Friends: The facelift of r-box in the latest LTS has created a problem. Some end users record lengthy 1-2hr Mp3 stream captures, and others may playback 30min or longer jazz and symphonic compositions. Shortening the progress "slider" bar by approx 50-60% compresses the effective granularity and ability to precisely place the "stylus". The playback point. The tool becomes so crude as to be an annoyance rather than a feature. Skipping ahead over adverts, or reversing to repeat a short movement becomes difficult to do with any accuracy. Especially if perhaps seated a few feet away using an HDMI screen as monitor for an entertainment room, while mousing with an RF device at a distance.
My short term fix is to simply stop using r-box for the time being, and switching back to VLC for my stream captures and podcast playback sessions. I can squeeze the VLC box down to a simple 1" slider bar and stretch it across the screen to about 14" in length on a 40" LCD, for precise control. The reason I had switched to r-box (set as an Ubuntu "Default"), was because VLC was incapable of sorting the segment sequence of an audiobook CD (Yes I still rent and collect them). Astonishing but true, VLC is confounded when attempting to read an audiobook CD and starts playing on track 10 (ten). Rythmbox can sort the correct segment, or track list, and begins on track 1 (one). Some CDs have about 20 tracks and some up to 100. In addition, before someone modified the length of the slider bar, r-box HAD superior precision controls for skipping ahead a few seconds over scratched spots on the substrate. http://newtech.about.com/od/apple/a/Skeumorphic-Design.htm It seems we may have come to a plateau in skeumorphic interface graphics design whereby supposed "improvements" are simply change for the sake of "style" (never a good idea), busy-work, job insurance or perhaps just for the hell of it. One has to be careful that by changing control dimensions or proportions, one doesn't reduce the vaunted "functionality". Just one man's opinion. I rarely use these on screen displays for conventional MP3 music playback. I use CD players thru Adcom amps or HK AV amps. I do not have any use for itoons etc. Or I might listen to Pandora. Just the exact opposite of the vast majority of pop-culture customers you may have been focused upon. As an aside, you might note the incipient death of the pocket Mp3 player. Most of these cheap devices are so poorly designed that they cannot handle anything by short tagged files, per poop music. They cannot fast forward within a file. They cannot stop, power-off, and resume at the same point. They cannot reverse and resume within a file. Most or many can only skip entire tracks (songs) and are useless for audiobooks or recorded broadcasts, presentations, or lengthy, so-called "podcasts". The "new wave" of finger fones or mini-tablets simply perpetuate this incompetence with the exception of perhaps the top 20% of the devices on the market. It seems the masses NEVER listen to audiobooks, record their own auto-didactic educational programming or talk shows, etc. The code necessary to include such capabilities is virtually free ($1 license fee?), and universally available. The looming Idiocracy. If someone reading this missive could contact the developers for Rythmbox and inform them as to the above detailed "slider bar" anomalies, I would be most appreciative. Just for fun, contact the VideoLan boys and ask what they had in mind for CD playback? Wil Cooper Indy - USA -- ABC absanso...@fastmail.fm -- http://www.fastmail.fm - Access all of your messages and folders wherever you are _______________________________________________ rhythmbox-devel mailing list rhythmbox-devel@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/rhythmbox-devel
