Murphy's dashboard

Sorry I keep posting in here. I've just liked thinking about interfaces lately and I have noticed a few interesting things about them. It turns out this one was in front of me the whole time I was working on the mockups:



I don't know how I never noticed before, but Adobe did almost the exact same things with the interfaces in the CS4 applications that eventually developed in these Songbird mockups. The title bar loses its title, but actually gets bigger so it can hold the main buttons, making it feel like there is a hearty control panel at the top of the program. I really like how they branded the title bar with the program icon as well; maybe I could try that if I ever make another mockup of this in the future.

I also sought out a Windows screenshot to see how they approached it:



They even have the max/min/close buttons (although different from the standard Windows ones) centered in the title bar like I did in the mockup based on Tim's suggestion, so now I don't even feel like they are such radical changes.

*sigh* I know I say this too often, but amen on the global hotkeys. – Murphy, on August 01, 2009 22:16

I know I've seen at least one topic before about discovering more albums from artists in your library, but I am having trouble finding any using GetSatisfaction's search. There is an add-on called Releases that tells you about future albums, but I don't believe there is any add-on that helps you find albums you are missing from an artist. It would be neat to have an add-on list the albums that you don't have from the artists in your library, provide details like when it was released and such, and make it easy to find more information about them or listen to tracks off of them. It could even be integrated with the stores like 7digital in Songbird and say "Buy from this store" or something, so it could help out Songbird as well.

Voy tratar de responder a su pregunta, pero no hablo español perfectamente. No es una problema si pones un link sobre su sitio para Songbird como ya tienes el link "Descarga Firefox". Todo el mundo se anima a apoyar a Songbird por mencionarlo.

I made this mockup for a different thread, but one of the UI changes in it ended up being a new way for the browser to function in Songbird, so I thought it was worth posting here. In the mockup, the browser is an item in the service pane that you could click to access a new tab page of some sort; a generic way to access the web. It also shows how the tabs could be incorporated into the the service pane as vertical tabs, such as in this firefox mockup. This could remove some of the confusion that exists in Songbird by having both the service pane and tab bar visible at the same time. I also thought it would be neat if when the user clicked on a Bookmark item, it could slide into the Tabs area, since it would save room in the service pane and ensure that each website only appeared once in it.



Alternatively (maybe even as an option in the preferences), tabs could function horizontally as they do in most browsers; however, I still think that it would be a good idea to only show the tab bar up top if you have the browser item selected in the service pane, so as to keep the web pages contained within a certain area of the program.

Could you perhaps post a screenshot of the program that shows how the tagging system works? I did a google image search quick but I didn't see any screenshots that had a definite tagging system.

Well, I don't think we can make any more radical interface changes now =D. I lowered the window buttons as you suggested Tim, and I think it makes the title bar looks very nice and uniform, albeit a little unconventional. Then, I changed the refresh button on the awesome bar to a translucent go button, letting you know that you will be able to go to a library or web result if you start typing in it.

I put buttons along the the padding of the window for opening the service panes; having these here eliminates the need for the status bar, and I think they also make it easier for the user to open the service panes. The buttons in Songbird are currently placed right next to each other, rather than on the areas that the service panes come out of. If it is ever possible to have more panes, such as in this suggestion, it could be confusing knowing which button opens up which service pane.

Also, to show what the idea could look like that I suggested before about having the browser tabs in the service pane, I added the "Tabs" section under browser. I don't know if it is the best solution or not, but I am imagining using it, and I do think it would be an elegant way to access your tabs without having two separate navigation bars. To avoid confusion between the open tabs and the bookmarks, when the user clicks on a bookmark, it could slide into the tabs area to show that the page is open, and when the user closes the page, it could slide back to bookmarks.

I'll see what I can do with it. I didn't move the awesome bar up too far because, unless the program is maximized, the user would have to grab onto the title bar to move the window around the screen. Maybe though, if I move the awesome bar up but leave some space around it on the top and bottom, the user would think of it as sort of a bigger area to grab on to. I'll try moving the window controls down as well. I was afraid it was like taboo to move them because people were so used to were they were located, but it would make use of that space really well. I was getting to the point where I was just going to put text there that said "Songbird" or something =P. – Murphy, on July 31, 2009 15:55

You and Tim seemed to go missing around the same time and I was worried that everybody was moving on. I'm glad to know that neither of you are. Get well soon! We miss seeing that Never Ending Story avatar around =).

Really cool. I'm surprised Songbird has a pretty big slice because I have never really seen it mentioned much on the web. I'm also surprised by how much Windows Media Player has! I sort of assumed that everybody used iTunes for some reason. – Murphy, on July 31, 2009 15:31

Tim, is this the type of epically efficient, ultra-sleek app of the future you had in mind? :D I couldn't think of how exactly to use the other progress bar, so I know the control bar isn't really any sleeker than the normal one. – Murphy, on July 31, 2009 04:58

This is for you Michael - no title bar:


Now I don't think we can squeeze another drop of space out of this program window to use.

Ah, I considered doing that since many browsers seem to be heading in the tabs-on-top direction (and I do like the design very much). However, I think that it is a problem in Songbird that the browser aspect of the program is not contained at all; tabs that you have open are visible up top no matter what part of the program you are in, and I think it can cause confusion always having two navigational areas showing: the tab bar, and the service pane.

I even considered incorporating the tabs into the service pane, like they are in this Firefox mockup. Maybe that would be a good solution the the two-navigation-areas dilemma. Alternatively, I tried to come up with a way to get rid of the service pane altogether and just have horizontal tabs, like in JeCh's mockup here or LIB53's Focus mockup here. In the end, I made a compromise by compartmentalizing the browser into its own section of the service pane. I'm still not sure what would work best though. – Murphy, on July 30, 2009 21:05

It turns out I did screw a few things up :-O.

I meant to show off the combined go/stop/refresh button at the end of the awesome bar, but I accidentally left the refresh button showing each time. I also wanted to mention a few things about the service panes, but I forgot to. There aren't any buttons for showing or hiding the service panes in the mockups (I made the interface cleaner by removing the status bar like they did in the FF 4.0 mockups and like Chrome and Safari did) but I can envision how they could work without having a status bar; I'm thinking I could put small arrowy buttons in the boarder padding the sides of the program window. As for the add-playlist button that is no longer there, I put a + button next to the playlists list as well as next to radio and bookmarks, so that they user can easily add content those lists. I posted a topic about this before because I think it can be confusing sometimes figuring out how to add new playlists and bookmarks and such to the service pane.

I also rearrange the order of contents in the main service pane, because I don't think they have a logical order in Songbird the way they are now. Playlists are composed of local media from your library, so I think they make most sense being under Library in the list. Bookmarks and Radio relate to the web, so I put them under Browser. I just think they feel more natural this way.

I don't think he's that bored, Laura :-P.

And I'm glad you think the aero interface is convincing, Michael. I'm not great with photoshop anyway, but I thought it was pretty tough to recreate the glass by hand. I have a feeling that they actually coded program windows for those Firefox mockups to get them so perfect looking.

As for using up more of the title bar Chrome style, I will give it a try. I didn't do it originally because the min/max/close buttons will be in the way and the awesome bar will have to get shrunk to make room for them. Also, if there isn't enough title bar visible, it might be hard for the user to move the window around. I think browsers like Chrome and Firefox can more easily pull off using the title bar for content because more of it is visible when the user only has one or two tabs open. In the case of this Songbird window, the awesome bar would always be up top, and I'll need to make sure that there is enough title bar for people to grab on to. – Murphy, on July 30, 2009 20:01

This was a more difficult undertaking than I originally thought it would be. I use OSX, so it was a challenge getting the interface to be all aero-glassy when I have such little experience with it. I think it turned out well though and looks pretty neat with the native look; it especially helps make it look less iTunes-like by not being so chromy in Windows.

I hope I mention everything that I planned on mentioning, because I've been working on this for a few hours and you get so wrapped up in it that you sort forget what you started out doing. Mostly, I just wanted to give the interface the same native feel that the Firefox mockups have, so I made the interface all glass (is it dangerous making a birdcage out of glass...). If I were to spend more time thinking about it and working on it, I might be able to make it a little more unique, but I think it gets the point across.



The main change, other than the glass, is the simplified UI. The awesome bar and search bar are one, creating the super-awesome bar. This way, people don't have to think about what they're looking for; whether it be a song, album or artist from the library, or a website or search, they just type what they need into the bar, and they can easily get there. I think the biggest benefit of this is that it unifies the web and library more, because right now it can be pretty confusing in Songbird getting to the web from the library and then switching between them. We might even be able to do this with an add-on pretty soon. =)



I removed the menu bar and I think it makes the interface a great deal cleaner. The Tools button could give you access to the tools you normally get to in the menus. You might also notice that while in the library, the button next to tools lets you change the media view, whereas while you are on a webpage, it gives you page options you would normally get in the menu bar (save, print, send). I also tried to make things easier by changing up how the browser works. I put a browser tab into the service pane (I've actually posted a topic about it before), and when you click on it, it would show your tabs and currently open webpage. This way, people would easily know how to access the web, and it would help everyone maintain the webpages they have open.



This way, you wouldn't even need a tab for the library since it can already be accessed in the service pane. I think it can be confusing to people that two Library tabs (one in the tab bar, one in the service pane) can be visible at the same in Songbird the way it is now, and this redesign would help fix the problem. There would only have to be a Library tab in the tab bar now if the user hid the service pane while browsing.

That's all I can think of for now. Please post any opinions you have on what changes you think would be good for the interface. It might not get changed for a while, but maybe if we come up with enough good ideas, the team will squeeze a release into the roadmap which features a renovated UI. I would certainly like to see it happen.

My Macbook does too have an alt key! It just says "option" on it too. The only thing I don't have is a Windows key, but you don't have an Apple key, so we're even. =P

And Michael.. it's like we live the same life. I just recently started using Chrome mainly instead of Firefox because it is just so much faster and has such a clean interface. It can't even display youtube videos yet in the Mac version, yet I still use it primarily and just open up Firefox when I need it. I have even started using a music program for Macs called ecoute a lot because it just loads instantly and has such a simple interface. Of course, I love open-source projects and Songbird will always be the love of my life, but I do hope that one day it loads faster and someone makes a media view that is simple and effective. – Murphy, on July 29, 2009 05:30