I wanted to piggyback on a few of the previous threads leaning on Poweramp, which does most things right. A few of the things I especially would like to see here:
a) Long-press “pause” to stop, move time to 0 but not get booted to the previous screen.
b) Gesture down on current album art, or gesture down on bottom half of Now Playing UI, goes to the queue. The choice between the two would make for a toggle.
c) Album name/artist are hotlinks
d) Is next/previous track button necessary here when you have the huge swiper? How about being able to toggle these off? Same with the +/- 30 seconds for non-audiobook usage.
e) Reposition the overflow menu to over the current album art like on other screens -or- add an option to hide the menu but access via long press on current album art
-add “go to folder”
-add “add to playlist”/move favorites to here?
I’d ultimately like to see the ability to have a clean/relatively minimal now playing UI, especially on the bottom. I personally don’t use the favorites button and would associate that with adding/removing from a playlist. For music, I don’t use the repeat button but find it to be logically placed in the queue along with shuffle. The queue button could then be replaced by a gesture, or maybe just a less busy “down” button.
a) Not really, stop is clear all states and wanted due to the multi providers / players approach. This also act as the clean queue and everything. From a resource / state perspective pause does what you want except the return to 0 but I do not really understand the need to go to 0 in that case.
b) I wanted to, but from another app it’s barely discoverable by the users and they still want a button, so I can add the gesture but the button will still need to be somewhere easy to find.
c) I wanted / tested but as I like consistency, clickable stuff are shown with a button like background, and it rendered really ugly in that screen I may add it without any visual clues as a bonus for those who find out, but I did not reach a proper design.
d) Same as b) most users do not try things and only understand simple buttons.
e) Add to playlist save as playlist is planned. Go to folder is not possible in a satisfying way due to the multi provider approach, there’s many case where I’m not able to rebuilt the proper up navigation from the folder and it could not work.
There’s plan for multiple version of the now playing as a setting, you might want to draw a quick paint image of your minimal screen version as there will be a minimal one for sure.
I definitely want buttons! I don’t really get the obsession with swiping - it’s always more effort than a simple click on an obvious button. I’ve also met people who don’t understand the “swipe forward” / “swipe backward” thing, they think it’s backwards! (I sort of get that)
Plus, the buttons are consistent with things like the notifications and lock screen controls.
I personally feel the buttons at the bottom of the Now Playing screen are a sensible choice, but of course I don’t see an issue (other than work) of making them configurable.
I never swipe. You never know if you have to swipe left/right or up/down, and how far you have to swipe. With buttons it is most convenient and precise. If possible, I even disable swiping in apps.
…it’s pretty easy to figure out the swiping thing. You’re not confined to pressing a button but can swipe anywhere on half the screen or however big the album art is. Much easier for me.
You still have to swipe a certain distance, and on bigger screens that could be quite a long swipe. In lots of apps it can be really annoying when it’s the only interface (and if they don’t test it enough). You might like swiping more, but it’s objectively more physical effort.
I don’t have any particular opinion on most of the issues discussed here, except I do like the idea of being able to tap artist or album to be taken there, even if they’re aren’t visual cues.
Not for the moment, since it’s a new app, Google forced App bundle on me and so I do not publish APK to Playstore either.
Any published APK would be different from what you get from Play Store and probably a mess to support all different possible issues that it would trigger.
I really like the current Now Playing screen, but I’m not a huge fan of the slider for the sleep timer- I found the Yatse sleep timer easier to select the time I’d want, which is usually 5-12 minutes depending how much I’ve queued on play next.
Lovely app though!
Thanks for the implement! It feels great. My last suggestion for this view would be to knock up the opacity on the cast and menu buttons. I know they’re there and they’re a bit of an eyesore especially on examples like the photoshop above.
What codec does the app request for transcodes by the way? Some indication of that on the app would be helpful. Even better, a choice between opus and aac but that’s a different thread.
I may add it without any visual clues as a bonus for those who find out, but I did not reach a proper design.
