and playback bars? Have it so that the vertical bar indicates progress, and the background color indicates buffer size, rather than using two bars.

The one thing happened that made me panic, adding authentication, I thought it was broken I kept tapping on the Username & Password text & it wouldn't let me enter the required data. Luckily though I eventually tapped to the right and it worked. Perhaps make the text tappable would be good. Being a lefty it's just intuitive for me to tap furthermost left.

Happened to me as well. The whole thing should be a button if that's possible, and a lot of apps let you switch between fields via the keyboard too.

[locust]

I'm experiencing a bug, to reproduce, goto playing now, make sure thumbnails are set to automatic, load a playlist composed of different artists. Then go back to main audio view, first you have to swipe in the playing now window or the bug won't happen. Now play an album of the same artist. The thumbnails should have disappeared from the swipe in playing now list but instead they show images of the tracks of the initial loaded playlist, only a force close seems to get rid of them.

An idea, see the old swipe up playlist, now that it only shows the track there, could we possibly still have a swipe up window as a quick way to add the current track to a playlist. But also in the swipe up window it could store the two most recent used playlists (Internally within JRemote) to save on constant folder navigation.

[sunfire7]

It should also work for WAN connections, the wake call is sent to all saved addresses.
But actually there is a "bug" here. Even if you add a connection using IP address, that IP address may be overwritten later. So make sure the IP address is still the same as you initially entered.

Thank you for the suggestion, I re-added my server using access key and wol is working over wan, I don't know why it wasn't working earlier.

One feature I would like would be an "offline" mode (similar to spotify or rdio), when connected to a server, a button to be able to "download" a song for offline use, and an "offline available" button on playlist to be able to do automatically offline sync. This would be great when no internet is available or you want to save bandwith.

A better and smarter bitrate section.  Currently it transcoded all files to mp3, even lossy AAC's.  I'd like an option to be able to only transcode lossless files.  Also a larger selection of bitrate quality, lame variable profiles would be awesome.

For the video section improvement, Look at the app called "Air Video HD".  It measures your bandwith with the server and choose an appropriate transcode profile.  When I'm in my LAN it actually just transcode the DTS audio of my mkv's leaving the video intact. This process it's instantaneous. You can also download an offline copy of your videos to view later when not home.  It's pretty great app, and I love to have those features in JRemote!

I hope not sounding too demanding, just sharing what I think would make the program more complete and feature-rich.

[David R. Williams]

How does one resize album thumbnails in thumbnail view?

The standard size is nice for viewing a reasonable size of album artwork, but is too narrow for me to see the full album name for most of my classical albums.

[datdude]

Love the new interface. Visually appealing.

One interesting effect is when scrolling a list with double transparency layers. So if you are in playing now and click to see the list, then scroll up or down, the top and bottom bars 'flicker' as the list goes underneath them (which is also transparent showing the album art beneath that). I found that a bit distracting.

It is difficult to get back to the 'home' screen and Settings particularly if you are buried deep in nested views. Can we make this fewer clicks / gestures somehow?

After clicking the search field you cannot back out. You have to type something, click Done, and then click something in the list to get the keyboard to go away. It would be nice to just have a 'keyboard' icon that you can tap to make it go away and return the focus of the cursor to the list instead of the search field. Same way as the normal iOS keyboard works.

List style customizations are not saved after JRemote restarts. When you click the grid in the upper right hand corner to change from details, to thumbnails, etc... it works, but then if you close the app and then return, its right back to the default list style.

View changes made on the JRiver MC server under options are not immediately applied until either MC is restarted, or your click the Your Servers icon multiple times (at least 5-10) times and eventually the updates are applied. Same thing for smartlists that are dynamic. They do not update unless I do one of the previously mentioned methods. I've reported this before and told this should not be happening. So that must mean something is wacky on my system. Does the updating rely on a Windows service or setting that somehow is messed up?  Its very frustrating because I have dozens of dynamic smartlists that I would love to use with JRemote. In either case, it would be awesome to have a 'rubber band' feature where you can take any smartlist or view scheme, drag it down then release, and it automatically forces the server to send the latest stuff. Exactly like Ctrl F5 would do on Windows.

Of course I hope to one day see realtime transcoding of movies in different formats to be playable on the remote device!!!!

That's all I got for now! Great job and can't wait to see what comes next.  I will be doing Ctrl F5 on this thread for the next few weeks I have a feeling. :-)

[paul.raulerson]

Well, I am very pleased to see you making some updates. Issuing the new version really relieved my fear that you were going to just disappear and orphan the app. That update just made my day!

THANK YOU for adding streaming AIFF files - every time I forgot with the old version and tried to stream an AIFF file without transcoding, the app would crash. You should update the notes on the settings screen to indicate AIFF is streamable now.

Also, some notes about what is in the update would be nice... (grin)

All in all, you made a great produce even better!

-Paul

Ok guys, the new version is out.

As mentioned in the release notes, I expect there to be a few bugs in this initial release.
I am eager to fix these as soon as possible, so please report back here or contact me directly.

Also, please report any performance issues. I initially had partial transparency for top and bottom bars on the iPad version,
but decided to drop that since only the latest iPad Air performed reasonably well.

[jrdiandrea]

I know this is a stupid question to most but....for global access..... What address should be entered here?

[sunfire7]

I know this is a stupid question to most but....for global access..... What address should be entered here?

Your external Ip address, in case you want to access from outside your lan (don't forget to open port 52199 on your router).  This field auto-fills if you set up your server with an access key

[nickba]

Just installed the new version!! Testing on IPad 4.

Great UI!! But I noticed the changing covers animation is not so smooth anymore.
Here are some simple changes that I think would make it better:

1- Change the splash screen to a dark one when using the dark theme.
2- Add an option to the settings to enable/disable the background color changing according to the cover art.
3- Add an option to the settings to add custom buttons to be used to launch other apps(just a configurable URL) to integrate with automation.

[Dr Tone]

Comments on the slide out currently playing:

1) It snaps out a little too fast, a little slower and smoother would be better.
2) Is album art suppose to show?  It isn't for me.

[Zero_G]

I can confirm that the search box text keeps switching back to dark in the dark theme.  Also the now playing screen is very high contrast in dark theme.  iPad Air
Some of my library now shows nothing in the file section where the songs should be.  Gizmo and MC see them fine.  Still trying to sort this one out.

[glynor]

Well, I am very pleased to see you making some updates. Issuing the new version really relieved my fear that you were going to just disappear and orphan the app. That update just made my day!

Definitely not:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=89065.0

[toomanybarts]

I finally succumbed and bought an ipad air.  Does this new version of JRemote output High Rez Audio or does it still limit the output?
 - Remember this was a bug in the last versions that lespaul was looking at?
(I havent bought the new lightning connector camera kit to connect to my external dac yet...it would be wasted money if the s/w doesnt output it fully?)

[6233638]

I finally succumbed and bought an ipad air.  Does this new version of JRemote output High Rez Audio or does it still limit the output?

I can't even get it to stream cd-quality ALAC most of the time, everything has to be converted to 320kbps MP3.

[Zero_G]

I have found the common denominator for the files that are not showing up to be mp3 format.  The album covers show but there are no files showing once you try to play an album.  Flac, wma and wav all show files and play fine.  iPad Air iOS 7.1.1

It appears that CBR 256 mp3 isn't showing up, at least that's what I have found so far.

[gtener]

Been using this app since the beginning and love it. But, I have to say the IOS7 version is not yet my favourite iteration. The bottom bar is extremely cluttered and I miss the playing now slide out in album and artist view. I don't use volume control because I rely on the preamp for this so I wish there was an option to not have this. Hopefully, as this evolves it cleans up.

[Lespaul]

Been using this app since the beginning and love it. But, I have to say the IOS7 version is not yet my favourite iteration. The bottom bar is extremely cluttered and I miss the playing now slide out in album and artist view. I don't use volume control because I rely on the preamp for this so I wish there was an option to not have this. Hopefully, as this evolves it cleans up.

The playlist view has been moved to the right hand side. You access it by swiping in from the right edge. I have more plans for this view though, consider it an early version.

Regarding the bottom bar, it`s very hard to get perfect. I have spent quite a bit of time figuring out the best placement of controls,
but I`m sure there will be more changes here as time goes by.

[Lespaul]

Nice update. Iʼm not sure that I like the misaligned volume and seek bar, but I also donʼt have a better suggestion for that right now.
One thing Iʼve noticed—and itʼs not new to this version—is that seeking through videos only uses high-speed seeking. I canʼt move my finger up or down to have finer control.

Variable seeking is something I plan to implement.
 

While the update has been done in the spirit of iOS 7, I would like to see it expanded to use a more native colorscheme, and follow the HIG a bit closer.

I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the native iOS7 apps. I do think I have mostly followed the HIG though, there are no guidelines on what colors you should or should not use.
I appreciate you taking the time to show me how you would prefer it, but I`m not sure i personally agree.

The A-Z down the right-hand size now seems to only display every third letter, rather than the full list.
It seems like the top & bottom panes should be transparent?

The A-Z list will look like that if iOS think that it does not have room to display all letters. I have found the list to behave a bit weird though, will look at it when time permits.
Top and bottom was semi-transparant up till the very end. I decided to remove it for performance reasons. The iPhone version still have transparant bars though.

 

The currently playing zone is pushed to the top of the list, rather than being highlighted in the list as it previously was.
Controls like this should have a fixed position rather than moving.
 

This is not new, it was the same in the last version. It was moved to better visualize the zones that are linked together. I agree it`s not optimal.

[Lespaul]

1- Change the splash screen to a dark one when using the dark theme.
2- Add an option to the settings to enable/disable the background color changing according to the cover art.
3- Add an option to the settings to add custom buttons to be used to launch other apps(just a configurable URL) to integrate with automation.

Yes, an option to turn off the background color animation is ready for the next version. I may also tone down the actual color change.
Nr 3 will be added to an upcoming version.
Not sure what you mean with 1. All screens should already be dark if using the dark theme.

[Lespaul]

It is difficult to get back to the 'home' screen and Settings particularly if you are buried deep in nested views. Can we make this fewer clicks / gestures somehow?

Are you talking about the iPhone or iPad version? Settings are always available from the slide-out menu on the iPhone. On the iPad you have to first go back in the left menu and then tap the settings icon. So 2 actions either way.
If you are deep in a hierarchy you can just tap again on your current location in the left menu, and it will navigate to the first view.

After clicking the search field you cannot back out. You have to type something, click Done, and then click something in the list to get the keyboard to go away. It would be nice to just have a 'keyboard' icon that you can tap to make it go away and return the focus of the cursor to the list instead of the search field. Same way as the normal iOS keyboard works.

You should be able to dismiss the search view by just starting scrolling. I know there are some issues here, for example if the list is emty you can`t scroll.
I`ll look into adding a button for dismissal.

List style customizations are not saved after JRemote restarts. When you click the grid in the upper right hand corner to change from details, to thumbnails, etc... it works, but then if you close the app and then return, its right back to the default list style.

This is because the ID`s of the views may differ between every connection, so there is no point in saving their preferred view mode.

View changes made on the JRiver MC server under options are not immediately applied until either MC is restarted, or your click the Your Servers icon multiple times (at least 5-10) times and eventually the updates are applied. Same thing for smartlists that are dynamic. They do not update unless I do one of the previously mentioned methods. I've reported this before and told this should not be happening. So that must mean something is wacky on my system. Does the updating rely on a Windows service or setting that somehow is messed up?  Its very frustrating because I have dozens of dynamic smartlists that I would love to use with JRemote. In either case, it would be awesome to have a 'rubber band' feature where you can take any smartlist or view scheme, drag it down then release, and it automatically forces the server to send the latest stuff. Exactly like Ctrl F5 would do on Windows.

I believe this is because MC takes a bit of time before view changes are available for third party clients.

[rossp]

Images will only play on 'This Device' regardless of what zone you select. This bug was fixed a while ago but has re-emerged.

Ross

[rossp]

I can confirm that this is an issue with JRemote. It should only display images locally when current zone is "This device".
A fix will be included in an upcoming version.

Needs fixing in this version.

Ross

[6233638]

Variable seeking is something I plan to implement.

Excellent. It's fine for short videos, but quite frustrating to seek through longer videos right now. (as it doesn't seem to resume my position from where I left off, on the PC)
 

I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the native iOS7 apps. I do think I have mostly followed the HIG though, there are no guidelines on what colors you should or should not use.

Well essentially, you're supposed to choose one bright key color for anything that is interactive because that stands out on a plain background and makes it clear which items are buttons/controls.
 
In the left sidebar and on the pause button you're using blue (though not the system blue) but everywhere else you're using gray on gray, which blends in rather than stands out. These elements don't signal that they are buttons.
 
It's strange, because I have been using JRemote for a while and not much of the layout has changed, but every time I launch the new version to make a quick change I find myself pausing and looking over the screen for a moment before going "Oh, it's right there!" every time.
 

I appreciate you taking the time to show me how you would prefer it, but I`m not sure i personally agree.

To me, I think it shows that you are not a fan of how iOS 7 apps look, because it seems that you have followed some of the cues (flattened many parts of the UI, and changed to wireframe icons) but not all of them, which - to me - makes it feel less "native" to iOS than the previous version of JRemote which seemed to fit in well with the iOS 6 style.
 
Compared to other iOS7 apps, the "light" theme feels comparatively dull - more like a flattened iOS 6 app, than a bright, fresh-looking iOS 7 app.
I don't mean this to be a criticism of what you've done with JRemote 3, just, I don't think that it feels like an iOS 7 app to me - and it's mainly just color choices I'm complaining about, not anything else about the design of the app.
 
Would it be possible to offer Light/Dark/"Native" themes, or side-loading custom themes via iTunes? (perhaps as a zip file)
I don't know how the app is structured, but it seems like a theme could be reduced to an XML file and a handful of icons.
 
One thing I will complain about though, is the wireframe playback controls. Even if you don't want to change their color, or anything else, I think primary controls like that should be solid in appearance. Even Apple does this.
 

The A-Z list will look like that if iOS think that it does not have room to display all letters. I have found the list to behave a bit weird though, will look at it when time permits.

Perhaps it's a bug. Here's an image I got from a quick Google search, showing how it was in the previous version.
And this is how it looks in the new one. (removed the covers to shrink the image size)
It's not filling the full height any more, which is limiting what it can display.

Top and bottom was semi-transparant up till the very end. I decided to remove it for performance reasons. The iPhone version still have transparant bars though.

Is it possible to enable this based on the device? I'm using an iPad Air which should not have any trouble with this.

This is not new, it was the same in the last version. It was moved to better visualize the zones that are linked together. I agree it`s not optimal.

Ah, I see. I don't know how I missed it before.
All my zones have their ID at the front (e.g. 0. Audio, 1. Video, 2. Doctor etc.) so it's quite confusing when the list reorganizes itself.

[Lespaul]

Well, if you look at many of the other third party apps you will see that quite a lot of them shy away from using bright colored buttons.
Also, the "System blue" color that you speak of are not meant to be used in all apps. You can see yourself that the native apps all use a different color to distinguish itself.

To tell you the truth, when starting the iOS7 redesign all the buttons etc in JRemote used the blue color that are now used only for some play controls etc. I found that this was too busy, and the fact that your eyes are always drawn to those buttons even if you do not intend to use them.

You can argue that the buttons are now less visible than they were before, and I may agree. I still think that it`s better than using bright colors everywhere. Maybe I will find a way to make them more visible.

Also, while apple prefers bright background colors bordering on completely white, I personally find it really hard on the eyes after a while.
It may be because I am getting older, but the "dull" colors are definitely intentional.

I think I may actually give an option to use bright button and icon colors though. I agree that some people will absolutely prefer it.

Regarding wireframe buttons, I think they look pretty good on a dark background. On the light theme, maybe not so much. I may change that at least for that theme.

Semi-transparent bars will be added as a setting soon so you can try it yourself.


 

[mwheelerk]

If this is not proper to publish a topic on JRemote here please feel free to move or delete.

JRemote is a great remote app to use with JRiver. In my opinion the best out there. This past Tuesday a major upgrade version was put out. I'm not totally thrilled with it but that just might be me.

1. The whole theme has been redesigned to more approximate the look of Apple iOS 7 but why I can't imagine. Though I have come to get use to the flat dimensionless look of the iOS I have never come to like it and now JRemote has followed suit.

2. My largest complaint is with the color scheme on the "Playing Now" page. Previously the background color was fixed to a fairly neutral gray color. This is excellent for viewing artwork and provide the most accurate display of color. Now this page takes a cue from iTunes and iOS 7 where the primarily colors of the artwork create a kaleidoscope of color background for the page. I simply feel it detracts from the quality of presentation overall.

3.  On the left side of the "Playing Now" page is your list of songs with a thumbnails of artwork. The color scheme is carried through to a lesser extent. However there is a "sound wave" icon next to the currently playing song. That icon will move down to the next playing song and continue to do so but when it reaches the end of the visible page it moves out of sight. Previously the list of songs would scroll upward to continue to reveal the current playing song. Now you have to manually scroll to re-reveal the current and upcoming songs.

4. Finally, at the bottom left and right of this page there are -30s, -60s and +30s, +60s which for the life of me I cannot see real value in and in my opinion just adds clutter to the appearance of the page.

I do prefer the crisper cleaner look of the legacy version and these aren't mission critical issues to me. This is still the best remote app out there to me. I suppose like the dull iOS 7 itself and the lifeless iTunes itself I would get use to it. Please JRiver as you continue to improve JRiver for Mac keep the vibrant look and don't take it to these lifeless designs.

[Lespaul]

I am planning to release a new version this weekend with bug fixes.
Also, a couple of new features:

- You can now change audio device output for each zone. This will be available from the current zones dialog. (MC19 only)
- I added an option for tracking the current zone in JRiver. It will check the current zone on the server after a new track has started and switch if different.

[6233638]

Well, if you look at many of the other third party apps you will see that quite a lot of them shy away from using bright colored buttons.

I suppose it depends on what apps you're using. JRemote is the only "updated for iOS7" app I have which does not follow this.

Also, the "System blue" color that you speak of are not meant to be used in all apps. You can see yourself that the native apps all use a different color to distinguish itself.

Certainly; the point is to use a single key color for all buttons/controls in your app. It does not have to be one of the colors that Apple has chosen—but theirs tend to have enough contrast to stand out well on a light background.
 
Gray on gray means that the buttons blend in and look like labels rather than buttons, or inactive buttons at best.

To tell you the truth, when starting the iOS7 redesign all the buttons etc in JRemote used the blue color that are now used only for some play controls etc. I found that this was too busy, and the fact that your eyes are always drawn to those buttons even if you do not intend to use them.

Well that's the point—the user immediately knows which elements are controls, and which elements are content.
iOS 7's flat UI does not work if you aren't breaking up the UI into separate layers, or using color to signal which elements are controls and which are simply text/labels.
 
In iOS 6 and previous, skeuomorphism (textures, fake buttons etc.) was used to show the user what was a control, and what was content, rather than layering, color, and contrast.
 
I actually went through a number of iterations on the design when creating my mockup, including gray playback controls rather than making them all blue, but it did not seem to fit with the UI style of iOS—it left you with elements which were obviously buttons, and elements which appeared to be disabled controls.
I know that the default music app actually uses black playback controls, but that's what seemed to work best with the current layout of JRemote.
 
If the bottom bar were to be transparent, this may change, and using dark gray or black controls rather than color might be best.
The transparency in the default music app is very low, so if you did the same thing light controls would still be quite visible.

Also, while apple prefers bright background colors bordering on completely white, I personally find it really hard on the eyes after a while.
It may be because I am getting older, but the "dull" colors are definitely intentional.

Is that not what the backlight control or dark themes are for?
There is also a system-level setting to "reduce white point" that I use, which makes things more comfortable to read. (I should actually measure what it's doing - I think it reduces the color temperature of the display)

I think I may actually give an option to use bright button and icon colors though. I agree that some people will absolutely prefer it.
Regarding wireframe buttons, I think they look pretty good on a dark background. On the light theme, maybe not so much. I may change that at least for that theme.

Options are always good.
 
Again; I don't know if it would be feasible, but it would be nice if custom themes could be supported. (with strict limitations on things like icon size, so that skinning is kept "simple")
I would be happy to maintain a "Native" theme for the app—and looking back at my mockups today, there are already some changes I'd make.

Semi-transparent bars will be added as a setting soon so you can try it yourself.

Great!

[6233638]

1. The whole theme has been redesigned to more approximate the look of Apple iOS 7 but why I can't imagine. Though I have come to get use to the flat dimensionless look of the iOS I have never come to like it and now JRemote has followed suit.

Well it's clearly the way forward for app design. Initially I was not a fan of iOS 7, but I must admit it has grown on me.
The Settings → General → Accessibility → Increase Contrast → Reduce White Point setting made a big improvement in my opinion.

To me, the changes in JRemote have not been big enough though. It feels like a flattened iOS 6 app, rather than incorporating the changes necessary to make it feel like something redesigned for iOS7.
 
I've posted a couple of mockups in the JRemote thread, but here's the current theme compared to one which is flatter, and more closely follows the native colorscheme of iOS7. (and one with less blue)

2. My largest complaint is with the color scheme on the "Playing Now" page. Previously the background color was fixed to a fairly neutral gray color. This is excellent for viewing artwork and provide the most accurate display of color. Now this page takes a cue from iTunes and iOS 7 where the primarily colors of the artwork create a kaleidoscope of color background for the page. I simply feel it detracts from the quality of presentation overall.

I've never really used the "Playing Now" view, and I must say that I think this looks quite nice.
I would not object to a neutral background as an option though—similar to what you get playing an album with a white cover.

However, there are a couple of things which using the "Playing Now" view has made me realize:
1. The "repeat" button should be moved to the left of the other playback controls.
This keeps the playback controls in a fixed position when you move between the standard view and "Playing Now" view.
 
2. The +30 and +60 buttons are too small (smaller than the iOS guidelines permit) and it's easy to hit them by mistake.
I don't really see the point in these buttons to begin with. If you remove the buttons and resize the progress bar, you can have nice vertically centered buttons.
 

• Current
  
• Mockup
  

 
Edit: Looking at the mockup again, I would possibly reduce the width of the vol/seek controls further, to align with the track list and create more whitespace.
This would also allow you to have more padding around the playback controls, though it would move them further out of alignment from the standard view.

3.  On the left side of the "Playing Now" page is your list of songs with a thumbnails of artwork. The color scheme is carried through to a lesser extent. However there is a "sound wave" icon next to the currently playing song. That icon will move down to the next playing song and continue to do so but when it reaches the end of the visible page it moves out of sight. Previously the list of songs would scroll upward to continue to reveal the current playing song. Now you have to manually scroll to re-reveal the current and upcoming songs.

It seems like the list should move, rather than the position of the currently playing item, until there are no more items.
 
Keeping the currently playing track fixed to the second position on the list (so you can see what the previous track was) might be quite nice.

4. Finally, at the bottom left and right of this page there are -30s, -60s and +30s, +60s which for the life of me I cannot see real value in and in my opinion just adds clutter to the appearance of the page.

I agree - I don't see what they would be useful for, and I think they hurt usability

• Mockup
  
• Mockup with controls removed
  

 

I do prefer the crisper cleaner look of the legacy version and these aren't mission critical issues to me. This is still the best remote app out there to me. I suppose like the dull iOS 7 itself and the lifeless iTunes itself I would get use to it. Please JRiver as you continue to improve JRiver for Mac keep the vibrant look and don't take it to these lifeless designs.

I think the general design is solid, and it just need some tweaking.
Most of the suggestions I've made are really just to the colorscheme.

[glynor]

For video playback (which I don't use now, but if he ever gets streaming working, I will), I absolutely, positively require some way to seek +30 sec / -10 sec (or some approximation of that).

For skipping commercials.  Fine with me if you can re-assign normal Seeking buttons for this purpose (as I won't use "traditional seeking" at all anyway).

That is all.  I generally like the UI changes in JRemote.  Probably room for tweaking, but I'm overall a fan.

[6233638]

For video playback (which I don't use now, but if he ever gets streaming working, I will), I absolutely, positively require some way to seek +30 sec / -10 sec (or some approximation of that).

Video playback is using the native iOS controls, so these only apply to audio.

For skipping commercials.  Fine with me if you can re-assign normal Seeking buttons for this purpose (as I won't use "traditional seeking" at all anyway).

Holding them down might work I guess? Once proper seeking is implemented (it only does high-speed seeking right now) I'd never use fast-forward or seeking buttons anyway.

[mwheelerk]

This is the color shift I'm seeing.

[glynor]

Holding them down might work I guess? Once proper seeking is implemented (it only does high-speed seeking right now) I'd never use fast-forward or seeking buttons anyway.

See, I greatly prefer 30-second ahead/10-back... (or something close to that) basically ALWAYS.  It is so fast to skip past commercials (and is generally far more accurate, far more easily).  The only times I use seek like you is to jump huge portions of a show (because resume failed for one reason or another -- generally when switching platforms because MC is pretty good about this).

But, I suppose, I've never seen any application that has appropriate seek performance with the kind of media I watch at home (by my crazy because-I-edit-video standards).  H264 is just way too slow, and temporal.  Give me a jog wheel on a NLE and DNxHD or ProRes file though, and I can stop on a dime...

The slide up/down thing is a crude stand-in, and while better than nothing, gets in my way as much as it helps.

[glynor]

This is the color shift I'm seeing.

Yeah, I know what you mean... It is fairly obvious.

I like it.  I think it could be toned down a bit (make the colors much closer to neutral, and more subdued), but I think it looks nice overall.  But opinions can vary, of course.  I don't necessarily agree that "all options are good".

Good design is about making choices.  You don't always make the right ones, of course, every time (or what any person defines as the right one), but dumping the choices on the user often means no vision for the design.  Because you have to accommodate so many possible variations and configurations and... I don't know, you end up with... Junk.

We all have our hobby horses, though, for sure.

[mwheelerk]

Yeah, I know what you mean... It is fairly obvious.

I like it.  I think it could be toned down a bit (make the colors much closer to neutral, and more subdued), but I think it looks nice overall.  But opinions can vary, of course.  I don't necessarily agree that "all options are good".

Good design is about making choices.  You don't always make the right ones, of course, every time (or what any person defines as the right one), but dumping the choices on the user often means no vision for the design.  Because you have to accommodate so many possible variations and configurations and... I don't know, you end up with... Junk.

We all have our hobby horses, though, for sure.

Like I said it's not critical mass for me just a preference. Based on my work and awareness of correct color I'm probably more susceptible to it bothering me than most. I can understand others liking or or thinking what's the big deal. It isn't.

[nickba]

Yes, an option to turn off the background color animation is ready for the next version. I may also tone down the actual color change.
Nr 3 will be added to an upcoming version.
Not sure what you mean with 1. All screens should already be dark if using the dark theme.

Thanks for replying!!! It is great when developers listen!! This app is amazing and it is getting better and better!!

What I mean with 1 is that when I launch JRemote, there is a fast splash screen and it is with white background even if I choose the dark theme. After the splash screen, the dark theme is ok.

Regarding the buttons discussion: I think the new visual is great and it looks more polished!! I would not change them.