WMP12 sucks so bad

[Preppy Veteran]

Given that the seek slider position is implicit in the animation of the slider bar itself, why would showing the seek slider item be of high value?

[MS Bob 11]

Given that the seek slider position is implicit in the animation of the slider bar itself, why would showing the seek slider item be of high value?

Say I am quickly going through a video and don't have time to view it fully. I want to know how much of it has been played so I can skip back or forwards by clicking. But I don't know where to click quickly without first pointing my mouse over the horizontal bar and locating where the position of the slider is. Only then I will know whether to click ahead of the slider or behind. Why hide it in the first place? Vista style of presentation (hiding everything)?

[Preppy Veteran]

You've turned off "Allow autohide of player controls" in WMP's Tools:Options, right? At that point the position of the seek slider is clear via the blue vs black demarcation, and any clicks are clearly relative to that point.

Perhaps the previous poster was confused by your use of "seek slider", which or may not be the same thing in your terminology as the seek bar or slider bar.

[MS Bob 11]

You've turned off "Allow autohide of player controls" in WMP's Tools:Options, right? At that point the position of the seek slider is clear via the blue vs black demarcation, and any clicks are clearly relative to that point.

Perhaps the previous poster was confused by your use of "seek slider", which or may not be the same thing in your terminology as the seek bar or slider bar.

Yes but I have turned that off. That option is only in WMP12 right? In WMP12, it's easier to see the light blue vs dark blue like in this screenshot (although hiding it is immensely annoying). On Vista with glass and so much transparency in WMP11, it becomes a nightmare to spot the played portion without the slider visible.

[Guest xiphi]

What's the problem? I've never had issues spotting the played portion vs. unplayed. Slider visible or not. That said, I'm wondering why it's hidden until you mouse over the seek bar.

Edit: Just realized exactly what he's talking about, and he's right. So, again, why is the slider hidden to begin with? Makes no sense at all.

[Preppy Veteran]

It's a perf improvement and simplifies the UI.

[Ridlas]

I love it. But ever since I bought my Zune HD, I use the Zune player.

[hdood]

Edit: Just realized exactly what he's talking about, and he's right. So, again, why is the slider hidden to begin with? Makes no sense at all.

The reason it hides the thumb (the actual name of the part) is because it looks cool. Calling it a performance improvement would have qualified one to be information minister of Iraq back in the day. If you ask, they'll probably tell you it's to make the UI "less distracting" for people who suffer from ADD. You don't want a big blue moving oval distracting you while you're browsing through the media library or whatever it is people could possibly be doing inside WMP while playing something.

[Preppy Veteran]

^-- Are you deliberately trolling, or is that just an accident? I had lunch today with the guy that made that change, and as a favor to xiphi I had asked him about it. If you don't understand image composition and performance, it'd be cool to clarify your confusion as opposed to just throwing out insults. I'm not in any conversation to sell people on THIS PARTICULAR TECHNOLOGY IS TEH AWESUM! but rather to help people understand it a tiny bit more. (Plus or minus having limited time, as well as often having limited interest in any long digressions that aren't really going to benefit the public.)

So yeah: exactly what I said. You might disagree with the implementation or prefer higher contrast or whatever, but you're not able to disagree with my comments unless you're calling me or the guy who made the change a liar. And at that point: clearly you have no legitimate interest in honest dialogues, so I'm not sure why you're here. :)

[ATLien_0]

I actually quite like it compared to iTunes on Windows

only downside that I have is that there are so many darn steps to get to the equalizer (switch to now playing mode >right click enhancements > graphic equalizer )

[Guest xiphi]

I actually quite like it compared to iTunes on Windows

only downside that I have is that there are so many darn steps to get to the equalizer (switch to now playing mode >right click enhancements > graphic equalizer )

That's one of the things I didn't like. With Zune being more prominent, I wonder if there's even going to be another WMP.

[ATLien_0]

they really need to go back through the interface and get rid of the complexity of the program including the sync manager. its a great media player for my needs, its just there are so many little things that have been overlooked or added to the complexity.

[hdood]

^-- Are you deliberately trolling, or is that just an accident? I had lunch today with the guy that made that change, and as a favor to xiphi I had asked him about it. If you don't understand image composition and performance, it'd be cool to clarify your confusion as opposed to just throwing out insults.

It sounds like you didn't read my post and think I was talking about the controls that are overlayed on video. That still isn't what we're talking about. We are talking about the thumb in the seek bar. It's only visible when you hover over it. At least I hope you misunderstood and aren't claiming that blitting that bitmap has any sort of performance impact.

And at that point: clearly you have no legitimate interest in honest dialogues, so I'm not sure why you're here. :)

I'm just sharing my opinion on a silly visual effect. Not everything is intended to start a long in-depth "dialogue" or "solve" some particular problem. Sometimes people just comment on things.

[Preppy Veteran]

I'm talking about the thumb of the seek bar that is only visible when you hover over it. Surprisingly(?), ticking that chunk of animation along can and does have a "notable" perf impact on some systems. Since it's not relevant for some substantial chunk of usage -- voila.

[hdood]

I'm talking about the thumb of the seek bar that is only visible when you hover over it. Surprisingly(?), ticking that chunk of animation along can and does have a "notable" perf impact on some systems. Since it's not relevant for some substantial chunk of usage -- voila.

I don't believe you, unless whoever made the WMP UI is the worst programmer in history (which seems somewhat implausible.) That really is an extraordinary claim you're making there. Can you explain how the blue bar that fills the channel is drawn? How is the lighter colored part at the end of it drawn? Please explain how drawing that part instead of a 16x9 pixel bitmap of the thumb makes any difference. Hell, tell me how drawing both that and then a 16x9 pixel bitmap on top of it again makes any difference.

Remember back when WMP used a standard trackbar (or at least what looked like it)? Was the person who made that blunder fired and hopefully tarred and feathered as well? I mean, repainting that bitmap all the time as it moved across the screen! Back when machines were only a fraction of the speed they are now! I think you should also have a knowledge base article written, so that the poor misguided developers of other media software will know what terrible mistake they're making in blitting a tiny little thumb bitmap once in a while.

Why not be honest here, zachdms. It's just there as a visual effect.

[MS Bob 11]

I don't really see how hiding something that is supposed to convey some information during playback is useful and even a UI improvement. But MS is going this way since Vista. Oversimplifying stuff. Removing the total playlist time is also simplification as is removing the Next and Previous visualization buttons or adjusting the bit rate before burning a data CD. Sorry I don't like the dumbing down which MS calls "simplification" as I am a power user. MS is afflicted with throwing-away-features-for-clean-simple-UI-and-copy-Apple mania. Windows 8 and WMP13 will see even more simplification and performance "improvements". Show me another media player that hides the seek slider during playback and maybe I'll believe the complete crap reasoning.

[Preppy Veteran]

I take it you're the one who emailed me that long piece of feedback?

If you take back "complete crap reasoning" when I supply facts, I'll potentially bother to look up the Whys of the various things you suggested. (I was about to, and then finished reading what you wrote and realized I'd likely be wasting my time.) If the actual facts of the matter straight from the source are being construed as "complete crap reasoning", it's probably not worthwhile for me to dig into the specifics as opposed to just nodding and saying Yup, That's Certainly An Opinion On The Subject. :)

(For example, in the slider seek button instance, if you acknowledge that there "may be" (and there is) a substantive perf gain by doing this, you get back to simplicity vs oversimplification to the point of losing discernability, at which time you might make the more interesting point that perhaps a higher contrast could be used. This would keep the perf win while potentially providing a better 'overall' solution. (That's just one potential outcome of a useful discussion, of course, and there are other interestings points to be made.) It's that kind of "let's improve upon the actual facts involved" discussion that I find more worthwhile, as opposed to "let's not let the facts colour our discussion" argument that doesn't really get anybody anywhere.)

[hdood]

(For example, in the slider seek button instance, if you acknowledge that there "may be" (and there is) a substantive perf gain by doing this

I don't acknowledge it though, so any chance of an actual technical answer to my post? Nothing vague and irrelevant, please. I am a developer and I can handle the details.

I'm still leaning towards you misunderstanding what someone told you.

[MS Bob 11]

There are some baseline features which should exist at least optionally no matter what the performance hit is. The blinking network activity indicators also caused a performance hit I read which is why they were removed? It's all subjective as to what is more valuable, having that feature or having the miniscule performance gain which is why it is important to keep the feature as an option. I think whatever reasons you give will not be satisfactory enough for me to justify their removal, so don't bother. You will be wasting your time.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

To zachdms and hdood:

Please, for the sake of everyone else... don't air your dirty laundry in public.

[LiquidSolstice]

Ah. I didn't realize that someone's dislike for the Seek bar suddenly made the entire WMP12 not worth using. Silly me.

[hdood]

Sorry, I'm just curious about how hiding the thumb can be a performance improvement. I mean, the slider updates at the same frequency regardless of whether it's visible or not. The only difference is whether it paints the lighter colored part of the blue bar that fills the channel, or the slightly bigger thumb bitmap (about the same width, and half a dozen pixels taller). It's a strange claim that these few extra pixels have a real performance impact. I don't understand why this is a difficult or unacceptable question.

Ah. I didn't realize that someone's dislike for the Seek bar suddenly made the entire WMP12 not worth using. Silly me.

I don't think it's "not worth using" or that it "sucks." In fact, I quite like it (UI included), and use it for everything except MP3s. For video, I think it offers some of the best quality and performance without the inevitable hassle associated with some of the more obscure players.

I don't really care either way about what visual effects they want to add (including the seek bar effect.) If I had to point to something I'd like to see, it would be things like the ability to manually set an aspect ratio (including the option of non-linear stretching) and a configurable audio/video stream delay to deal with videos that are out of sync. It's difficult to maintain a balance between features and ease-of-use, especially with regards to settings that could be changed by mistake by a novice and essentially render the program unusable, but these are features I'd really like.

[toadeater]

I've stopped using WMP since version 12. Convoluted GUI, and not enough features--there's no reason to bother with it when so many other players are available. If you don't want to fix it that's your problem.

[pezzonovante]

The more I'm using WMP12 with shark_007's codecs, the more I'm loving it. WMP12 is by far the best media player for Windows 7. Period.