Topic: 1.66

@Zynewave wrote:

• Opening Podium now by default shows a new project start page. Clicking the round button at the top right of the page toggles between the start page and the old browser page.
• Bitmap files can be dragged from Windows explorer onto Podium to load it as background image on the project start page.
• Opening a project with a project stickie note no longer opens the stickie note window. Instead the stickie note button shows the note popup and the button is pulsating.
• Right-clicking on the the drum line headers in the drum map editor shows a ‘Drum Preset Properties’ context menu.
• Changed default color scheme to dark grey background with white text.
• Fix: Plugin presets were not updated with the latest changes when plugins were unloaded with the ‘unload plugins when bounce is activated’ option.

Project start page is great, very quick and useful.
No fuss at all! 🙂

One problem though. The vst scan hangs on Real Guitar 2.dll
and will not finish the scan. I have to use the windows task manager to end the Podium task. (Windows XP Home, SP2)

Well, this new window looks nice indeed.

But I am not convinced that adding yet another window will make things simpler…
– we now have a Browser window, a New project window that looks like a “real” screen but that is in fact a sort of “full screen pop up window”
– this New Project screen can also be displayed at start instead of the Browser, but does not allow to do what is possible to do with it
– some screens are available as tabs, others not
– regular screens have menu buttons but this new pseudo screen has not
– to start a project there is this new screen but also the Wizard which is not a visible option in this screen
– the New project screen shows the Recent projects but there is no such option in File menu where we find it in all other softwares
– this screen appears when we click on a new kind button in the top right which represent another new manner to show / hide a screen, but is not an option in the View menu of the Browser
etc.

What seems for me the most important is that all of this is not very coherent and will certainly add even more confusion.
I hope that I am wrong !

For me, the informations are fragmented in different views with different logics :
– menu option with regular popup windows (Setup) with tabs
– tabs in main window (arrangement, plugins, mapping)
– full screen dialog and options (this new one)
– special floating windows (Wizard, List)
– docked windows (List) which can share some functions with others but not completely (Browser window and browser in List)

If we add to this the numbers of steps that are most of the time necessary to do simple things, like listening a project after loading it (and I don’t speak of all these keyboard modifier keys !), Podium is a very simple and powerful app that is very confusing to use !

As a user and a teacher, I have to deal with a lot of different apps, and the problem with Podium is not its hierarchic engine, neither the mappings (theses are not obvious things but what they bring is worth the little effort to use them), it is that it doesn’t have a clear and unique interface concept for its configuration.
Sorry to say that.

If you look at Tracktion, there is two tabbed screens at start, one that is something like the Browser window, and another one that is a Settings window.
When you launch an arrangement, the two other tabs stay visible and you can simply switch from one to another at any time.
The Settings window has four “buttons” which rassemble all what is needed to set : the devices, the plugins, the shortcuts and the preferences.
All is here and can be seen at one glance.

A more classical way, but always clear for the user, is the Preferences Window in Reaper (or others), where you can set all things including the engine, the look and the custom choices which are very large.
There is no need to search “where can be this option”, all is available in one place.

I don’t say of course that these examples must be models for Podium, but it uses a mixing of different techniques and logics (menus, sub menus, tabs, screens, windows, popups), with at the same time duplicated options and correlated settings in different windows, that makes it confusing, even after two years of use…

I understand that the New Project screen is something made to help in this, but I think that providing more ways to do the same things can perhaps do the contrary than providing a unique, good, way.
The necessity of a “Wizard” reveals that there is a problem in the access to all the settings.

This reaction apart, I continue to think that the most important for Podium is actually to complete and improve its features because it becomes to be very late compared to its nearest price concurrents (Reaper, EnergyXT, Tracktion…).

Sorry for this long and clumsy post, which perhaps looks negative, but is made by a Podium’s lover ans Frits’ admirer… 😉
Regards

Thanks for these explainations Frits, it is good to understand what is your long term view.
All of this sounds very good.

If the old browser pages are confusing, then I may decide to remove those as well and let the start page be fixed on startup.

I don’t know what will be the new page, but as I use a lot of arrangements in a Project, I liked the possibility to arrange them visually in the Browser…

Since you still find the browser layout mode useful, I won’t remove the browser pages.

Oh, you are very kind 😉

Yes, I like it, and I thought that it could evolve even to a more object oriented screen, in a sort of modular view / editing of some aspects of the environment.

The Browser window was also the unique way to open new arrangement windows, but this can be easily changed with a “New arrange window” option…

The possibility to use of multiple arrangements as different versions or as sections of a main arrangement is something that deserves to be more known.
Being able to work with different independant parts and arrange them together is someting that is common in video editors, often with “nested” timelines (Premiere) or projects (Vegas) but is still rare in DAWS.
Imagine a “Layout” window with a timeline where you can arrange your arrangements in time, jump to the content of one arrangement to another with tabs etc. ?
Hem, excuse me, I am dreaming…
But via Bounce tracks and bounced clips it is already possible to do something like this, which is really a must !
But this indeed of topic. Sorry.

A major update! Thanks Frits. 🙂

Acousmod has raised quite a few interesting issues..I have a few suggestions that might help. Just putting them together and will post later.

@Zynewave wrote:

One problem though. The vst scan hangs on Real Guitar 2.dll

Do you mean to say this is a problem with the new project creation, or did it hang in the project wizard of the previous releases as well?

The problem only appeared with this ver. 166 using the new project creation. The problem never occurred before with the project wizard and/or with previous releases. 😕