Bugzilla – Bug 8809
Consistent player sync UIs
Last modified: 2009-09-08 09:18:08 UTC
We need consistent and easy-to-understand sync UIs. Mostly this means the player sync UI should be updated. A post from peterw has some good ideas: -- There are 4 sync UIs: - player (old-style, "join up with") - web player "Audio" settings (old-style, "join up with") - web Default skin (only Default skin?) main page (Jive-style, "take control of") - Jive/Controller (Jive-style, "take control of") So the score is 2 to 2. :-) Consistency could mean a Synchronize menu like Sync Living Room to this [ ] Sync Kitchen to this [ ] Sync Bedroom to this [ ] Sync this to Living Room -> Sync this to Kitchen -> Sync this to Bedroom -> Give users both paradigms in every UI. Of course if you really push the "take control of" paradigm, I reckon that either Max Spicer or I will make the old-style "join up with" paradigm available via a 3rd party plugin. --
Thinking out loud: If one player is playing, and the other is not, then I think it makes sense for sync to treat the playing player as master. If neither device is playing but one has a playlist and the other doesn't, then the one with a playlist should be master. If both have playlists it's not so easy, but if it's still worded as "sync with" then I think the remote player should be the master. However, I think there should really be only one option - offering options to sync in both directions could get cumbersome and confusing. I agree with Andy that the current sync/unsync with player ui is ugly and, I think, not in keeping with the rest of the ui (it abuses the header line for a list of options). I think something like this is the right way: Sync with: (x of y) Player 1 [x] Player 2 [ ] Player 3 [x]
The problem with Max's suggestion is that you can't remove a player from a sync group and have the other players stay sync'ed. (I.e. if you uncheck player 1, then it drops out of the sync group as you stay sync'ed with 3). So you'd need: Sync with: Player 1 and player 3 [x] Player 2 [ ] The idea originally was that when you had a player selected, you could choose to sync with any other player or group, or remove yourself from that group. That works in a player-centered UI, like the classic SB interface. On SBC, though, you'd need to choose another player in order to add/remove it from the sync group. That seems like a reasonable limitation.
Something I noticed the other day is that players only turn up in the sync/unsync with list if they are on. This is confusing if you know you're synced with a player but can't find it in the list (because it's off).
Brian should I assign this bug to you for now?
that's fine
My suggestion would be Synchronise "Player A" with..... Player B Player C TooltipText The playlist on Player A will be replaced with the current playlist on Player B I'll need to check to see if this is what happens on my SB3 when I choose Synch from the menu system using the IR remote. But from memory, the h/w players playlist is replaced from whatever is playing on the player you synch with.
It almost seems like there needs to be something else that can be used to consolidate players to. The ability to have a "group", for instance, that a player could join. A user could then walk up to a player and pick what to join very easily. From the web UI you could pull players into a group. It would get rid of the confusion about which player is "leading" and what is going on, etc. Also, it would have the advantage of being able to setup playlists in advance while another was playing (even if you didn't have multiple players). It would also be useful to be able to switch from one to another and back again while retaining the current place in the list - say company comes over while you are in the middle of listening to a block of newly ripped songs.
Passing the ball to Alan.
Player-UI version implemented. SC Web-UI and SBC still to be completed: Michael & Ben.
change 23790 - reverting the web UI's logic to match the player UI
full support to jive UI in change 23846
This bug has been fixed in the 7.3.0 release version of SqueezeCenter! Please download the new version from http://www.slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html if you haven't already. If you are still experiencing this problem, feel free to reopen the bug with your new comments and we'll have another look.
As I think we all expected, some Controller users miss the old "push" UI that was in SC 7.0 - 7.2. Please see bug 6806 for a new suggestion of a "unified" sync UI offering push and pull modes while still remaining fairly close to the scroll/click models of the pre-7.0 Player "pull" and 7.0-7.2 Jive "push" models.
Reduce number of active targets for SC