UnderTow
Brandon Ryan [Cakewalk
]
1) You wouldn't cover every square inch of your wall space or floor space in your home with objects would you?
I don't walk on my computer screens. 
Hopefully you don't walk on your walls either, but you still wouldn't cover every square inch of them. Unless of course you were planning a bank heist or something.
Every inch of the counter tops and tables packed with objects ready to be used at a mere whim? If you did it would probably look a lot like those hoarder's homes you see on TV.
This is a good point but it seems the balance has moved too much towards Spartan for some of us.
Fair enough. But this is more subjective area and where we get in to the detail. And we know who lives in the details.
SONAR has been widely criticized over the years for putting too many controls and buttons and text in a given space contributing to a somewhat overwhelming and claustrophobic feel at times.
While this is absolutely true, I think a very large part of that could have been dealt with by changing the default look without actually removing anything from the tracks. On the other hand, the icon bars at the top of the Sonar window certainly needed work and I really think they were the biggest cause for the clutter complaints. (And let's be honest, those icons would never win any artistic prizes).
It's hard to say how much could have been done by just changing look alone. But either way, we wanted to
improve how it is to make music in SONAR as well, not just put lipstick on it. Now obviously there are places where that is less than fully successful but the foundation is there and the wide swath - overall window management, drag and drop functionality, component specific menu items,and so on - IMO are major improvement.
I think the Control Bar concept is an improvement. Augmenting it with two or three modes to allow it to be more compact and also enhancing the actual modules with some of the suggestions I have made would make it amazing.
Yup I agree. The Control Bar can be magnitudes better and a pretty cool thing with some carefull enhancements.
The Tracks headers though still need some work IMO. One thing I would certainly do is make the FX bin resizeable.
Resizable FX bin would be good - won't get any argument from me. Not sure how much work it is to make it act in such a way.
2) The stylized icons for expand collapse are simply that - stylized - and they suggest the behavior just fine. I think this is pretty nit-picky and is an "argument" leaning toward total utilitarianism.
No Brandon. It might seem like it is nit-picking but it really isn't. This change is bad. It goes counter to all windows GUIs which does not make it a good idea. It isn't so much the actual icons but the fact that one button is removed! THAT makes it unintuitive.
But they
do work differently than the previous 8.5 system of icons. The control in question (in X1) is basically a toggle that toggles between a track's full size and the minimized state. It's not really a minimize/maximize/restore set of buttons as it was in 8.5 or in the traditional sense. Double-clicking the track is essentially "maximize". I mean I can understand saying that "it's better to follow more accepted standards and that is what poeple are used to so that's how it should be", but there are no doubt exceptions to this conventional wisdom. Some things can be better, especially given the context of the particular environment they exist in, amongst all the other factors that environment presents. Personally I've found myself used to it after a brief period and didn't really think about it much past that. But, mind you, I get distracted by guitars and keyboard sounds
very easily.
I asked if people had accidentally hit the layers icon by accident for good reason. That is where people expect to click when they want to minimize/restore a track. If a GUI element does not do what one expects it to do, it is by definition badly designed. Every time someone accidentally clicks on the layers icon, their creative flow is broken while they go "Huh? What? Oh... yeah... Duh". This really is a bad thing. And frankly any software feature that makes it's user feel like an idiot for even just a millisecond should be fixed immediately.
In general, sure, but as I stated above, I don't know if you can be that black and white about what's inherently badly designed. It's more subjective than that and sometimes there are ways in which a user can be trained to expect things differently over time. Don't get me wrong, things should always be as intuitive as possible, but asking a user to adjust to what, over time, can be better in the context of their environment is a perfectly feasible reality to me. Whether or not this is one of those exceptions or not I guess is up for debate. Either way, to me...it's not
that big of a deal.
This is a very good example of fixing something that is not broken and coming up with something that is worse than the original.
Perhaps, but I think the point is debatable as to whether or not it is
worse. I don't think it is demonstrably worse, just different. You might argue that the difference inherently makes it worse. I would not agree.
3) The abbreviated text in X1: Now here's something I agree with. To me the text could be scaled down in size and hopefully the garbled names could return to something more intelligible.
Agreed although I am not sure that there is much room to scale the text. If for instance you look at the vertical bar in the number 1, it is only two pixels wide. Not much room to manoeuvre. So it seems the only real solution is to make those widgets bugger again.
I'd say attempt to make the text smaller and/or thinner.
On a different note, I find that having the Track I/O looking essentially like the Edit Filter makes it less obvious at a glance what is what. (Especially with all the dynamic placement). It is a tiny thing but it slows things down just a little bit.
Agreed it
can be, but I don't think there is a very easy and still dynamic approach to this. Not to say it can't be improved, but there are many factors involved. This is likely why many manufacturers don't let you see all that stuff in the track area while making the track control area dynamically sizable.
From memory, I really liked the way the Sends look in X1. It is clear what they are (text info aside) and they have the level and pans built in. Nice and clear. I think it would be very intuitive to have the Track I/O work in a similar way. The Input would have the Gain Fader and the Output would have the Volume and Pan Faders.
I saw your mock up and I really do like the integration and the logic to this - definitley. The problem becomes with the size of the widgets. They are more difficult to manage as far as what happens when the track control area is changed horizontally or vertically. Every state must be accounted for. And it's more difficult to allow users to choose which widgets they want to see in their different configurations.
I'll get a friend to mail me some screen-shots and try and make a mock-up with my limited graphic skills.
4) The fact that the FX bin goes away too soon when reducing the track control area horizontally: I also agree with this and it's no doubt a bit frustrating. It should allow you to collapse more of that empty/wasted space before it disappears. I can't see any reason for it to be the way it is and it's got my vote as something to tweak/fix. But it is just a tweak and I don't think it could be characterized as something that contributes to an entire UI design failure (I'd say the same for the font tweaks as well...)
My main issue when I used X1 was that the bin was too narrow. A resizeable bin would be nice. Or at least it should grow more before it stops growing when you drag out the track header.
Yup I agree. I like a big FX bin for my big FX.
5) The interleave and phase buttons: I'd say we should give these back as an option, on the track controls if people really really want them.
Great. If people don't like them, that's what the Track Control Manager is for isn't it?
True. And this manager dictates somewhat how the modular controls appear in the track control area.
Having said that I find it just a bit odd that one would really miss these buttons all that much. You could look at the console if you needed to see a lot of them at one time.
Brandon, I haven't opened the Console View in Sonar for over a decade (For actual work that is. I have looked at it from time to time out of curiosity). I find this suggestion reveals that those widgets really need to be returned. Anything that forces one to open a view that one never uses can not be an improvement. DAW 2.0 remember, we don't need no stinking Console View in 2011!
Ha - ok.
The problem is that the more controls you make available in that area, the more track control configurations you have to account for visually and it makes keeping clutter under control and a tidy look that much more difficult to achieve.
Oh come on. It is just another couple of lines in the Track Control Manager. Now it is you that is resorting to hyperbole!
No I was being entirely serious. you have to determine what happens to those controls when you adjust the tracks size vertically and what happens to that stuff when you adjust the track control area horizontally. It's not just a couple of lines. It all requires a design and code to be written, etc...(I Know I know...but it's true
).
One final point I'll make that is personal and subjective: Regardless of the arguable problems with the picture on the right, I personally find it quite a bit more attractive to look at.
I tend to agree. The new design certainly has it's good points! It just needs some tweaking.
Now... let's see what we can do with GIMP...
UnderTow