Remote review

[MDE]

Here is my first take on the Remote Control. I've put it under feature requests, because it contains a few of those, but feel free to move it.
My overall impression is that it is potentially very nice, but has a few clunky aspects and some areas where it could use the power of the Muso database better. If these can be dealt with then it would definitely be my app of choice (over iPeng and the Squeezebox app). So here goes:

Likes: All the Muso functionality that carries over. Just to name a few: - classical mode (artists become composers); - album page layout with Group Headers (including the separation of a group of tracks from subsequent ungrouped tracks) and highlight of track now playing.

Suggestions/comments:
General: It seems necessary to select a player on the desktop before the remote will play (i.e. selecting in config does not seem to work if no player is selected on the desktop).
When the page is refreshed it always opens in "mixed mode", rather than what it was in before or the mode of the desktop.
Some of the interface is a bit unituitive - e.g. touching the album art has a different effect from touching the text next to it.

Home page: 8 button layout is nice and simple but 3 of the 8 buttons are effectively "random play" (More.., Genres, Tags). Suggest these be put under one "Random play" button, from which you can then apply filters etc. This gives 2 spare buttons for other purposes. Suggest one of these is used for a hierarchy (Press to get list of fields; selecting a field gives sorted list of that field; selecting an instance in the list gives an "all albums" option plus a list of fields to drill down further (with the total number of albums under that instance) - i.e. very like the hierarchy on the desktop but presented one step at a time.

Album list: Always seems to open in date added order regardless of the last sort order chosen or what is on the desktop gallery.
If you go back to it after visiting an album page it takes you back to the beginning rather than where you were.

Album page: Selecting a whole album seems fussy (need to touch the artwork?).
Selecting a Group to play doesn't seem to work. What is the star for, next to the album title?
Should have a back button to go back to where you were in the album list (have to use the browser back button).
Option to see other artwork (and launch pdf's) would be a plus as that's where my sleevenotes are and the remote is where I want them.

Artists/Composers list page: An A-Z index down the rhs would help find artists quicker.
Same comments re back button as for the albums.

Now Playing page: If song title is long (as it can be for classical music) it wraps over to the next line and eliminates the album title, then truncates if still too long. That's OK provided there is a way of seeing the full information. Also it would be nice to be able to see (optionally) all the artist, band and performer info (say in a semi-transparent overlay screen).
Maybe the following would work: Line 1: Album name; Line 2 GroupHeader (if any); Line 3: Track; Line 4: Artist/Composer (depending on mode); Line 5: Other performers (Composer/Artist depending on mode, Band, Conductor, Performer). Line 5 would be an optional display. Other lines would wrap or scroll if too long for the screen.
It's actually quite nice to have the Album Page open when playing (especially as it highlghts the playing track), but there doesn't seem to be a natural way of getting there.
Volume controls don't give a level indication. It is not clear which player is currently selected and therefore to which player volume changes will apply.
A timeline would be nice: I appreciate that this has been discussed elsewhere, but the way most apps seem to handle it is to run their own internal clock and only sync occassionally or when there is an action such as pause etc.

Search: Search is at the track level, whereas on the desktop it is at the album level. Personally I would find the album level more useful as you can always drill down to the track, whereas track level returns too many results and doesn't allow you to go up to the album level. Alternatively, make this configurable.
After entering a search term it returns to the home page and you have to re-select the search page.

More Like This page: Does not tell you what the songs are before playing.

Genres page: Only lists one of my Genres (Folk-Rock), even in classical mode. This is odd as this is one genre I cannot get to appear in the genre filter on the desktop!
Also, I would expect this to give a list rather than just immediate random play (or at least the option).

Future direction: Obviously a full App rather than browser page will be a lot slicker, when the functionality is settled.
Wiki/Lastfm links on Album and Now Playing would also be quite nice (as they are on the desktop) and would remove any inclination to go back to iPeng.

Hope that helps - it's meant to be constructive rather than critical.

[musoware]

Thanks for that review. I'll concentrate on the tidying up the messy areas first, but then I'll have to decide whether it's worth spending time building new functionality into the web interface or concentrating future attention on the windows software. Things like the A-Z index overlay on the artist list, like iPeng provides, aren't going to be feasible unless jquery mobile gives it to me as a feature (I'm not sure if it's in the pipeline). The hierarchical mode is going to be a big task too so may have to wait. A full remote app like iPeng is probably off the cards to be honest.

Sales of Muso have now completely stopped and I have doubts whether this will make a difference, however I'm content if it remains a small community driven project. The result of this though, is that I won't have much time to invest on major new features.

[musoware]

A few comments on individual points:

Some of the interface is a bit unituitive - e.g. touching the album art has a different effect from touching the text next to it.
Album page: Selecting a whole album seems fussy (need to touch the artwork?).

I wanted to add a play icon in the middle of the cover thumbnail toillustrate that is the intended effect - ie. play an album when you click on the cover, drill down to an album when you click on the text to the right of the cover.

Album list: If you go back to it after visiting an album page it takes you back to the beginning rather than where you were.
Should have a back button to go back to where you were in the album list (have to use the browser back button).

On my ipod in Safari the Browser Back button is very convenient for this, and it does take you back to where you were in the album list - though perhaps with other browsers the back button isn't so convenient. How are you getting back to the album list where it takes you back to the start?

It's actually quite nice to have the Album Page open when playing (especially as it highlghts the playing track), but there doesn't seem to be a natural way of getting there.

I'm not sure why it stopped working but clicking the album title from the Now Playing page used to take you to the Now Playing album - will fix. NB. Rotating the device at any time to landscape mode takes you to the Now Playing screen.

Genres page: Only lists one of my Genres (Folk-Rock), even in classical mode. This is odd as this is one genre I cannot get to appear in the genre filter on the desktop!
Also, I would expect this to give a list rather than just immediate random play (or at least the option).

That's probably because I only collate high-rated tracks (3 and a half stars and above I think) within the genres for this page, perhaps you don't use ratings - I need to make things like this configurable.