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Developers: Why have so many Apps on iOS no decent controls?
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Comments
Thor has the best solution to controlling knobs. Basically you see a fader and further away you move your finger from the knob, larger the fader turns and you can do easy small adjustments. All apps should do that
Other 'things' that drive me nuts are when the finger is actually hiding the value that is being changed or when the value slightly changes when lifting up the finger...
What is up with the forum these days? Man.
I did, but there's no finger in it
I mostly do editing by ear and don't focus too much on the actual values especially when we're talking ~0.01ms.
But for numerical 'perfectionists' it's a pita, I know...
Yeah, save presets in the apps to save time
It's still not an excuse for poor UI design though...
I was thinking the same thing the other day. With desktop apps it is more consistent where it you hold down a modifier key such as shift or alt and move the mouse for fine control. With touchscreen apps there is still no standard way and each dev implements their own methods.
With the controls jumping values when you release your finger one way this can be got around in code by comparing time on the controls - when a touch up is fired, if it was held at that level for say 1 second it go back to that value.
Thor’s knob system is great. Actually, a lot of early apps were more exploratory as far as getting good control on a touch screen. You’d see things like knobs that blow up to larger size, when you put your finger on them, knobs that display numbers off to the side of your finger, knobs that light up when you are touching them.
Newer apps that follow the norms may have inadvertently settled into some less than stellar UI traditions- bad fine control, the indication of a knobs setting hidden under your finger, no indication of whether your touch was registered (one of the flaky parts of iOS).
@tja fully agree with you. As you’ve officially called for my 2 cents, here they are
In Xequence:
The current code also allows for logarithmic sliders (sensitivity depending on value), which will probably get used more from the next update (for example, in the “Track Delay” slider: Small values have low sensitivity, so you can set exact tiny values easily, and then sensitivity grows towards larger delays because there, the exact value down to the millisecond isn’t as important anymore)
It took me nearly two weeks to adjust a parameter in Gadget, some time ago (five days, then I took the weekend off as I don’t work weekends, then started again on Monday and didn’t get it where it should be until about weds or thurs, I can’t remember which, but it was in the evening).
@tja there’s no “sensitivity depending on distance”, but it’s an interesting suggestion — kindof like the seek bar in the iOS video player widget (Youtube etc.) - it’s worth considering!
I don’t think it would help a lot to open-source the slider code... it’s really not a very complex thing to do and integrating such a generic slider module into a lot of different codebases and adapting its look would probably be more hassle than just implementing it from scratch.
yes - the hit control, keep dragging straight away (reduces scaling factor), then change direction and use following values for (scaled) control setting isn't rocket science.
The first app that introduced this scheme was iElectribe and it was THE thing that sold me to the iPad's potential as a control surface.
Funny thing was in early Korg demo videos the demonstrator obviously was completely unaware of the feature and fiddled with the tiny dials
Btw TC-Data is a valuable source to study controls...
My personal top of the line control is the reverb setting in SamplR. Dry-wet, intensity and room size all with one finger drag, indicated by a circle's size and color.
Honorable mention: Mitosynth's shift-gear approach, a bit more tricky, but with practize it handles an enormous range on very small space.
I agree with the basic premise. Even otherwise top class apps from the likes of Korg etc suffer in this way. Take Gadget - appalling feel to the virtual knobs and sliders if you ask me.
Some apps really do show great thought in all areas of UI, but it seems to me that the look of UI’s often seem to get more development than ease of use.
The reason I generally just suck it up, is that these apps often cost peanuts and I appreciate that development of some must suffer from lack of finance and resources.
Ehh whatever. Anything but desktop software. At least some of these apps are actually designed to feel musical and instrument like and you can play on the touchscreen without a controller. Can’t say the same for your typical desktop daw, nor do I need all of that functitonality anyways. The only mystery here is why have all the smaller developers learned how to make decent knobs and dials while big KORG can’t design a knob to save their life. There’s apps made by a single person that have knobs WAY better than Gadget. Seriously there’s no excuse.
Korg implemented a gesture from day 1 on iPad 1 in their iELECTRIBE app. A quick flick up/down on a knob, slider etc will change a parameter with 1 (or whatever the lowest value is for any given control). This gesture completely gets rid of the lifting your finger off the screen issue, that every single fucking app is still plagued with (not just music apps). Obviously this gesture also lets you quickly dial in specific values with precision. Korg have this gesture in all their apps, they talked about it years ago and that it was a gesture that would be present in all their iOS apps, on every single control. I’ve noticed a few things here and there not having it, but usually it gets added with updates.
Add this gesture. It’ll save lives, quite possibly even a few iPad screens.:-)
Happy to help, here are some of my open-source knob repos to start if anyone wants to take them further:
Some simple vector knobs
https://github.com/analogcode/CallbackKnob
The Knobs in FM Player are more robust and allow for separate
for each knob.
Here's the code for the FM Player knobs:
https://github.com/AudioKit/ROMPlayer/tree/master/RomPlayer/Controls/Knobs
Super-simple Image based knobs:
https://github.com/analogcode/3D-Knobs
Plus, our PaintCode source files for many AudioKit examples:
https://github.com/AudioKit/AudioKitGraphics/tree/master/PaintCode Documents
And, there's a heck of a lot more control code that will be available to everyone in the upcoming AudioKit Synth One...
Cheers,
LOL
I never have issues with most apps and their gestures. I find generally today, you can move your finger around the entire screen after touching a control and it will move as long as you maintain contact. I think this is fairly common, but in general I’m good. I think the Korg gesture is them just admitting that they suck totally at making knobs and sliders. Don’t get me wrong they’re great at all the music stuff. But damn they need an outside knob consultant