Stage Traxx beta version 3.0.0

Thanks for the detailed posting.

You are acutally comparing different tasks. You need to understand that the contents of the songs tab is what previously has been your iTunes library. So on the Songs tab you have usually all the songs of your whole repertoire. And changes here occur much less often than creating playlists.

So let's take a look at your workflow for ST2 and compare it with ST3 once you have imported your songs (which you only need to do once):

1. Open playlist tab
2. create playlist
3. open playlist
4. tap + button
5. select songs in correct order
6. tap done

Your step 8 is not correct because you forgot to load the playlist. So what you need to do in ST2 is

8. exit playlist
9. select playlist for playback
10. hit play

And here are the corresponding steps in ST3:

7. exit playlist
8. swipe playlist to the right
9. hit play

So, this is actually a step less.

Regarding the other points:

(13) The play button is blue when the mp3 file is missing. It means you can't play that track and hitting it will move to the next. The button will be green if you can play that track.
(15-19) Seems like you add only one song to the queue instead of a playlist
(20) Current playing song is marked with a blue background. Next song is always the 2nd song of the queue
(21) There will be a setting to open this view automatically when hitting play. But the portrait view has been deliberately reserved for lyrics only as I had a lot of requests from people who want to see lyrics on as much screenestate as possible.
(22) Your playlists will stay the same. The song is only removed from the queue.

The queue is a flexibel way to change playback order on the fly. It is another way of selecting the next song you want to play. If you work primarily with predefined playlists, you can consider the queue being the songlist in the main view of ST2. Anything you do there will also not change a playlist you have loaded. Just like with the queue.

I am aware that the swipe gestures are causing a lot of questionmarks in how to use the app so I will replace them with something more obvious. But the queue mechanism is something I will stick to.

coopdawg Thanks a lot for your feedback. I really appreciate getting at least one positive feedback regarding the new UI. Which does not mean that I won't try to improve in that area

Regarding your requests:

• I thought a lot about the primary use case for continuous play. Personally I only use it for break music. If I want to play 2 songs seamlessly I usually combine them in an editor. That way I have more control about the transition. For break music, a global switch to enable continuous play is the best option I guess. So do you use it really for specific songs?

• So you would like a way to enable a loop in the playback?

• I hear you. This is a request I get often and it is definitely on my todo list.

rumbakid Yes, I agree. The old interface was more pleasing to the eye. But the old interface is basically just a big image behind all the UI elements. The problem with this is that it has a fixed size for everything. That used to work in the old days when there was a fixed size for all iPads. But now even if we take a look at the iPads there are already 3 different resolutions (and formats) and when you add the iPhone you get another 4. Now consider different layouts with landscape and portrait mode and you have 14 variants.

Now the fun starts. ST3 has a dark mode and a light mode. And in each mode you can choose between 8 tint colors. That makes 224 UI variants that ST3 currently supports. That's not doable with fixed layouts.

In any case when you perform, do you care so much about high end buttons with 3d-effects? I don't! Important is that you get all the information you need in a way that you don't need more than a glance on the screen. And the important buttons need to be large enough.

So if you feel that the play butten for example is too small, I will definitely try a larger size.

musicadi - being able to select the next song in the queue. This is very cool in ST2, that’s why the next song has a different backgound, since it can be changed. The logic behind this: say you have a playlist, but you are out of time or you just want to skip a song. then you just tap whichever song you want to be next in line and the queue will continue from there.

I guess I need to explain the concept of a queue. A queue is always a list that shows songs in the order that they will be played from top to bottom. If you want to jump to another song in the queue. Just swipe it to the right and it will move to the top of the queue. If you want to remove a song from the queue, swipe it to the left. And if you want to change the order drag and drop a song. Because of this, there is no need for a "play next" indicator. And keep in mind, a playlist is a different thing. Anything you change on a playlist is stored in the database. Things you change on the queue are not persisted.

musicadi - you mentioned that the new “Songs” section is like the iTunes library. In ST2 however, you could add songs to the playlist from the iTunes library OR local files. This is missing in ST3, as you can only add songs from the library. Say you made some new songs or changed something in an existing song and you want to replace it. Now you have to first import it to your library and then import it from the library to your playlist. Would be a lot quicker/handier to be able to import external songs from within a playlist, which would automatically be added to the library (of course, you would be asked if you wanted to replace any existing songs with the same filename)

All songs are now stored as local files in Stage Traxx. If you want to modify them, you can just overwrite the song file with a new version. You can do this in the Files app or via iTunes Filesharing. This is in my opinion a big improvement, since you don't need to import them into iTunes, sync to the iPad and then reimport into the app.