Interface design thoughts

Anything about MUSIC but doesn't fit into the forums above.
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Hey,

After some comments in a thread about interface design, i started thinking about the things lacking in interface design.

For example, many clearly love a hardware-alike piece of software, but given that more and more people including producers will now have only ever (or predominantly) have used software, why aren't devs taking this into account?

Look at OO coding. You take a design/plan for a software app and you break it down into logical modules that interact to forma whole. Often hese modules can be re-arranged and used in different ways, and thats half the point.

However, most software interfaces are fixed, and although in some cased they are more elastic (tracktion etc) they still usually don't take a very modular/flexible approach. Surely GUI code could be made a little more flexible.

As an example, if you can re-size displays of audio/midi data for whatever reason, then why not do the same with other interface elements. Plenty of people complain of size problems on larger/smaller displays, yet i have never seen a piece of music software where you can resize the window and the knobs/sliders/buttons resize with it.

From the perspective of a semi-pro coder, i'd have to say i doubt it would be particularly easy, but i also doubt it would be particularly hard (in the context of professional coders working on large projects 5-100+ thousand lines of code)

I'd just love to hear some thoughts on this, many arguments rage here about specific apps UIs, but it'd be nice to hear ideas and thoughts in general. Maybe we can inspire some devs to make improvements :)

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Wasn't Synth 1 resizable? Or was it just color?

I have only ever used software. I am curious about how long it would take me to learn my way around hardware.

Some GUIs I like are FL Studio. I bought it because of all the demos I tried it was the only one I could understand without a manual. Retro-GS01 has some nice innovations.

I am waiting for 3-D to be used in GUI design. On some VSTs, like Sytrus, it is hard to picture how all the components fit together, a 3-D interface that takes you "inside" and instrument. Something like the computers in "Minority Report." But I can't see it being memory efficient, like a resizable interface. From my limited computer knowledge, I can't imagine a resizable interface working unless there was a generic GUI shared by several VSTs. They could all have the same knobs, etc., and that could be resized.

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quincy wrote:As an example, if you can re-size displays of audio/midi data for whatever reason, then why not do the same with other interface elements. Plenty of people complain of size problems on larger/smaller displays, yet i have never seen a piece of music software where you can resize the window and the knobs/sliders/buttons resize with it.
the mixer in samplitude is resizeable...

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multree wrote:
quincy wrote:As an example, if you can re-size displays of audio/midi data for whatever reason, then why not do the same with other interface elements. Plenty of people complain of size problems on larger/smaller displays, yet i have never seen a piece of music software where you can resize the window and the knobs/sliders/buttons resize with it.
the mixer in samplitude is resizeable...
My bad :)

But still you get the point, these applications are not many in number, and there is so much room for experimentation and improvement.

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as with many things GUI ...

... i think ableton are WAY ahead of the game at this moment in time ...

... live has one of the (IMHO) most 'modular' and 'software' interfaces available in audio software at the moment ... you choose which bits you see ... how big some of them are ... everything is drag-n-drop (barring some 3rd party plugins) ...

... pointing the way forward

slainte 8) rob

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I doubt if this would be possible with bitmap/pixel GUIs ...it shouldn't be a problem with vector GUI's though

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how many VSTi use vector graphics though ???

closest i can think of is concreteFX - i seem to remember jon saying something about his GUIs being drawn on the fly and not bitmapped ...

slainte :? rob

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vector GUI's would be awesome..

Drag a corner & resize your plug to whatever dimensions you wanted..yummy :D

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sicklecell666 wrote:vector GUI's would be awesome..

Drag a corner & resize your plug to whatever dimensions you wanted..yummy :D
Exactly, and thats surely only the tip of the iceberg.

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that be pretty cool... although I guess I would need to buy myself a copy of Illustrator then....

and the thing is when you want to apply textures and visual styles this would be very performance heavy....

but maybe one could switch between several differently sized bitmap guis in one VST

I gues this would be possible, though much more work for the dev....

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btw... shouldn't all this be very easy with flash????? (well easy for the folks that have flash and are able to use it which doesn't apply to me I'm afraid :cry: )

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multree wrote:btw... shouldn't all this be very easy with flash????? (well easy for the folks that have flash and are able to use it which doesn't apply to me I'm afraid :cry: )
Flash doesn't really apply to real-time music applications. It would certainly be interesting if it did though.

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ORION allows you to do pretty much anything to it's GUI, provided you have the patience and intent. Right now scrolling windows are enough to affect real-time audio playback so I think it makes perfect sense to save all the performance for making sound.
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sicklecell666 wrote:vector GUI's would be awesome..

Drag a corner & resize your plug to whatever dimensions you wanted..yummy :D
Can you say JUCE?
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A graphic that seems perfect to one person may be too small for a second person and too large for a third person. I guess there is not perfect GUI.

Also, a big company and professionals are just as likely to create a crap interface as a small company. Look at Project 5. It's pretty, new and from a big company. Yet, the interface is crap. you need a 30" monitor and the whole alt-drag concept for moving a window drives me crazy. :?
All I need to be happy is one more VSTi.

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