How hard would it be to allow the user to select which buttons we want and how they're arranged?
It would be possible, at least. It's a good idea - it would be very nice to let people just have the half-dozen buttons they regularly use on screen. Designing the UI to let us design the UI would be difficult for us. Still, it would be miiiighty nice if it worked...
I've noticed Nikon does something similar. They let you set what buttons do in a menu, so you can customize them and bring certain behaviors to the front. Since we have a touch screen instead of buttons, we could probably do better.
Nikon custom settings on a mid-range camera.Having all the buttons on each screen by default, then allowing the user to remove the buttons they don't need frequently and make them accessible through a "menu" button would work well.
We've been considering a 'simple mode' here, which would remove a lot of the more esoteric buttons. Simple mode would have the buttons you needed to get started and get some cool slow-motion shots, but wouldn't have a lot of the more advanced measurement stuff - like typing in exposure, frame rate, etc. It would be a lot more intuitive to get started with. What we've got now would become 'scientific mode' (or something), and would have all the numbers in it for when you needed precision and timing. In scientific mode, we wouldn't have to worry so much about how intuitive it was to use, or how pretty it was, rather that you could tweak
everything how you need it.
I think the seek bar should be customizeable as well - either at the bottom or on the right. Some users shoot with a 4:3 or square frame (scientific applications) and for them the seek bar on the right gives more real estate for the video frame. I mostly shoot in letterbox type frames so a seek bar on the bottom would work for me, but again, not for everyone.
I was considering having the seek bar automatically choosing the best location, based on the aspect ratio of your video. But I think it might be confusing to have the UI just -change- on you like that... Say, what would you think of pinch-to-zoom on the video playback screen, like with photos on a cellphone? Would that work?
As for the jog wheel, in the playback menu it has a function, maybe in the record menu it could be clicked to switch between exposure and frame rate, then rotated to change these? with perhaps press and turn for faster changes?
Alternatively, for users with gloves the jog wheel could be assigned strictly to cycling between buttons by turning, and pressing buttons by pressing. This would allow use without the touch screen.
Ohh, that's a good use-case! We hadn't thought of that! ... I'd really like to make the entire user interface usable via the jog wheel, I think. Click to enter a control, spin to increase it, click again to exit. That sort of thing. However, it'll require somewhat careful design to make it usable, because you have to be able to guess what order the wheel will select the controls in.
yeah realize it might need some work for rewriting the jog wheel code but i think its worth it because it is such a good control and it doesn't require the touchscreen for water-housing and when you have a loupe on the screen and cant touch it
Absolutely agreed. Almost no matter how bad the wheel controls are, if they are functional, it'll be easier than having to take a case off every dang time you need to make an adjustment.
