I have a good amount of feedback on v4.0.4 (beta). Antti prompted me to post my suggestions here in the forum so that they're open for discussion, numbered for reference. There is a mix of feature requests, bugs, clarifications, and comments. Please take them for what they're worth - I'm new to RaceChrono but hopefully new eyes are useful. I like what I see and want to help improve the product.
Main screen
1. Suggest adding indicator for connected devices (e.g. confirming external GPS is connected).
2. In Settings > Device details, tapping the hardware Back button returns to Settings as expected but tapping the arrow in the upper left goes to the main screen. I prefer the former for both.
Expert settings
3. Title says Settings just like standard settings screen; should be Expert Settings.
4. Can you provide more info on the "heavy load" warning for Record internal sensors? I assume adding accelerometer/gyro sensor data will tax low-spec devices. I haven't seen any difference on my Samsung Galaxy S4.
Session
5. Session screen title is "RaceChrono Pro". The session name is appropriately in a field below; should the title just say "Session"?
6. The session screen is going in a positive, interesting direction. You mentioned other to-do items - can you elaborate on your vision?
7. Suggest adding ability to trim beginning and end of a session (for when user started or stopped the recording early/late).
8. Suggest option to automatically start and stop recording at Start and Finish traps.
9. Can you explain the difference between Share and Export here? Share seems to just package the .rcz but I'm not sure how that's different from export.
10. Landscape shows more columns, but portrait does not allow scrolling right/left to see them.
11. Text size setting was difficult to find, but extremely helpful once I found it. Is it possible to make these icons in that row rather than pushed into the settings menu?
Export Session
12. Toolbar trash icon to me implies deleting files. Suggest it should be "Clear queue" broom icon.
13. Suggest separate functions for "Clear all" and "Clear finished items".
14. VBO export: Can you explain the use of greater update rate? Does it smooth the output in a useful way?
15. VBO export: Feature request to also export video. I've done some research on their file format - massaging it through a spreadsheet is feasible but very awkward. Let me know if I can help.
16. Suggest adding an icon or text on each queued item to show whether it's in external or internal storage. It would be useful info for both pending and finished items.
17. Exporting as Overlaid video allows selection of an overlay, but the gear/settings button does nothing.
18. Can you provide details on the quality settings? Does it change CRF? Other things?
19. Hooray for hardware acceleration!
Video
20. Analysis screen is well thought out. Live scrubbing with linked panes is extremely useful.
21. Decide on UI: options are split between direct icons in each pane and the gear/settings icon. Suggest moving the three show/hide buttons to the toolbar.
22. I think the Delete video button here is in the wrong context. Only Unlink is appropriate here; Delete should be reserved for the Videos list.
23. Feature request for multiple videos (picture-in-picture). Maybe select its position as part of overlay preset, or might be better to separate this setting as an attribute of each linked video.
24. Feature request to show sector name and speed high/low markers in video overlay.
25. In Edit overlay, Timers should have option for semi-transparent grey background as in v3.
26. Editing a gauge to GPS Position automatically converts it to Map. Clever, but then the item can't be changed to anything else or deleted.
Tracks
27. When editing a track, there is already a note when a start or finish is needed. So when the user adds a trap, default the trap type appropriately.
28. The UI for setting traps is excellent - both intuitive and powerful. Well done.
Comments
Yes, I figured some feature requests might be explicitly "won't fix" if they don't match your plans. Many were reactions off the top of my head, so they certainly may not be cohesive. Your project means it's your vision, and nothing wrong with that. Though that's why I also suggested circulating some of your plans. On the other hand, you could just pleasantly surprise us all in one big update. From what I've seen, your instincts and approach are very good, so stay on course and it will be a strong major release.
1. The devices are not connected on main screen yet. When you press start, they are connected. You can view the device status by pressing the semi transparent button bottom centre of the screen. I admit it’s bad UX, too invisible. Created a ticket to improve the button.
2. and 3. this is because all settings pages are inside same settings screen. According to Android back navigation specification, the back navi should jump to previous screen, but back button should jump to previous page inside the screen. Also it’s not feasible to change the title there. Wontfix.
4. The heavy load remark comes from Android 2.3 time when phones, the OS and my code were slower. This actually should not be a problem any longer so I've removed the remark.
5. I've been thinking about what it should say. The RaceChrono/RaceChrono Pro title is there to do a bit of advertising as it is probably as informative as having "Session" title.
6. I have TODO items on session list, like grouping and searching. For session screen there's no pending items currently, other than some new pages for the lap list.
7. and 8. Currently I have no strong opinion on this, it may be handy but probably too much work for what it's worth. Data recording doesn't take much storage space. I've been thinking if video recording should be started automatically, but currently the demand hasn't been too strong.
9. Sharing is for swapping sessions between phones/friends. Export is for taking the data to an external app. The .RCZ option should probably not be included in the export formats... not sure.
10. This is how it works on "Summary" page on lap list. If you switch to any other page, such as Sectors or GPS channels, you can scroll left/right too. I wanted to make the summary page only scroll up/down direction as one way scrolling is much more comfortable. But I agree it's a bit problematic when one page doesn't scroll and the others do. I have no solution to improve this, but I'd really would like to keep the Summary page one way scrolling.
11. That's how I designed it in the first place, but as I'm not too good with graphics I pushed it to the overflow menu, so I don't have to buy icons. I think I should. Created a ticket for this.
12. and 13. It actually deletes also completed exports. It cleans up everything except the ones that are working. So as is, it cannot be the broom icon. This one probably would need some more design before it can be a ticket.
14. The VBO export can be painfully slow when having many sensors recording. So the update rate is just there to produce a VBO file with desired accuracy. If you have 20 Hz GPS you probably do not want 10 Hz export. But for 1-10 Hz GPS the 10 Hz is just fine. The fact that you cannot have "native" update rate on the export file (like in the CSV) is a CircuitTools limitation.
15. Yes, please email me the details! I knew it's possible but never investigated the format. My email is tracks(at)racechrono.com
16. You're absolutely right, added a ticket for this.
17. It's a bug. Only works if laps are selected as scope.
18. This is a merely bitrate setting. Lower quality setting produces smaller bitrate and therefore lower quality and filesize.
19.-20. I glad you like it!
21. Agreed, this needs rework. Already have a ticket for this.
22. Agreed, I was already thinking about this but somehow failed to create ticket earlier. Now theres a ticket for it.
23. I think before this the external camera support needs improving. I'll look in to this after that.
24. High/low is already a ticket, added new one for the trap name.
25. Added a ticket.
26. That's a bug.
27. I'll think about this some more.
28. Thanks
So quite many tickets added. I'll fix the bugs and maybe some of the worst UX problems for the final v4.0. Others have to wait at least until v4.1 and some of the bigger ones beyond that. Thank you for the feedback, and keep it coming
RE #9, you can leave RCZ format in export as it is possible to upload those to serious-racing for data comparison.
1. I had eventually found the GPS info button earlier, but it took a while so I'm glad you were already going to improve it. I assume you don't connect to devices when on the main screen to save power (a good reason). The concern was actually over missing data if not connected to my external GPS (Garmin GLO). Maybe handled better at start time, though I'd like to know it earliest so I'd have time to fix the problem.
2-3. Understood, though I find it odd. Certainly defer to Android guidelines; that's one of the big reasons I'm not using a competing product that originated on iOS.
5. RC/RCP branding makes sense. I wouldn't object to it in other places. This was just the only place I saw it in the title.
7-8. Trimming was for convenience rather than storage. In many of my test samples, I open Analysis to a flat line and have to scroll far right to see the useful info. I had started recording quite early to ensure everything was running correctly so I could then concentrate on actual racing. Thus the suggestion of auto start/stop as well. I'm not 100% convinced of that as a solution either, so went with the trim idea.
9. I agree with sti04 that RCZ should be kept as an export option. The explanation makes sense, though I wonder whether merging the functions would be cleaner, like moving Share to the existing export page as an output option (internal/external/share).
10. Understood about scrolling. I don't see it as a big problem.
11. Maybe there are existing icons available, either free or low cost. Or put out the call to the community - I'm no graphic designer but do dabble a bit, and other users might be able to help.
12-13. I didn't realize it was actually a delete so now it makes sense. I didn't expect a queue to delete the generated items, only to manage its list. I see it much like Delete in the video editor - I expect to manage external items myself in a file manager or similar outside that context. So take it for what it's worth.
14-15. I see that there is some interpolation going on and it makes sense to match VBOX-native rates (I assume they are all at 10Hz or faster). I will send you what I have on the VBO format - RC could make the process massively easier, even if not perfect. There is some weirdness I haven't fully tracked down, but maybe we can figure this out together. Ultimately I think it would be good to publish findings for the benefit of the community.
27. I saw some interesting behavior this weekend when creating new tracks "on the fly" for testing. That use case won't affect users at established tracks but might feed into improvements. If I come up with anything good, I'll let you know.
Whew!
7-8. I've been thinking of implementing an automatic "stopped filter" for some time now. Maybe that would be the solution for you. Also only the "Time" X-axis has these flat lines, but "Distance" X-axis has them compressed to invisible.
14-15. At least in the past the RaceLogic software has been a bit unreliable with variable/low update rates, so that's why I'm forcing interpolation to even update rates.
Thank you again for your input! I've already fixed some of the things in 4.0.5 beta version. The rest them I have to postpone to future major releases, and start concentrating making the 4.0 as reliable as possible!
14-15. I've emailed my reverse engineering of the VBO format. I got some key breakthroughs via trial and error. Let me know what you think - I believe this can become a big feature for those of us using Circuit Tools.
Glad it's been a help. Here's to a solid 4.x release!
I think for an initial pass at this feature it would work to just note the files that the user will need to copy as a bundle. It would also be valuable to add that info in the VBO file's notes section, which would make it visible in the Circuit Tools UI as reference. Hopefully the idea of symbolic links will pan out - that would collect the related files without using additional storage space.
Do you plan on adding a setting to specify the location of the recorded video in RC Pro? Or is it already there and I'm too stupid to notice hehe!
Racechrono would only need the ability to specify the save path for video files (not sure if having separate paths for session data and videos adds complications) and the user could choose whatever the OTG path is. If that path was not available when Racechrono launched (eg, OTG device is unplugged/unmounted) then RC would fall back to default save location.
FWIW I just tested transferring a 1.18GB file from the Nexus 5 to Sandisk Ultra USB2.0 stick and the speed averaged 7.32MB/s which should be plenty fast enough for video.