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Mac OS X  |  Audio / Video  |  Editors  |  chill  |  What an ugly User Interface!

chill

chill

Ambient music soundtracks.

Version:  1.0

   [ Views: 163 ]

What an ugly User Interface!

Feedback Type:  Commentary

Contributed by: eVolution Thursday, December 04 2008 @ 07:39 AM PST

Product Platform: MacOSX

Used Product For: Less than a month

Recommend Product: YES

Before I issue any praise to this program, I have to talk about what shocked me: the ugliness of the User Interface! I nearly puked when it first came up on the screen, and I seriously considered quitting immediately and trashing it. It wins the prize of the ugliest UI of the year. At least please give me Preference settings so that I can change the colors.

Going beyond the first negative impression, the program is quite interesting, and I kind of like the music produced, although I would have to see with time... And there resides a problem:
The demo version stops playing after 7 minutes, which makes evaluating this app difficult. I will really know whether I like it after playing continuously for several hours without interruption. I'd rather have a 1-month demo version that plays without restrictions.
As a result, I will probably get tired clicking the play button and will likely forget this app entirely. Too bad...
Please provide a demo that I can set as "open at login" and it plays automatically, so it becomes my background music for a while. This way, I will really know whether it suits me and eventually purchase it.

Last, I have not read the instructions (who does?). What I want is some bubbles popping up when hovering the cursor on the controls showing short and useful descriptions. So far I have moved the controls randomly and it is far from obvious to tell the change in the music. I suspect the effect is not immediate, which makes sense for this kind of music (no abrupt change), but this defeats interactivity, doesn't it? Please give me a Preference setting so that changes are immediate; when I test the app, I don't mind having an abrupt change when I move a control.
Maybe some of my comments will go away when I read the instructions, but I'm really not sure I'll get to that point...
  

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What an ugly User Interface! - eVolution

Since I can't edit my comment, I'll post this as a reply..

I mentioned praising this app, but I didn't do much praise did I? I hope the developers draw the right conclusions from this...

This is an app I really want to like. I am probably the ideal customer for it, since I like this kind of mellow music as a background that will put me in the right mood fo focus on my work, a background music that I will unconsciously lock on so I don't listen to other disturbing noises around me.

I try to get some commercial music for this purpose, but the inconvenient is that the music stops when the record is over. Even getting a lot of different records, the music stops at some point. Looping it, even with shuffle play, the repetition becomes annoying after a while (I am talking about listening for days, weeks, months... while working). So the background music starts to have the opposite effect I am looking for: instead of being soothing it becomes irritating.

That's why I am interested in Chill. But because of the 7-minute limitation, I am not able to test it properly...

Oh! by the way, did I mention the UGLY user interface?

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Thursday, December 04 2008 @ 07:58 AM PST