Polishing MusicVISTA (Thanks, LJ)

You might think that, nearly a year after release, our new music research analysis software would be fairly well polished. But three things conspire to keep that from ever happening:

1. I keep adding things. That's not entirely my fault, of course. Radio programmers keep asking for things. And every time I add another weapon to the arsenal, there is a new opportunity for feedback about how to make it better. I see that as a good thing.

2. My clients number, over time, in the hundreds, while Microsoft can count on hundreds of thousands of Word users. They get a lot of feedback, quickly. I bet there are features in MusicVISTA that no client has yet used.

3. I'll never be as quick to notice roadblocks as the programmers who simply want to get their music changes on-air.

And that third point leads me to extend a huge "Thank you!" to LJ Smith of WCOS, Columbia, South Carolina. He pointed out two little irritants that I completely missed.

a. If you right-click on the results spreadsheet, up pops a little dialog box that lets you assign songs to categories and levels. Once it is up, if you select a song and right-click it, focus will shift to the little box (because the computer thinks your right-click is an attempt to make the category dialog box visible). More than one programmer has thought that the category assignment function stopped working!

In fact, you should select songs with the left button. But that is easy to forget if you've just used the right button 5 seconds ago. So now, when the category assignment box is visible, the right-click does absolutely nothing. It doesn't take long to stop trying and flip to the left button, which is the standard for selecting rows in a spreadsheet. Problem solved. Thank you LJ!

b. When you change the cluster that the music test center fit rank is based on, you might immediately want to use the scroll wheel on your mouse to look through the results spreadsheet. But as LJ pointed out, the focus actually goes to the title search box, and you end up scrolling though that list, instead of your results. Again, easily fixed.

Every suggestion that might help me make it easier to work with your test, avoid confusion, or eliminates something that you simply would not expect, is welcome. Very welcome.

If you have a recent or upcoming music test, I certainly invite you to allow me to work with you. You'll get the benefit of my experience with programming research, and the power of the always being improved MusicVISTA analysis software. We'll create the most powerful analysis of your listeners' music tastes that you have ever seen. It is all designed to make your ratings increase. And if you're curious why your ratings will grow, contact me. I'll send you some information that will make it clear.