On Wed, Dec 07, 2011 at 07:43:52PM +0000, Aurélien Leblond wrote: I certainly do have some ideas and opinions about this... And in fact I'm designing a new modular synth app that will be competition for both AMS and Ingen, so I have been thinking about this (and that's not finished). The module GUIs are IMHO one of the major flaws of AMS. Presenting an array of sliders that all look the same and that have a resolution that depends on their size is probably the worst way to do it. Resolution and the control law (e.g. lin or log, but there are others as well) should depend on what the GUI element is controlling and on nothing else. Rotary controls have an advantage in that sense. Layout, size, colors, etc. should reflect the function and structure of any module and not be dictated by some toolkit or other GUI rules. The people who designed the best HW synths (and the same can be said of mixers and other audio gear) were well aware of the impact of layout and ergonomics. So imitating them is not a bad idea. But the one you linked to is not really the best example - it's just a regular grid of controls and connectors without any visual hints as to their function. It's often said that the potential for 'discovery' is the key to good UI design. I disagree. The most important thing IMHO is to provide subliminal cues - and these must be based in function (which is what is discovered by the user). Ciao, -- FA Vor uns liegt ein weites Tal, die Sonne scheint - ein Glitzerstrahl.

They look good to me! Two things though: - When using the original modules in AMS, I rely a lot on the actual value. To keep the VCO as an example, it's not rare that I use 4 of them in a Synth design, and have the 4 GUI open to compare the Octave or Tune settings. The digits themselves helps me "work" faster! - Are you going to use turn-knobs for combo-boxes of the original GUI? It could work for the VCO by using little symbols for the Wave Form (although how to makes difference between the 'Aux Saw', 'Aux Saw 1' and 'Aux Saw 2' is somewhat a mystery!). In addition it might not work for the next one I'm working on. Noise has a combo box with the type of noise: 'White', 'Random' or 'Pink', that I know of, they don't have symbolic representations (I might be very wrong here!). Let me know what you think! Aurélien

On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 1:46 AM, Harry van Haaren <harryhaaren(a)gmail.com> wrote: I really like both idea! Let's get carried away! Aurélien