Previous topicNext topic

UI suggestions

Suggestions for new features for Magic.
Post Reply
blackdot
Posts: 528
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:18 pm

UI suggestions

Post by blackdot »

hello, i thought we could gather suggestion on user interface improvements here, ways to make the workflow more efficient and intuitive. Including shortcuts.

- middle mouse button for panning (already said that in another thread, i know :))
- add shortcuts to the context menu like other softwares do that:
magic.png
magic.png (9.11 KiB) Viewed 20865 times
here with beautifully painted lines under the letters to show which key would be the shortcut.

- maybe 'space' for opening the context menu?
- have the "snapping" of noodles done in a bigger area, so it's easier to drop them on another node
- connect multiple nodes to another node by shift-dragging the noddle, which results in draging noodles out of all selected nodes.
- shortcut for connecting two selected nodes. press shortcut again for inverted connection (by default magic could connect the OUT of the node which is more left, to the IN of the node which is more right, because current layout is from left to right). if it goes from left to right, you could even do more than two nodes.
- eg ctrl-click on node for auto-connecting its OUT to the magic-node (alternatively add this option to the context menu of a node)
- ability to drop-insert a node on the existing connection of two other nodes. hover with the node above the connction, the connection gets highlighted, drop it and it's inserted inbewteen the two nodes.
- and vice versa: rip out a middle-node (leftnode---middlenode---rightnode) without disrupting the noodle. drag a node with alt-click away, and its connections get deleted, but left-node is still connected to rightnode.

I have to admit, almost everything above, i "stole" from blender, so my suggestions might be biased. they do strike me as useful though :).

\\edit: some keywords (had troule finding this topic again): user interface, gui, experience.
Terry Payman
Posts: 710
Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:15 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Terry Payman »

Extra-fine adjustment of numeric module parameters when dragging etc.
The present /10 sensitivity achieved by holding down Ctrl(Cmd) is very useful, but sometimes is still far too coarse. Keyboard input is then required, and adjustment and optimisation becomes very much slower.

Add a /100 option when additionally holding down Shift.

I think I saw a prior request for finer control, but failed to find it with a forum search for "parameter".
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

Ok, good ideas. Thanks! :)
damstraversaz
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 11:22 am

Re: UI suggestions

Post by damstraversaz »

another little one about UI :

About adjusting the gain , it could be very useful to have the gain windows directly on the audio midi windows. with live musicians, you need to tweak them a lot, and using the menu it is not very convenient. you loose too the visual cue of the fader One great option in my opinion will be the possibility to have a midi learn fonction on this fader, so you can easily tweak them on stage.

and thanks for all the previous update, Magic is really become a reference for digital art !
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

About adjusting the gain , it could be very useful to have the gain windows directly on the audio midi windows. with live musicians, you need to tweak them a lot, and using the menu it is not very convenient. you loose too the visual cue of the fader One great option in my opinion will be the possibility to have a midi learn fonction on this fader, so you can easily tweak them on stage.
Ok that sounds good. There's probably enough room to have the gain sliders in the Audio/MIDI window instead of in a separate popup.
and thanks for all the previous update, Magic is really become a reference for digital art !
Thanks! More cool features are coming!
Terry Payman
Posts: 710
Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:15 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Terry Payman »

Eric wrote: There's probably enough room to have the gain sliders in the Audio/MIDI window
Please may we have the option to reduce as well as boost gain?
-12dB to + 24dB adjustment maybe.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

Sure, no problem.

One thing to be aware of though (which you may already know): once the signal has clipped, you can't un-clip it. Reducing the gain would therefore give you a quieter but already-distorted signal.
Terry Payman
Posts: 710
Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:15 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Terry Payman »

Eric wrote:Sure, no problem.
Thanks Eric! :D
Eric wrote:...once the signal has clipped, you can't un-clip it. Reducing the gain would therefore give you a quieter but already-distorted signal.
With respect, I think it is more likely that clipping would occur within Magic because the gain has been increased. Pre-recorded music is usually normalised to peak just below clipping level, so when the source is a music player inside the host PC it's likely the signal will be clipped if level raised further (especially with +24dB gain available).

I posted some related further thoughts here:
http://magicmusicvisuals.com/forums/vie ... p=824#p824
damstraversaz
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 11:22 am

Re: UI suggestions

Post by damstraversaz »

one other suggestion, ( maybe I miss this of course) :
the possibility to have the midi learn fonction for the prev et next entry button , that's will be very useful on stage. Btw , 1.5.2 is really a great update, congatulations !
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

With respect, I think it is more likely that clipping would occur within Magic because the gain has been increased. Pre-recorded music is usually normalised to peak just below clipping level, so when the source is a music player inside the host PC it's likely the signal will be clipped if level raised further (especially with +24dB gain available).
Yep, I was specifically referring to live input. That's what I originally intended the audio gain to be used for. But I can see now that it would be useful to lower the gain for file playback as described in http://magicmusicvisuals.com/forums/vie ... ?f=4&t=236.
one other suggestion, ( maybe I miss this of course) :
the possibility to have the midi learn fonction for the prev et next entry button , that's will be very useful on stage. Btw , 1.5.2 is really a great update, congatulations !
Thanks :). I know that more MIDI control is something everyone wants and I'm making it a priority.
blackdot
Posts: 528
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:18 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by blackdot »

-hey, i noticed that we can press spacebar to maximize/minimize modules. would be great, if we could select multiple modules and then also press space for this. this does work, when the modules are selected with ctrl-click, but not when dragging a selectiono area over them.

-also as space is also used as "enter" on selected buttons or icons, it quickly gets confusing when i press space to maximize a module, mouseclick on the bypass to bypass it, then want to press space to minimize it again, but instead it unbypasses it.

-also to be able to opt in that bypass/power param's are always shown in modules.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

hey, i noticed that we can press spacebar to maximize/minimize modules. would be great, if we could select multiple modules and then also press space for this. this does work, when the modules are selected with ctrl-click, but not when dragging a selectiono area over them.
Actually what's happening is that when you click on a module, the minimize button is the first button, so it gets focused by default. Pressing the Tab key will then go through all the buttons/boxes in order, focusing each one. Pressing the Space bar will toggle whatever button/box is currently focused.

The shortcut for toggling minimize on any selected modules is Ctrl/Cmd-M.
also to be able to opt in that bypass/power param's are always shown in modules.
Sure, that's a good idea.
blackdot
Posts: 528
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:18 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by blackdot »

aah, alright, so i'm wrong trying to use space anyway. okay thanks :).

- also faster scroll speed, vertical and horizontal, with the mousewheel, i mean.

- zooming out. :)
blackdot
Posts: 528
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:18 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by blackdot »

- add "replace with>paste" to the context menu. like the rmb>insert paste on an existing connection.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

Ok sounds good. Zooming out will have to wait for Magic 2.0 though, as it will require a major UI redesign.
Kvasnik
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2015 1:09 am

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Kvasnik »

UI related ideas:

To be able to change the color of scene tabs. I was also wondering whether having different colors for modules would be useful, but it could get distracting.

Another idea would be to have the scene tabs (optionally) running vertically down the left side of the screen.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

Another idea would be to have the scene tabs (optionally) running vertically down the left side of the screen.
I actually had that as an option in the original Magic prototype, but a lot of the testers didn't like reading the text sideways, so I just took it out. Ended up being easier for me anyway :).
To be able to change the color of scene tabs. I was also wondering whether having different colors for modules would be useful, but it could get distracting.
Yeah some other people have suggested that. I've wanted to keep the interface clean and not worry about coming up with an algorithm to determine the selection color based on the background color. But I have it on my list of things to look into later.
blackdot
Posts: 528
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:18 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by blackdot »

-ability to organize the noodling with colors or frames. an example from blender nodes:
upload-magic.png
upload-magic.png (135.1 KiB) Viewed 19550 times
-display the amount of available vram like this: 1'970'680 or 1,970,680 instad of : 1970680. for better readability.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

ability to organize the noodling with colors or frames. an example from blender nodes
A couple people have suggested being able to choose colors for the modules (instead of just the default blue). I'll start thinking about how to do this in a way that wouldn't be too messy.
display the amount of available vram like this: 1'970'680 or 1,970,680 instad of : 1970680. for better readability.
Ok that's easy. At some point I may also change it to MB instead of KB since KB is not too significant any more.
Kvasnik
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2015 1:09 am

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Kvasnik »

Eric wrote:
Another idea would be to have the scene tabs (optionally) running vertically down the left side of the screen.
I actually had that as an option in the original Magic prototype, but a lot of the testers didn't like reading the text sideways, so I just took it out. Ended up being easier for me anyway :).
Actually I imagined the tabs arranged vertically but still with the text horizontal, so it would look like a list.
Fractal Grinder
Posts: 109
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2015 7:42 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Fractal Grinder »

Hey I think a great idea would be, add sticky notes with the abiltity to change between a couple of colors, that way we can put a few notes by modules to keep track of projects that get a little overwhelming. Just a thought, because I was gonna suggest different colored modules as well, but I can see thats already been said. I think sticky notes would be a nice addition for organizing scenes. IDK if you can do this in Quartz Composer but being able to minimize these notes to just a single header of a word or two would be ace.

Thanks for all your hard work Eric
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

Ok thanks. You can also check out https://magicmusicvisuals.com/downloads ... uleOptions and scroll down a bit to the Annotations section. Let me know if it helps.
Fractal Grinder
Posts: 109
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2015 7:42 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Fractal Grinder »

Eric wrote: Let me know if it helps.
Yeah I'm sure that will help a ton. I'm currently working on a project that mainly is on one scene so things have gotten a little hairy, this will definately help me keep track of everything much better.
Fractal Grinder
Posts: 109
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2015 7:42 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Fractal Grinder »

The only other thing I could say after using the Annotations is too have a option to make the note visable when the module is minimized. That would be perfect
Terry Payman
Posts: 710
Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:15 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Terry Payman »

SplatterBrainz wrote:The only other thing I could say after using the Annotations is too have a option to make the note visable when the module is minimized. That would be perfect
I agree, and have already requested this. Eric suggested "Temporarily I suppose what you could do is put another module near your minimized module(s), such as DepthTest which has no params, but don't connect it anywhere… so its entire purpose would just be to show an annotation".

There are further comments too - follow this link for full details:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=281&p=1011&hilit=+annotation#p1011
Kvasnik
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2015 1:09 am

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Kvasnik »

Some minor suggestions:

1) instead of audio 0 and audio 1 as the two audio channels, rename them 'left' and 'right'. So also e.g. microphone left / right, instead of microphone 0/1. Even if it's mono, or the left and right are swapped, it might look simpler (for a while I didn't understand why the audio inputs were duplicated!)

2) rename the vidCap module to vidCam. Again, video camera seems a more representative labelling than video capture (which makes me think of recording a video to a hard drive).

Bigger suggestion:

3) move some of the audio editing functions to the audio window. For example, in the 'audio editor' you would have together the volume select, frequency select, and also parameters such as gate, threshold etc. Critically would be to have a visible output of the audio (volume meter). Ideally then to have this editor for each input, so the user could set up multiple versions of the audio (e.g. one bass with a fast response, another for the high end, etc etc). The reason for this, is that at the moment if I want to fine tune the audio signal I have to do it in each module that takes that signal, so I'm often duplicating sets of parameters. Having the audio edited before it gets fed to the modules would keep it all in one place.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

1) instead of audio 0 and audio 1 as the two audio channels, rename them 'left' and 'right'. So also e.g. microphone left / right, instead of microphone 0/1. Even if it's mono, or the left and right are swapped, it might look simpler (for a while I didn't understand why the audio inputs were duplicated!)
The main reason for the numbering is that many users have professional audio cards which have more than two inputs. Like this:

Image

In this case, "left" and "right" wouldn't really make sense, because there are 8 analog inputs. So what would the remaining 6 be called :)? Originally when I designed Magic several years ago, one of the main concepts was to allow users to create visuals that respond differently to many simultaneous live audio/MIDI instruments, or many simultaneous audio tracks.

Keep in mind that if the default naming is confusing, you can always rename the inputs:

Image
2) rename the vidCap module to vidCam. Again, video camera seems a more representative labelling than video capture (which makes me think of recording a video to a hard drive).
Fair point. I've actually thought about renaming it, since it was originally intended only for web cams, and some people do get upset when their fancier capture devices don't work. The only reason I haven't changed it is so that people don't get confused. But I may change it in the future.
3) move some of the audio editing functions to the audio window. For example, in the 'audio editor' you would have together the volume select, frequency select, and also parameters such as gate, threshold etc. Critically would be to have a visible output of the audio (volume meter). Ideally then to have this editor for each input, so the user could set up multiple versions of the audio (e.g. one bass with a fast response, another for the high end, etc etc). The reason for this, is that at the moment if I want to fine tune the audio signal I have to do it in each module that takes that signal, so I'm often duplicating sets of parameters. Having the audio edited before it gets fed to the modules would keep it all in one place.
This will actually be addressed in Magic 1.7 :). There will be a separate window where you can define and customize global inputs, including choosing an audio/MIDI source and adding modifiers. This input can then be a source for any module parameter, and any adjustment you make to it will be automatically reflected everywhere it's used. Know what I mean?
Kvasnik
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2015 1:09 am

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Kvasnik »

Okay I didn't even consider the multiple soundcard inputs; I often forget the luxury some people have :-)

Regarding the other stuff it sounds like you've got it all under wraps :-)
Fractal Grinder
Posts: 109
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2015 7:42 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Fractal Grinder »

I figured this was the best place to post this, instead of making a new thread, but im working right now and I got a complex scene going on, thought that it would be really nice when you grab to move a module if you could make it so the connectors got highlighted or turned another color, at least while you move the module.. honestly not a big thing for me because I can see it fine if i move it a bit, but i think it would be a nice touch.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: UI suggestions

Post by Magic »

Sure that's a reasonable suggestion :).
Post Reply