[mb-style] AR Types

Sun Jan 6 10:04:11 UTC 2008

Brian:

BRAVO!

Brian Schweitzer wrote:
> 
> As I promised, I've taken six hours or so and made some prototypes based
> on various responses to the first mockup I put together....
> Now, I took a good few hours to throw in an enhancement, something I've
> wanted ever since batch AR ability came out....  This enhanced version
> still defaults to having simply an overall date range for the release AR
> or all track ARs, but it adds a button "Edit dates per track".  Clicking
> on this button adds a huge number of text fields, to allow independant
> date range per track entry, all within the same batch track AR session....
> 
> I note, as this would be new functionality, unlike the other version, the
> server likely would need a minor addition of code to handle this per-track
> date ability...  but I assume I'd be non-totally difficult to add such
> functionality (luks/ru?)
> 
> http://www.brianfreud.byethost13.com/addARdates.html
> 
> is the more polished version for FF and Opera....
> 

I love what you are doing with this!  It would be much more pleasant for me
to use. The ability to specify different date ranges for one AR is something
I crave too.

Here are my comments:

The basic design -- radio buttons combined with checkboxes, and per-track
date boxes that get disclosed as needed -- works fine for me.

Note that the present UI only allows adding an AR to multiple tracks at once
for Artist-Track ARs. If this becomes the default UI for all ARs, then there
may be implications I haven't thought of for adding different kinds of
per-Track ARs multiple tracks at a time.

I think we should work very carefully on the wording of this page, to make
its meaning very clear to dedicated but novice editors. The wording "AR",
"Release AR", "Track AR", "the entire release", "some tracks on the release"
are open to misunderstanding. It may be that we will only be able to express
them concisely after we've written the page that expresses the concepts
precisely in multiple paragraphs.  (Said the writer to the editor: "It's too
long, I didn't have time to make it any shorter.")

For instance, I'd propose:
 - "Create Release: Artist - Track" for Type 1 ARs, "Create Release: Artist
- Release" for Type 2 ARs.
 - "for this Release as a whole" instead of " This AR applies to the entire
release"
 - "on some Tracks (but no information on which)" instead of "This AR
applies to some tracks on the release."
 - "on exactly these Tracks" instead of "This AR applies to these specific
tracks on the release:"
 - delete "Release AR:" and "Track ARs:" in left margin
 - "individual dates for each" and "same dates for all" instead of "Edit
dates per track" and "Edit dates for release"

You mention that the first radio button is hidden for Type 1 ARs. Agreed. 
All three radio buttons should be hidden for Type 2 ARs (apply only to the
Release as a whole, not to Tracks).  The only correct answer is "This AR
applies to the entire release", so there's no need even to ask the user. 
Type 3 ARs would show all three radio buttons.

"Note, since we have no such list yet of which ARs would or wouldn't ever be
type 1....": I thought that's exactly what
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/BarryPlatt is -- albeit only a first draft.

I love the per-track Begin and End Dates. I suggest they be put to the right
of the track titles. Thus the track titles can be indented less relative to
the radio buttons, which I think is an improvement.

Filling in anything in a per-track date should check the Track's checkbox.
Unchecking the checkbox should erase the per-Track dates (or perhaps visibly
disable them).  

I'd love a small "copy to next" button between each adjacent pair of Tracks.
Click this button, and the checkbox and dates from the track above get
copied down to the next track.  This means that, where there's multiple
tracks with the same dates, you only need to type them once. Ideally, I'd
like to be able to drag across multiple tracks to fill the date and
checkboxes, similar to a spreadsheet's Fill mouse-drag.  But that may be
hard in an HTML + CSS form.

Suggest "All tracks" and "No tracks" buttons at the top and bottom of the
list of Tracks. They select or deselect all Track checkboxes. 

I think the per-Track date entry boxes look cramped.  I'm not sure if the
text size in the box is too small, or the boxes are too tight around the
text, or if it's just a matter of making them grey instead of black to
reduce the visual clutter. But something looks cramped and busy there.

Here's an idea: put dates to the right of each Track. Keep existing Begin
Date and End Date at bottom visible in all modes.  In "same dates for all"
mode, the per-Track dates are disabled, but those Tracks which are checked
always have the same per-track dates showing as are in the Begin Date and
End Date fields at the bottom.  As the Begin Date and End Date values
change, values in all checked Track dates change. In "separate dates per
track" mode, the Begin Date and End Date fields at the bottom become
disabled, the per-track dates become enabled, and they retain their previous
values. 

The "same dates for all" vs "separate dates per track" choice could perhaps
be better expressed as a radio button pair, just above or below the Begin
Date and End Date fields at the bottom.

On my browser (FF 2.0.0.x on Mac OS 10.5), the track titles and bottom of
that box jump up and down in addARdates.html when I switch between
Release-wide dates and per-Track dates. They don't jump up and down in
addARdates2.html. The difference may just be that the latter leaves space in
the design for the "Begin Date - End Date" heading. 

The buttons for "Edit dates per track" and "Edit dates for release" are in
different positions. I think they should be in exactly the same position. 
Nothing on the dialog box should change position or resize as the user
switches date modes.

If the track names are long, will they wrap to the next line?  That's
particularly important if the date fields get moved to the right side, and
when editing classical music Tracks, where titles have been known to include
all of "War and Peace".

I like the cover art in the upper-right corner.  Is that in the current UI? 
I haven't noticed it.  The cover art is in the right corner of the window,
which on my computer puts it some distance to the right of the rest of the
UI structure.  If it could be positioned above the right edge of the list of
tracks, that would be nice. Not worth spending much effort on, though.

That's probably enough comments for one post. Better send, before my browser
crashes and loses my edits. :-)

Great work, Brian!  Thank you!

-----
     -- http://jdlh.com/ Jim DeLaHunt , Vancouver, Canada  • 
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/JimDeLaHunt

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