Larger playback buttons

[DevilSlayerDante]

With the static seekbar, the play/seek/skip buttons look and feel too small, and there's more unused screen space available without the wave seek bar.  The buttons are so tiny that tapping a skip or seek button sometimes registers the wrong function for me, for example, say I want to skip a track and I tap the >> button, but >>> gets pressed and I get the next list instead.  This is particularly troublesome when driving, since I don't have steering wheel or dash controls to control Poweramp via bluetooth.  Never had any trouble with v2 and v3-alpha because the buttons are bigger in the pre-Material UI.

[flyingdutchman]

@DevilSlayerDante try my skin $YAPS$ it has options to size your play buttons as well as vary the spacing. (not to mention a million other things you can customise)

[DevilSlayerDante]

On 4/18/2021 at 3:08 PM, flyingdutchman said:

@DevilSlayerDante try my skin $YAPS$ it has options to size your play buttons as well as vary the spacing. (not to mention a million other things you can customise)

Thanks, but no thanks.  You and I have discussed skins in the past, I hate flat, featureless UIs.  If I'm buying a skin, it's got to be skeuomorphic, like Ducktamine's Retro skins for Poweramp.  Besides, this should be a feature of the vanilla skins, I shouldn't have to buy another skin just to change the size of the buttons.

[andrewilley]

47 minutes ago, DevilSlayerDante said:

  Besides, this should be a feature of the vanilla skins, I shouldn't have to buy another skin just to change the size of the buttons.

The vanilla skins aren't skeuomorphic either, so presumably you don't want to use those either, which is where any such setting would reside. You would need to ask the developer of your chosen skin.

Andre

[flyingdutchman]

Looked up the word. Looks pretty skeuomorphic to me 😃

[DevilSlayerDante]

On 4/20/2021 at 5:38 PM, andrewilley said:

The vanilla skins aren't skeuomorphic either, so presumably you don't want to use those either, which is where any such setting would reside. You would need to ask the developer of your chosen skin.

Andre

I'm aware the vanilla skins aren't skeuomorphic, I've been trying to get over my disdain for the design and scaling up the small playback buttons are the only thing I thought was a reasonable request for a quality of life improvement.

As for the skin I prefer, it has ugly cassette deck buttons for playback.  The same dev has a light version with an option for cassette style buttons or hi-fi CD buttons, but it's too bright for my needs.  I emailed Ducktamine almost 9 months ago, it took the threat of demanding a refund to get them to reply, then they said they'd update their skin in a few weeks...it never happened.  I emailed again a few weeks ago, still no response.  In my experience, this is how mobile devs have generally behaved, slow to respond (if ever) and rarely fix or improve anything.  Google is particularly bad with customer service, but that's an issue for another forum.

[DevilSlayerDante]

On 4/21/2021 at 3:03 AM, flyingdutchman said:

Looked up the word. Looks pretty skeuomorphic to me 😃

Not bad, but it's still flat.  Skeuomorphism implies realism.  The buttons and knobs should have shadows under them, making the impression they're raised, and the EQ curve display should have a highlight along the bottom edge, giving the appearance of a sunken LCD display.  Also, the definitive skeuomorphic design uses textures, not flat colors and linear gradients.  Your skin lacks depth, no shadows and highlights to give everything a realistic 3D look, and no textures to bring it to life.  Look closely at the example below, notice the icons on the buttons appear to be cut into the surface, the machining rings on the buttons as if they were cut on a lathe, the black brushed aluminum of the panel the buttons are set in, and the lighting just above the buttons fade to a shadow below the buttons.  This is what a hi-fi home stereo looks like with a light in the room, some things shine along the upper edge while projecting shadows below the lower edge.  Ducktamine's Retro skins are almost this good, some of the finer details didn't get as much attention as this one did.  Note: the skin below is for Poweramp v2 and the dev is no longer making skins for Poweramp.

[flyingdutchman]

@DevilSlayerDante Unfortunately  I am limited to my level of skill using Adobe Illustrator. I did create something similar but nowhere near the example you show. I guess I 'll keep trying and looking at videos on Youtube. Over time there will be more work in this area.

 

 

[DevilSlayerDante]

@flyingdutchman rest assured, I appreciate the work you do.  Gahd knows I don't have the patience to learn to develop for Android, and I wish more devs were as motivated as you to take feedback and suggestions, and give everyone using your products an enjoyable experience.  You're obviously very passionate about your creations and I respect that; I used to write VB apps for Windows after school everyday, just because it was fun, and I taught myself the bash scripting language on a rooted Android phone.  I just know exactly what I like and it's become a lot harder to find graphic designs that appeal to my taste ever since the advent of flat design.