Hi Torben, sorry but we have an ever expanding need of keyboard commands for blind and partially sighted users.
Its hoped all playout operations of mAirList can be mapped to a keyboard, the latest needs being:
1.Load a highlighted item (other than pressing enter as we will have a custom keyboard). This would be useful if both by per player and playlist (we use 2 playlists each with 3 players).
2.Playlist Focus (simlar to the exisitng browser focus, again on a playlist 1/2 selection).
3.Link highlighted item in playlist to next.
These would enable all users to work from a single keyboard during Live Assist, that is until we allow them to start using the hook and pfl some time in the future.
Hi Torben, sorry another request. Actually a modification of something Isked a while ago.
Originally I asked for a click on an item in the browser and then a click on a player would load that item. i.e. Click/Click/Load as well as drag and drop. This is something we have used in playout software before.
This time I would like this to also be extended to a playlist item.
OK, this is all very well if you DO have touch screen, but would be very very annoying to people who don’t. This ‘click, click’ to load A into B would cause untold chaos for most non-touch-screen users if you just happen to have clicked on some browser item and the next thing you click (perhaps MINUTES later) happens to be a Player!
Therefore, Torben is correct: some kind of ‘touch-screen’ mode’ is needed to change that behaviour, so that those of us using ‘normal’ PCs don’t suffer because of the wishes of the few people using touch screens.
PS: Our station will never ever use touch screens because of the potential ‘wipe the screen’ problem (you know: you cough or splutter, then without thinking, you wipe the touch screen clean and cause utter disaster?). Cleaners at commercial stations have been known to do similar things during automated playout!
Hi Cad, I was not actually thinking especially of Touch screen when I made this request several months ago. Its just something that comes as standard in even the earliest of PC playout software as a fixed feature.
However with mAirList each station sets the configuration to their need.
:o Are you saying that ‘all’ PC playout software uses this incredibly counter-intuitive ‘click in Browser, click on Player’ technique to load a track into a player? Perhaps it started before anyone was used to drag’n’drop as a technique? I’ve genuinely never seen that in ANY playout software I’ve used, so would appreciate a list of software which uses it if it’s so ‘universal.’
As someone who used to train PC users, design GUIs, and write user documentation (among other things) for a living for over 20 years, I have seen and used a LOT of different types of PC software from the esoteric (control timber cutting machinery) to the mundane (MS Office). I can honestly say that I cannot ever recall using any software which uses ‘click item, click target’ to ‘load’ any kind of item, and I honestly feel that any PC user who trained or learned within the last five to ten years would find it a really strange and un-natural way to do it.
It would certainly cause a lot of chaos and mistakes for me and I bet for many others as well. Even accidentally clicking on the Browser and then on a Player would cause an unintentional track load and no doubt much cursing as well.
And with my programming hat on, I can see it would be a pain to program as well. EVERY mouse click in mAirList would suddenly have an overhead of at minimum, storing the present click’s ‘location;’ and if on a Player, checking where your previous click was (was it on a track in Browser?). I for one would NOT like mAirList’s operation to be slowed down in that way. It takes my PC 800mS as it is to load a track into a Player and I don’t want that to creep over the one second mark.
I also don’t see why mAirList needs to adopt a flawed technique probably devised in the days when Windows was Very New.
BCX3, for starters, supports the touch ‘n’ drop method (as well as drag ‘n’ drop). It works very well.
If you “touch” any item in a Playlist, Button (hot key) or Database and then the Port’s (player) song-bar, it’ll load/stack the item. You have to touch the coloured part where the song artist/title is. Obviously if the action cannot physically occur - like dragging a Playlist item into the Database, then nothing will happen.
Well, fair play Charlie :), but my personal view is still that any form of ‘touch’n’drop’ would cause enough operator errors to make it more of an irritation than a useful feature. My worry remains that in most cases, the action CAN (and therefore WILL) happen!
Our presenters have enough trouble operating PCs using the normal Windows GUI techniques without introducing non-standard ones as well! :-\
Hence IF this feature is introduced, I strongly feel it SHOULD be an option which can be globally turned OFF in Config for those of us who are very nervous about it!
Another piece of software that supports this click/clcik feature or perhaps rather click drop is Wavcart, which came in various guises and the software I was refering too as an early playout system. As its no longer available I can send you a copy if you wish.
The failings you describe I have not come across in operation with this particular software in over 13 years use either by myself or the many presenters that have come and gone but I do recognise your concerns.
However mAirList would hold the answer to any potentail problems as it could a feature “globally off” by default.
So anything introduced into mAirList should follow its normal configuration options and be user configurable.
