Elecard MPEG player evluation : suggestions

6 suggestions for the mpeg player, which I'm evaluating:

1. Increase the number of keyboard shortcuts greatly, to aid advanced users.

2. Most disappoiinting thing for me in most players is the difficulty of adjusting the video controls *easily* while something is playing. So many videos have varying brightness/contrast. Keyboard controls to increase/decrease brightness and contrast would be awesome. The GOM player has this capability.

3. Another way to minimize the use of dialogs (which are intrusive in that they pop up in front of movies) is to be able to use right-click menus to modify some options. For example, you should be able to switch to "repeat forever" either by a keyboard option or right-clicking the screen to bring down a pop-up menu of options that might be used frequently.

4. I always have felt that a player should -- by default -- take up as little room as humanly possible. The essence of the GOM player is about half an inch tall. The "grab" controls may only rarely be used by some people, so that part of the interface should be hidden until you need it. The remaining controls could be compressed into something half an inch tall. It could be made wider if needed -- due to typical screen dimensions, using horizontal space is less intrusive than using vertical space. (That's why the windows task bar is placed horizontally at the bottom of the screen.) The grab controls could expand upward if you clicked a little windowshade tab at the top of the interface.

Main point: All screen real estate possible should be given to the film, not the player.

5. The playlist should not display the entire pathname to the file -- most users are indifferent to the pathname while using the playlist. The pathname should be accessible through a right-click menu. I position the playlist on the right edge of the screen, with about half of it hidden, so as to save screen real estate, but all I see is the first part of the pathname! I know I should use the show/hide playlist control, but this control becomes inconvenient when you plan to use the playlist often. Another space-saving feature would be the ability to change the width of the playlist (currently the playlist can't be made smaller than it's initial width/height.) Sure, making it smaller squeezes out some information. But usually if you see the first half of a filename, you know what file is being played. Hovering the mouse over the filename could pop up a tiny box showing the whole name.

6. Audo grab, not just video grab, would be great. (in mp3 or wav format.)