Bug 11376 - Using the play button to go right is wrong
: Using the play button to go right is wrong
Status: CLOSED FIXED
Product: SqueezePlay
Classification: Unclassified
Component: UI
: unspecified
: PC Windows Home Server
: P1 normal with 7 votes (vote)
: 7.4.0
Assigned To: Wadzinski Tom
:
Depends on:
Blocks:
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2009-03-17 10:26 UTC by Sue Chastain
Modified: 2009-10-05 14:37 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Category: ---


Attachments

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Sue Chastain 2009-03-17 10:26:22 UTC
I don't like that the play button is being used for navigation now. I should be able to pick up the Controller and start the music by pressing the play button without looking at the screen or caring where in the menu structure I am.

Consider this scenario:
Last thing I do at night is put the player into sleep mode, then cradle the Controller. In the morning, I wake up and press play on my way to the bathroom without looking at the screen. Instead of playing, the sleep mode is enabled because that's the screen I left it on. Now I have to pick up the controller, cancel sleep, navigate to the NP screen, and then press play. This is wrong. The play button should always start playback.
Comment 1 Sue Chastain 2009-03-18 08:06:36 UTC
I suppose this only applies when the player being controlled is in the "off" or "paused" state.
Comment 2 Chris Owens 2009-03-23 09:36:30 UTC
Dean wanted this some time ago, but in retrospect it does seem insane.
Comment 3 Matthew J. Martin 2009-05-04 15:27:26 UTC
+1
Comment 4 James Richardson 2009-05-04 15:29:31 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> +1

Use the vote button above
Comment 5 Blackketter Dean 2009-07-22 09:02:02 UTC
Moving to the product SqueezePlay because this bug appears to apply to any player based on that application code.  Feel free to move it back if it's specific to the original product.
Comment 6 Weldon Matt 2009-07-22 19:26:00 UTC
Yes, we should make this change.  Tom, can you think of any functionality that might break if we make this switch (in terms of navigation on obscure screens etc)?  

If not, do it ASAP.
Comment 7 Spies Steven 2009-07-23 11:02:50 UTC
I just wanted to note that this behavior is not limited to SqueezePlay based players but ip3k as well when using the ir remote.
Comment 8 Spies Steven 2009-07-23 11:04:54 UTC
Oh, and the front panel controls on Boom.
Comment 9 Sue Chastain 2009-07-23 12:22:31 UTC
Yes, thanks for adding that, Steven. I lost a playlist due to this behavior on the Boom more than once.
Comment 10 Matthew J. Martin 2009-07-23 13:48:16 UTC
*** Bug 11963 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 Jim McAtee 2009-07-23 14:03:27 UTC
If something is playable then PLAY should play it.  Are there some situations where there's no RIGHT control available, so that PLAY has to become RIGHT?
Comment 12 Matthew J. Martin 2009-07-23 15:00:46 UTC
On the surface there doesn't seem to be any such situations, but if there are situations where no Right control is available, they need to be addressed separately, not by modifying "Play" behavior.

Consider: if you pause the currently playing track, you need to be able to "Play" it again. If "Play" gets hijacked due to some corner-case, you'll be stuck with no music and be forced to nav-back anyway to get the music to play again.
Comment 13 Weldon Matt 2009-07-23 15:04:10 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)
> If something is playable then PLAY should play it.  Are there some situations
> where there's no RIGHT control available, so that PLAY has to become RIGHT?

It's not quite that simple.

First, let me state that I generally agree with everyone - having play NOT play something, when it conceivably could, simply sucks.  The current implementation happened before I was at Logitech, so I'm just trying to get some background on what the original thinking was.

AFAIK it was related to controller, and the fact that people were having trouble with the center button.  It was probably a poor decision to have "play" be at the top right of the main navigation control :-).  So it was decided to make "play" the equivalent of "right" / "center button" in some cases.

So I think we can kill the play control as a navigation shortcut, unless some new info comes along specific to the controller that I wasn't aware of.

--------

The REAL problem: what does the "play" button do if I started playing "thing A" 30 minutes ago, then navigate to another app or something, pause "thing A," then select "thing B" and press play?  Which item should play?  Should "thing A" resume playback, or should "thing B" start playing instead?  If both "things" are songs under my music, it's not too bad of a problem.  But what if "thing A" was an internet radio station, and "thing B" is a genre type under "My Music?"

It starts getting a little weird when you incorporate ANY possible playable item into the discussion.

One of the challenges is that we have separate play and pause controls (if music is paused on item A and I hit "play" on item B, am I unpausing item A or playing item B?).  Another challenge is that navigation is treated separately from transport controls in our design, even though the same buttons get re-used for certain things.  (The iphone, for example, doesn't have this problem, since transport controls only appear on the actual now playing screen.  You can't hit "play" while selecting an album, for example.  You're either navigating OR using a transport control, never both).

I want to get this right for our users, but the needed behavior is not as obvious as it looks.
Comment 14 Ben Klaas 2009-07-23 16:19:14 UTC
Matthew, on comment #12, I'm not saying it's intuitive, but what you say in that comment is wrong. Pause button is actually a Play/Pause toggle key and it is dedicated to that function. You can always turn the music on by pressing pause when stuff is paused. It works that way on all of our devices, as well as devices made by other vendors.

Again, not trying to say it's intuitive, but it's not as catastrophic as "no way to play music when on item X"
Comment 15 Matthew J. Martin 2009-07-23 16:47:51 UTC
(In reply to comment #14)
> Matthew, on comment #12, I'm not saying it's intuitive, but what you say in
> that comment is wrong. Pause button is actually a Play/Pause toggle key and it
> is dedicated to that function. You can always turn the music on by pressing
> pause when stuff is paused. It works that way on all of our devices, as well as
> devices made by other vendors.
> 
> Again, not trying to say it's intuitive, but it's not as catastrophic as "no
> way to play music when on item X"

Ben, 

Actually back when I filed 11963, Baby "Pause" toggle was broken (would only pause, wouldn't play) so I really COULDN'T play once paused :-) You can imagine my frustration.

Toggle on Baby seems fine now, except it makes the wrong noise (makes the "can't do that" tone). Should I file a bug on the wrong nav tone issue?
Comment 16 Richard Titmuss 2009-07-27 01:13:39 UTC
Reset priority before triage.
Comment 17 Wadzinski Tom 2009-07-30 06:36:27 UTC
I'm looking to work on this (for SP) but I'm not clear on what's being called 
for. Matt can you clarify?
My interpretation of the comments is:
1) Never have play go right (since right can do that in all cases)
2) If the menu selection is something playable, then play should immediately 
play that. (is current behavior)

Correct?

What should play do when on a non-playable item? bump? Unpause (if paused)?
Comment 18 Weldon Matt 2009-07-30 13:37:09 UTC
(In reply to comment #17)
> I'm looking to work on this (for SP) but I'm not clear on what's being called 
> for. Matt can you clarify?
> My interpretation of the comments is:
> 1) Never have play go right (since right can do that in all cases)

correct

> 2) If the menu selection is something playable, then play should immediately 
> play that. (is current behavior)
> 
> Correct?

yes

> 
> What should play do when on a non-playable item? bump? Unpause (if paused)?

unpause if paused, otherwise bump...
Comment 19 Sue Chastain 2009-07-30 14:27:17 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)

> unpause if paused, otherwise bump...

it should resume current playlist if stopped or off, yes?
Comment 20 SVN Bot 2009-08-18 05:02:40 UTC
 == Auto-comment from SVN commit #28200 to the slim repo by tom ==
 == https://svn.slimdevices.com/slim?view=revision&revision=28200 ==

Fixed Bug:11376
Description:
- play action behavior is now "play a playable item", otherwise (if not a playable item) unpause
Comment 21 SVN Bot 2009-08-18 05:02:47 UTC
 == Auto-comment from SVN commit #7126 to the jive repo by tom ==
 == https://svn.slimdevices.com/jive?view=revision&revision=7126 ==

Fixed Bug:11376
Description:
- play action behavior is now "play a playable item", otherwise (if not a playable item) unpause
Comment 22 SVN Bot 2009-08-19 10:49:55 UTC
 == Auto-comment from SVN commit #7154 to the jive repo by tom ==
 == https://svn.slimdevices.com/jive?view=revision&revision=7154 ==

Fixed Bug:11376
Description:
- (missed a commit) play action behavior is now "play a playable item", otherwise (if not a playable item) unpause
Comment 23 James Richardson 2009-10-05 14:37:13 UTC
This bug has been marked as fixed in the 7.4.0 release version of SqueezeBox Server!
    * SqueezeCenter: 28672
    * Squeezebox 2 and 3: 130
    * Transporter: 80
    * Receiver: 65
    * Boom: 50
    * Controller: 7790
    * Radio: 7790  

Please see the Release Notes for all the details: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Release_Notes

If you haven't already, please download and install the new version from http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/support/download-squeezebox-server.html

If you are still experiencing this problem, feel free to reopen the bug with your new comments and we'll have another look.