fix positions of mixer controls, rearrange vinyl controls

[ronso0]

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[ronso0]

Recording and Shoutcast button are normal square buttons now, they have blue bg for states 1-3 and colored icons. Check if you like it that way.
Also RecordingDuration font is bold now.

[ronso0]

Re: beatgrid buttons
In deck control grid, I'd put Eject where Curpos is and put a toggle for Vinyl Controls there, which would also be vinyl statuslight.
Curpos button I'd put in the beatgrid row and rearrange those buttons so the expand/collapse toggle stays in place. What do you think?

[ronso0]

I notice we can save vertical space in the collapsed effect units:
I'll try to put [On/Off] [Meta] [EffectSelector] in one row per effect, like in expanded units.

[Be-ing]

I thought about that with the effect units too, but I'm not sure it would fit in the minimum width then. Perhaps we could shrink the knobs and/or font size of the effect selector to make that work?

[Be-ing]

There is a bit of wasted space above the mixer knobs with split waveforms. How about shrinking the volume fader and level meters a little? Or adding a bit of vertical padding between the knobs?

If we could get the master level meter to align with the deck meters with 4 decks split waveforms that would be nice:

[Be-ing]

The recording and broadcasting icons feel cramped within their buttons. I think it would help to shrink the icons a tiny bit to leave more padding around the inside of the buttons.

IME the beats_translate_curpos button is by far the most frequently used for adjusting the beatgrid and it really helps to have it easily accessible, especially if it is not mapped on a controller (many controllers don't have a good way to map this). I'd rather not have it hidden behind the more extensive beatgrid editing menu.

The borders around the BPM and key do help make the buttons behind them more discoverable. I think the borders could benefit from being maybe a pixel or two thicker with rounded corners.

The changes with the vinyl control options are better than they were, but I think we can still do better. Do we really need the relative/absolute and cue mode buttons taking space in the skin? Are these actually changed while mixing? Maybe those should be moved to the Preferences? I would think the only ones that are useful to have access to while mixing would be the vinyl control enable switch and the passthrough switch. Also, I don't think it's a good use of space to have the vinyl options toggle icon showing for everyone all the time. I'd rather have all vinyl related widgets toggled by one item in the skin settings.

[Be-ing]

I think it may be time for a larger redesign of Deere's decks as @naught101 mentioned. The tempo faders are too short and there is wasted vertical space between the overview waveforms and the bottom controls. Perhaps in rearranging those we could find a better place for the vinyl related widgets.

[Be-ing]

@Bronxio, do you have any ideas for where to put the vinyl related widgets? Should we move the relative/absolute and cue mode switches into the Preferences?

[ronso0]

I thought about that with the effect units too, but I'm not sure it would fit in the minimum width then. Perhaps we could shrink the knobs and/or font size of the effect selector to make that work?

Reduce padding (maybe font size) and all should fit. I'll try

There is a bit of wasted space above the mixer knobs with split waveforms.

If we could get the master level meter to align with the deck meters

I'm not done yet with the mixer level meters. I tried shifting stuff and allow level meters to grow if neither faders nor EQs are visible, but am not happy yet.

[ronso0]

I'll shrink the Rec and Broadcasting icon even further.
beat_translate_curpos goes back to deck controls, vinyl options are toggled from skin settings, okay.

Do we really need the relative/absolute and cue mode buttons taking space in the skin?

I noticed in a videos where DJs performed with DVS and suddenly the needle started skipping due to a scratch in the disc. In such a case it's veeery convinient to quickly switch to CONSTANT mode.

[ronso0]

The tempo faders are too short and there is wasted vertical space between the overview waveforms and the bottom controls.

please post a screenshot of that situation.
IIRC there was a previous Deere configuration where Play & Cue button would go into deck controls row and let the tempo fader expand. To re-enable that feature, we could rearrange loop and spinbox groups like this (quick sketch at minimal window size)

In general the challenge here is to make it look good on minimal as well as on bigger screens...

[ronso0]

The borders around the BPM and key do help make the buttons behind them more discoverable. I think the borders could benefit from being maybe a pixel or two thicker with rounded corners.

Actually those sharp corners distinguish the expand toggles from normal action buttons.
I'll test if a brighter border color works better, everything else forces the text row to grow taller.

[Bronxio]

I think it's ok to show all of them (vinyl control on/off, passthorugh, abs/rel/const and cue mode) only if user wants to see the Vinyl Control Options. But, if so, it's great to have the four. I would miss any of them.

Although the relative mode and the cue/hot cue options seems to be popular (and always set), there are some DJ tools ready to play in absolute mode, like "Cuts & Drums Digital Version" from DJ Vajra (with the same divisions as in control vinyls, so the tracks can be found in these, without looking at the screen). So, it's nice to be able to switch the mode without going to preferences. The cue mode that I prefer depends on what I have in the deck at the very moment.

[Be-ing]

Okay, thanks for your input @Bronxio. Let's keep all 4 buttons available in the skin then.

[Be-ing]

please post a screenshot of that situation.

IIRC there was a previous Deere configuration where Play & Cue button would go into deck controls row and let the tempo fader expand. To re-enable that feature, we could rearrange loop and spinbox groups like this (quick sketch at minimal window size)

Yeah, I removed that option because it was an ugly hack around the clutter of the old looping GUI.

[Be-ing]

I've thought about the possibility of abandoning the 2 x 3 button grid next to the overview waveforms and using 3 rows below the overviews for all controls.

[naught101]

+1 for vertical padding between the mixer knobs. In the 2-deck layout at least, the cross fader could be narrowed (I don't think it needs the length - I guess it only very rarely gets used in the UI), and then the mixer knobs could spread downwards. I'd also advocate for padding between the mixer knobs and the faders (maybe and extra 20% of the width of the fader?)

I don't think it's a good idea to introduce 3-row buttons, unless there is a really good visual definition between groups. I think groups should be kept visually separate, and to a max of 4-6 buttons, unless there's a really strong connection between them (e.g. 8+ auto loop length options, like in LateNight).

[ronso0]

All mixer positions are fixed now.

As an experiment I moved Play/Cue to deck controls row and compressed loop & beatjump controls.
Now the tempo fader is easy to handle in all situations.

Please test and tell me if you like it.

[Be-ing]

Nice! This is just about done! I tested with and without a QuickEffect loaded and it looks pretty good in all cases.

Master level meter is a different height compared to the deck meters with 4 decks parallel waveforms.

• Play and cue buttons can expand too wide. Their maximum width should be limited.
• reloop_toggle button is misaligned with beatloop_toggle button above it.

I don't know if this is a new issue, but there's a very slight misalignment on the right side of effect units between the "MASTER" button and the box below.

With 2 decks, I think it would help to have a tiny bit of padding above the crossfader.

If you could figure out a way to rearrange the effect units to take less vertical space when collapsed but still fit in the minimum width, that would be awesome.

[ronso0]

I guess the mixer is fixed.

Further space improvements happen in another PR.
To relax the mixer's knob columns and to compress collapsed FX* units,we'll have to rework the big knobs' bg & notch

*at minimum size with Super knob: [focus] [On] [meta knob] [EffectSelector}

[ronso0]

Please check the AutoDJ highlight for the crossfader

[Be-ing]

I think the orange highlight of the crossfader for AutoDJ is too attention grabbing. Regardless, I think this is good enough to merge.

[ronso0]

I tried o match the AutoDJ indicators color so the connection is more obvious. It can also be styled like the hovered BPM edit trigger, with a thin border and orange background