New GUI?

Mechcozmo · Member Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Location: Earth (North America)

I've had some spare time and so I was working on what I thought would be a nice, new, GUI for ffmpegX. Tell me what you think. Not all the tabs are implemented yet (heck of a lot of those!) but the basics are, I think, there.

xoa · Member Joined: 31 Aug 2005 Location: United States

While your effort is commendable, right now I don't see what your design brings over the current all-in-one window except to convert the basic UI theme to aqua. This in and of itself doesn't really do anything for usability, and furthermore, the aqua look and feel is arguably less appropriate unless you are going to a more standard multi window paradigm. If you are really interested in designing a new interface, make sure that at least you have gone to the source, the Apple HIG. Reading through that is very useful in helping to design a consistent and useful interface. Make sure you think closely about keeping down the clutter, and what each element does. For example, what purpose does a search dialog serve in an application like this unless in the actual open dialog (which itself should be using the cocoa calls so as to take advantage of full OS X functionality)? It seems to be a waste of space as well as being distracting. Good luck!

Mechcozmo · Member Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Location: Earth (North America)

Lots of good points. Aqua theme was because it is easier to see with my PowerBook's brightness turned down. A checkbox changes it to brushed metal and back.

You are right about the search box, it is unneeded.

I have been keeping as close as possible to the original ffmpegX layout, which can be seen as better or worse. I guess we'll see.

I have read Apple's HIG guidelines (well, the important parts) and am trying to stay as close to them as possible. Overall, it is quite a bit more consistent than current.

When I'm done, I'm done, and I'll send it to major so he can work on grafting the old code onto the new interface, or tweak things, or whatever.