Frequent freezing plus other comments for recent build(s)

[ModelCitizen]

I've been playing around wih the remote with Softsqueeze for a while now and have been really impressed. It really is just what I've wanted for my Slim Devices and I love it. The look of the screen is lovely, all is set out very intelligently, it's intuitive to use and I love seing the album artwork. Now I've started to run my Transporter of it/SC7.

I'm hoping that I'm doing the correct thing by describing any problems I find with it here. Thy are probably known, but if not I hope they are of some help.

Version 1r1096.

Buggy things:

Recently the remote has started freezing up on me. Sometimes I can recover the scroll function by using the left arrow and then right arrow and sometimes I have to reboot it to get it to work at all.

Currently the battery does not last long enough and runs out during an evenings use.

Scrolling upwards after selecting to browse artists or albums produces blank listings

My music collection totals a little over 1500 albums. Scrolling to an album/artist starting with anything other than A,B or C takes too long to contemplate. I've looked around for another way to scroll/select artists/albums but can't locate it. I've found myself thinking that the keypad on the current remote is quite handy.

Search does not seem to do anything at all (again, I could be missing something)

Thumbnail artwork in lists take too long to load in. I've often scrolled past the item before the cover thumbnail has loaded.


Enhancements I'd like to see:

The album listing. It's gone!
i.e: Music Library > Genres > Albums.
Bearing in mind the reduced navigation functionality imposed by the lack of numeric keyboard I'd really appreciate having it back.

I use the Comments field for errr... adding comments. I'd really like to see this field included in the track details (perhaps configurable?). It must be more useful than displaying stuff like bit rate, file length, location etc... the field should scroll too and repeat when the end of any text is reached.

I can understand the thinking behind less buttons but I think a button that takes you to Now Playing might be useful (I know Home used to do this.. and do think it's behaviour should stay as it is now) and possibly two other to make navigating through long lists of artists/albums much quicker, or even possible.. (skip up and down through A-Z of listings perhaps?).


I've know I've only scraped the surface so far and guess all of this has probably been said before... If there is a better place or thread to contribute comments to (if it's required... but if it's not why have I been sent a remote?) would someone please let me know.

MC

[oreillymj]

I think it's accepted that navigation needs work.

To actually make Jive useful, I had to re-arrange my library to have artists within their own directory alphabetically

i.e.
U\U2\The Joshua Tree
U\Underworld\Seven Days Off

etc.

I can then navigate pretty quickly using the Browse Music Folder option.

Although I have noticed that sometimes SC decides to do a re-scan and takes forever to come back with the initial 0-9A-Z directory listing.

Pressing Home twice brings you to Now Playing

I would agree that the existing infrared remote is still superior in some ways. I still think the scroll wheel feel a bit disconnected. I frequently miss what I'm trying to scrollto and would prefer some mechanical feedback from the wheel.

[cliveb]

I still think the scroll wheel feel a bit disconnected. I frequently miss what I'm trying to scrollto and would prefer some mechanical feedback from the wheel.
Agreed. It seems that sometimes turning the wheel very slowly - which is what you naturally do when you want to move by just one menu item - means that it does not scroll at all. So you speed up a bit and suddenly it jumps over the item you were aiming for! That said, I think I'm getting better with experience. But it's certainly not as easy to use as an iPod scroll wheel.

Obviously it's too late in the hardware development cycle, but I reckon it would have been better (and cheaper) to have had a pair of buttons (up & down): tap once to move one item; hold to scroll (and after holding for a while, scrolling accelerates). But I can see how the scroll wheel is attractive from a marketing perspective: the iPod has made it the UI device that everybody understands.