Re: [Audacity-devel] Win7 / Vista P2s - input slider function

[Gale A. <ga...@au...>]

| From Al Dimond <bus...@gm...> 
| Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:31:32 -0700
| Subject: [Audacity-devel] Win7 / Vista P2s - input slider function
> On Wednesday 24 February 2010 10:25:52 Gale Andrews wrote:
> > | From Al Dimond <bus...@gm...>
> > | Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:47:34 -0700
> > | Subject: [Audacity-devel] Win7 / Vista P2s - input slider
> > | function
> > |
> > |  > On Tuesday 23 February 2010 13:45:54 Gale Andrews wrote:
> > > > | From Al Dimond <bus...@gm...>
> > > > | Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:29:55 -0700
> > > > | Subject: [Audacity-devel] Win7 / Vista P2s - input slider
> > > > | function
> > > > |
> > > > > On Monday 23 November 2009 22:32:09 Leland wrote:
> > > > > > Bill Wharrie wrote:
> > > > > > > But I was a little taken aback when the recording level
> > > > > > > slider disappeared entirely when the USB mic was selected
> > > > > > > for input. This seems a major change to the UI. I'm used
> > > > > > > to the Input Selector coming and going, but not the
> > > > > > > recording level slider. I think I'd prefer if it was
> > > > > > > greyed out.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > As would I...
> > > > >
> > > > > OK. Currently ASlider/LWSlider doesn't support greying (you
> > > > > can disable it, as it derives from wxWindow, but it doesn't
> > > > > change the appearance). I can probably add that...
> > > >
> > > > Although removing ability to use the input slider under
> > > > emulation is a good move in principle, I'm afraid that even the
> > > > current solution of greying the slider will create significant
> > > > problems when large numbers of users migrate to 2.0. I wanted
> > > > to wait and see user reaction, but bluntly, the slider looks
> > > > broken, and I know from anecdotal correspondence that some
> > > > users are simply going back to 1.2 without RTFM, FAQ (if there
> > > > was one) or asking for help.
> > >
> > > It probably doesn't help that the slider thumb graphic is really
> > > bad. It doesn't effectively provide the illusion of depth that
> > > the enabled slider does. I am not a graphic designer and I really
> > > don't know how to fix it. I blew up some screenshots of disabled
> > > slider thumbs and tried to emulate them, but it just doesn't look
> > > good.
> > 
> > Would it help if we retained the mic icon, but replaced the
> >  flat-looking slider with an empty box? That would have some depth,
> >  and maybe the box could contain some (greyed out) text, so it
> >  didn't get too obtrusive? That would look to me more like
> >  something that was deliberately done.
> > 
> 
> I played around with it a bit yesterday and I think it looks better... 
> I reverted the change to the scale line color and slightly darkened 
> the edges of the thumb. And I added a tooltip. Since we're frozen I 
> just made a screenshot. Do you think this is an improvement?
> 
> http://wiki.audacityteam.org/w/images/0/04/Slider.png
> 
> (tooltips always display in the bottom status bar as well; also the 
> screenshot doesn't show the mouse pointer, it's over the disabled 
> slider; the slider backgrounds are weird, but they've always been 
> weird on Linux, for me at least).

Thanks, Al. I think it does look better without that scale line colour 
change. Two other things might help too:

* Can you grey the "+" and "-"? 
* How about the volume is stuck on zero, not maximum?

Does the tooltip show without you having to click or hover over the
thumb? I just wondered because of this enhancement issue: 
http://bugzilla.audacityteam.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74

Also do you think a screen reader (like NVDA):
http://www.nvda-project.org/

will read out the tooltip when you tab into the input slider?

I quite like your tooltip message. Is it more important though to give
them a clue what to do? How about :

"Input Volume disabled - use system slider" 

or 

"Input Volume not controllable - use system slider"

Or "not accessible" maybe. 



Gale 



> > But I still feel a tooltip would be useful anyway, because it gives
> >  us a bit more width to say something.
> > 
> > > > Is it possible to have a tooltip when you hover over that
> > > > disabled slider? Or does someone have a better solution? I
> > > > don't know yet what we could say in about six words of tooltip,
> > > > but I really think we have to address this in a better way than
> > > > now.
> > >
> > > It's probably possible. Is it customary to have tooltips for
> > > disabled UI elements?
> > 
> > Even if it wasn't, I think there is a strong case here where the
> >  element has been globally disabled for external reasons. And
> >  rightly or wrongly, we do have tooltips for disabled elements in
> >  Audacity e.g. disabled meter toolbars (I think that's OK - you
> >  still want to know what the disabled "thing" is ), and all the
> >  controls in the Custom FFmpeg Export dialogue (maybe not so good?)
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Gale
> > 
> > > > Update of /cvsroot/audacity/audacity-src/src/widgets
> > > > In directory
> > > > 
> > > > sfp-cvsdas-1.v30.ch3.sourceforge.com:/tmp/cvs-serv15328/src/wid
> > > >get s
> > > >
> > > > Modified Files:
> > > > 	ASlider.cpp ASlider.h
> > > > Log Message:
> > > > Grey-out input volume slider instead of hiding it
> > > > when it does not have control of the mixer.
> > 
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