VV GUI

Mark Doliner mark at kingant.net
Tue Dec 16 19:15:40 EST 2008


On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 3:56 PM, Haudy Kazemi <kaze0010 at umn.edu> wrote:
> Mark Doliner wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 2:43 PM, Maiku <cmaiku at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> For a while now the voice and video GUI has settled to the point where
>>> it's functional, but I'm not very satisfied with it yet. Here's the
>>> current GUI:
>>>
>>> http://www.mrprogrammer.net/vv-now.png
>>>
>
> <snip>
>
>>>
>>> Another issue that's been brought up is that the buttons at the bottom
>>> move the input box. It has been suggested to move the buttons to be
>>> under the video as a toolbar. I was wondering if this might also work
>>> as a vertical button box, to the right of the input box. Maybe
>>> something like this:
>>>
>>> http://www.mrprogrammer.net/vv-option.png
>>>
>>> I'm curious to hear input on these points and on the GUI overall.
>>> Another idea to throw around would be how to handle the GUI for
>>> multi-user voice and video conferences.
>>
>> Putting the "Calling..." text and hangup and mute buttons underneath
>> the videos is awesome.  It creates a tighter association between them.
>>
>
> I like this 'vv-option.png' positioning better as well.  Here are some minor
> modifications of vv-option.png that you may also like.
>
> 1.) This one slides the 'Calling...' text and 'Hangup' button all the way to
> the right instead of leaving empty space.  This simultaneously allows the
> user input typing box to be a bit wider:
> vv-option-mod1.png
> http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/uIwPjZA2li7QXIFASHTicw
>
> 2.) This is a version of #1.  It is intended to show after a connection has
> been made.  It replaces the 'Calling...' text with a 'Mute' button under the
> assumption that muting has no meaning until you actually have a connection*
> :
>
> vv-option-mod2.png
> http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/zgD97ic_OShbcrWsVnRJLg
>
> * I copied the mute button from 'vv-now.png'.  Some users may like to
> see/set their audio settings before a connection is made rather than
> afterwards.  In that case, hiding the mute controls until a connection is
> made isn't such a good idea.  I don't know if the mute button is intended to
> mute the local microphone (so the caller can't hear you but you can still
> hear them) or mute the caller (so you can't hear the caller).

Ideally the contents of the window would change as little as possible.
 So we should always show some status text (whether "Connection..." or
Connected").  And we should always show the mute button, but possibly
disable it when the connection is being established.  Likewise for the
hangup button.

And that's a good point about the mute button being ambiguous.

-Mark




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