Car screen friendly UI

[nicks]

Hi,i had bought this app to use in my car's android player but since the recent app redesign the screen real estate when you are in the folder view is really not practical at all.

When you are in landscape view now (obviously the app is permanently on landscape view in the car) the real estate that you can use to see the tracks list is very small.

There is so much space taken by 1) the top menu area with the hamburger 2) the folder title area 3) the permanent player at the bottom.

These 3 combined fill half the screen's height and you are left unable to see more than 4 tracks in the list at the same time,even with the smaller font used.

Imagine while driving how careful you have to be when you want to scroll the list so that you wont hit the non list areas with your finger.The finger scrolling area is like 2cm..Just hold your phone in landscape view and try to browse the list.Not a nice ui experience.Now imagine doing this while driving.

The solution could be the option to make the top two rows and the player at the bottom hideable or replace them with a circular floating button.That was the case with google maps and they fixed it by making the rows small like buttons,so there was more visible map area.

Please dev do something about this,the app is not practical on lists on landscape mode

[GoneMAD]

FYI I use the app in my car every day in landscape and find it very usable, even with a relatively small device (5.2in i think.. sony xz2 compact)

Also There is a slimmer view mode in all views that reduce the space in between the items to display more "List: Compact"

"There is so much space taken by 1) the top menu area with the hamburger 2) the folder title area 3) the permanent player at the bottom."

You can go back to use the old version if you want: play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gonemad.gmmp.classic&hl=en_US&gl=US

1) The top menu area can be hidden by scrolling up on any list. I do plan on trying to attempt a holo like navigation mode that is just the tabs at the top but i dont have any ETA when that will be an option.

2) I should be able to make that folder title area customizable like the other views at some point.. but keep in mind that is used for navigation and needs to be large enough so it can be easily selected.

3) The navigation mode in #1 would not have the mini player

[nicks]

This is what i see on my car's player.Obviously the screen is not as big as it looks on the monitor now.The track list area is actually 2-3 cm in height and a finger toe is 1cm at least in size..

The scrolling area is small compared to the actual screen real estate.One other thing,the fullscreen option from the now playing view should exist in the folder view too,as switching between views is a thing that happens a lot,and it is not nice to be fullscreen on one view and regular view on the other.

Yes,going back to the old player could be a solution but that version won't get updated again and at some point it will stop working in a way or another from some android update.
And i like some of the features of the new player.

[GoneMAD]

"and at some point it will stop working in a way or another from some android update."

Doubt it would stop functioning. Google has backed off enforcing their breaking changes on apps that target older versions of android

[nicks]

...

[GoneMAD]

what more do you want me to say?

see my previous response where i already said i planned on adding things that would help

[nicks]

Feb 13, 2021 14:27:44 GMT -5 GoneMAD said:

what more do you want me to say?

see my previous response where i already said i planned on adding things that would help

i appreciate that man

[nicks]

Here are some thoughts,just sharing!

1. Maybe the first row can be : hamburger icon/''folders'' (maybe as only a folder icon,without using the actual word ''folders'')/folder navigation.

In landscape mode there is enough space for all these to coexist in a single line,saving all the space the folder navigation line takes.

This would also solve this problem:When you scroll down the song list,the hamburger/folders line gets auto-hidden,but if you then scroll up to check a track closer to the top of this folder it appears again,making the scrollable area too small again.As you see in the photo this area is almost as big as my thumb..

2. Maybe hideable  (as you suggested) mini player (or a popup balloon/icon type mini player ?) For my personal use the mini player has no use because i have set the app so that when i select a song it takes me to the now playing view,so i have the full size player,and when i want to scroll for a song while on the now playing i have set up a gesture to go to the folders view.Thus the mini player just takes space for my use.

3. A permanent full screen mode (working on now playing+library+folders) for the whole app maybe?

Thanks for reading!