[LAD] Units (was: Re: Experience driven design and Linux Audio)

On 01.10.2014 22:19, Fons Adriaensen wrote:

> The many times I've had to set a delay time the most convenient
> unit could have been samples, millisecs or meters (at the speed
> of sound), depending on the context. I've never had the need to
> set it in beats. Which are not even a fixed unit but require the
> delay processor to know the current bpm value. Could be done in
> an app or plugin that mainly deals with beats, not in a general-
> purpose plugin.

Sounds like a piece of functionality that should be covered once, for
all, ideally. As some kind of unit conversion/entry lib/plugin.

For every plugin time parameter where any of the provided units make
sense, there would be an input field with a default unit for that
specific parameter, and a way to switch between samples, ms, s, d:h:m:s,
..., meters at [some] speed, beats at hots-provided bpm.

The space required and the shear number of options would infer a cost
with no payback for some users, but otherwise could make for a great
user experience ;), where:
- no distraction is caused by having to do workarounds, even just having
to get out the calculator.
- the consistency across plugins/apps means the interface can be learned
once, with gains in efficiency on repeated use.

Another candidate would be frequency/pitch.

-- 
Thorsten Wilms
thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/
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