Working on the design

[tramp]

Some people claim about that they didn't like the design of the guitarix rack/units.
I've tried to find designers who like to create new interfaces for us, but, up to now, I'm failed. So, even if I'm not a designer, I try to improve the view of the GUI a bit. Here is with what I'm coming up so far, a single rack-unit, done in cairo.


Here is how it looks in the rack:


Comments are welcome,

[Broomy]

I liked the "older" design and the new design is good also.
Thanks for your effort.

[ssj71]

I think it looks great. I wouldn't spend too much time trying to make eye-candy critics happy personally.

[Drumfix]

Looks nice.

Btw maybe consider JKnobman for easy generation of nice looking controls.

[tramp]

Looks nice.

Thanks to all comments

Btw maybe consider JKnobman for easy generation of nice looking controls.

The Knobs in the screen-shot above, are done with KnobMan. I've tried JKnobman last year, but then, I prefer WebKnobMan
http://www.g200kg.com/en/webknobman/

I only wish that I found the time to learn Blender, as the best high resolution Knobs I've seen are done with Blender. I've tried it as well, but wasn't able to create the simplest button with Blender. What a beast.

[Joermungand]

I can cook something up in Blender. I’ll need some specs/preferences/expectations, though. I must confess I don’t know much about the workflow/requirements in creating knobs, but a quick glance at WebKnobMan tells me it’s not difficult to achieve in Blender.

[DanielSoaresDuarte]

A total noob question from someone willing to help: is it possible to use svg/png to create design images for Guitarix? I could work svg on Inkscape. Is it possible to link images to the code?

Since I'm at work now, I'll check on my laptop later if images can be used.

Thanks in advance.

[tux99]

Looks very nice and miles better than the simple GUI I manage to do in Perl, but personally I find knobs very counterintuitive to use on screen with a mouse, sliders would be far more intuitive and ergonomical.

[ssj71]

WARNING: Shameless self-blog-plug ahead.

is it possible to use svg/png to create design images for Guitarix? I could work svg on Inkscape. Is it possible to link images to the code?

Check out:
http://mountainbikesandtrombones.blogsp ... scape.html
http://mountainbikesandtrombones.blogsp ... scape.html
http://mountainbikesandtrombones.blogsp ... scape.html

This process won't work exactly with guitarix since it depends on NTK, but a similar approach could be done using any toolkit with cairo support.

Tramp: if you don't want such a shameless self-plug in your thread let me know I'll delete it. I just like to help.

[tramp]

I can cook something up in Blender. I’ll need some specs/preferences/expectations, though. I must confess I don’t know much about the workflow/requirements in creating knobs, but a quick glance at WebKnobMan tells me it’s not difficult to achieve in Blender.

Good looking Controls (knobs, sliders, wheels, buttons, etc. ) are always welcome, the guitarix project isn't the only one leaking those.
For guitarix, the only requirement is, that image sequences are ordered horizontal (but vertical ordered sequences could easy reformatted with imagemagic). We are using 3 different sized knobs in guitarix, that are 52x52, 42x42 and 33x33.
If you are able to create some good looking knobs, with free licenses (GPL'ed), . . . , wow, you are welcome.

A total noob question from someone willing to help: is it possible to use svg/png to create design images for Guitarix? I could work svg on Inkscape. Is it possible to link images to the code?

Since I'm at work now, I'll check on my laptop later if images can be used.

Thanks in advance.

Yes, we can use svg's, (and we do), but preferred format is png. Some of the images used in guitarix are used as c headers and be linked direct in the sorce, others are loaded on demand.

Looks very nice and miles better than the simple GUI I manage to do in Perl, but personally I find knobs very counterintuitive to use on screen with a mouse, sliders would be far more intuitive and ergonomical.

Sliders loose as soon the control range getting bigger. Especial those sliders from the known toolkits are unusable for effect controls. We need some logarithmic behave, we need to avoid jump to mouse pointer, etc.
Otherwise, all guitarix knobs behave like vertical sliders,

@ssj71
You are welcome

[Joermungand]

Good looking Controls (knobs, sliders, wheels, buttons, etc. ) are always welcome, the guitarix project isn't the only one leaking those.
For guitarix, the only requirement is, that image sequences are ordered horizontal (but vertical ordered sequences could easy reformatted with imagemagic). We are using 3 different sized knobs in guitarix, that are 52x52, 42x42 and 33x33.
If you are able to create some good looking knobs, with free licenses (GPL'ed), . . .

I don’t know how good looking my knobs will turn out, but I’ll give them my full attention next week (heavily tied up at work until then). I can see the interest in using Blender for the purpose, it makes perfect sense – you only work once and render your sequences in whatever size you want afterwards. Since every step is generated as an individual frame, vertical or horizontal ordering can be performed to taste. It all boils down to design at the end of the day.

As far as licensing is concerned, I thought I’d just contribute them to the project if they turn out acceptable.

I’ve got one – probably stupid, sorry – question, though: how many steps per sequence do you normally need? In other words, what’s the angular increment?

[tramp]

Usually the guitarix knobs use 151 steps for a 300 degree turn.
Our library calculate the steps from the image size if images quadratic, if non quadratic images are used (sliders, wheels, etc.) the steps and size could given during load. So any step sequence could be used. In fact it turns out that a 151 step sequence looks smooth.

But, for the guitarix project, this issue is solved now, Markus Schmidt (the Calf UI designer) have talk over the job. So we could expect a new interface for guitarix. As I give him the full trust, there may be a couple of changes in the Ui builder class of guitarix, and what I stated above may not be true anymore.
http://mein-neues-blog.de/2015/02/24/gu ... ew-design/
Here is a preview of what he planed to do:

[Broomy]

That's great news, I looking forward to see it progress!

[Joermungand]

But, for the guitarix project, this issue is solved now, Markus Schmidt (the Calf UI designer) have talk over the job.

Great! He will obviously do a much better job than anything I could have produced.

[emarsk]

Hi, I'll throw in some critics. All of which are to be taken as constructive, of course.
And thanks for the all the awesome work.

• I find the highlights on the knobs nice but confusing
• I'd like a more visible marker on the knobs
• I'd like some markers around the knobs, like five or eleven reference lines or dots
• the master output volume slider is almost invisible, I discovered it by pure luck
• the font for the names of the controls isn't much readable
• there's some lack of consistency about the capitalization of the control names
• I'd expect that a mouse click on the multiple choices items (valve, stack, etc.) would pull down the menu, not cycle though the choices (maybe "-"/"+" buttons for that?)

They're really small issues, except for the menu one. I actually curse a lot about that.

Edit: I forgot to mention: all of this refer to the first post images and the current design. I see Markus' tentative design already addresses some of them.