Subject: Re: [Usher Talk] Re: It's a nice app, but here are my problems with it

From: Rob Griffiths <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2012 09:21:20 -0800

Thank you for your feedback on the app; we'll consider your suggestions when we start working on the next major version of Usher. (Retina support will probably come before then, but we're a small two-person operation with a lot of apps, so we're getting to them as we can.)

regards,
-rob.

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From: user-002 <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2012 20:08:10 -0800 (PST)

and also an addendum to #5: the non overlay mode... it obeys the aspect 
ratio... by not putting black bars, but manually resizing the window... 
again, no good. So as I'm navigating my videos, my browser is having a 
seizure... I click next button, and the hover controls change position. 
It's just undesired user interaction.

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From: user-002 <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2012 20:01:37 -0800 (PST)

1. Doesn't fully support retina displays. 
2. Usher touts tagging support and smart folders, but doesn't have a more 
efficient way of entering tags (see how Leap handles this for an example). 
I don't want to have to right click or click the gear everytime I want to 
tag something. IMO it deserves a spot much more than the star ratings, but 
I'm sure it could accomodate both. Implementation is up to someone other 
than me, but yeah there needs to be a much easier way of entering tags than 
actually going into an item.
3. The Youtube downloading seems very nice but doesn't work for me. It 
doesn't convert the .flv file, so it can't play in Usher or video programs 
that can't handle .flv. also... I'm pretty sure I have programs 
(jDownloader) that can just straight up download the .mp4 file if Youtube 
has it (how do you think Youtube on mobile browsers work?).... why waste 
your time converting flv to something if you can just grab the .mp4? It'll 
probably end up being better quality than formatting lossy to lossy.
4. The preview for movies when you hover squishes (shrinks horizontally in 
my one example video) to fit the rectangle... no good. Either slice it like 
the thumbnail preview, or give me aspect ratio bars.
5. The non overlay playing mode... it doesn't seem like there is an easy 
way to escape that mode other than pressing ESC. There should be some type 
of hover X for closing (upper right hand corner? on play controls (extra 
icon for option)).
6. Layout of videos... you could probably take cues from Leap and the new 
iTunes as far as laying them out... at certain widths of the application, 
there is just an empty gap on the right.... you should probably do some 
sort of smart resizing... where yeah users can set a relative size for 
their movies, keep that functionality in, but do what iTunes do and 
flexibly resize the videos so there isn't just some empty space on the 
right....we also don't need the animation when an extra column gets 
added/disappears... and the animation here looks dated... if you could pull 
it off with a better animation, go for it, but I'd say you'd be better off 
with how (again) Leap and iTunes handle movies... it just jumps.
7. The application could definitely use some loving design / UI wise. 
iTunes had always looked dated but didn't look bad... this looks a little 
worse than before they did the most recent design overhaul... put it like 
this: if anyone is giving this application high marks (it has very nice 
potential) it definitely isn't for design....it's just very bloated.
8. If you get done with all of this (and only after), consider redoing the 
icon.... it's not memorable (very important... that affects how much I use 
the application, which leads to me liking it more if it's good, 
recommending it more, etc), and it doesn't make immediate sense and is over 
complicated... but it's fine enough where it should be the last thing you 
do.

I love the overall idea and I've come to hate iPhoto / iTunes for managing 
my videos. I want something tag based (but you have to be able to more 
easily enter them). I had been downloading Youtube videos with another 
program but the search + download feature (if it actually worked for me) is 
brilliant. There's definitely a market for a program like this, it just has 
to be better.