Nectarine

Hi! Here is an idea I had that would be quite easy to implement.

We represent all of the "platforms" by chips (even though some of them aren't actually hardware chips, e.g. MOD isn't a chip). All of these icons look basically identical -- it is white text on the same black chip with little chippy legs. awwww.

I think we are missing a trick here, usability-wise. Since all the chips look the same, it is necessary to focus closely on the icon to read the text and see "oh it's a MOD, or MED, or SID, or YM". If we used colour here, the human eye and brain would be able to "read" it much quicker, without having to focus.

Before you panic, I'm not suggesting we have bright dayglo pink and lime chips, or even that we have a separate colour for every single platform. But I think it would be genuinely useful to have very faint, muted colours on the chips, indicating the subtype of platform. For example, all early trackers could be very dark purple; 8-bit chips could be very dark blue; etc.

You'd be surprised... once you pick up the rules, you will be able to glance at the queue for 1/3 of a second and get a feel for what's playing, what type of song. Right now you have to specifically read every single black chip icon because they all look the same.

WE TRIED IT AND IT SUCKED. THANKS! DELETE THIS