[IxDA Discuss] Is there a common name for the collection of media player controls?

[Alexander Baxevanis]

Hi Mark,

I think I've seen them referenced in some UI frameworks as "media
transport" controls, I presume this comes from the old times when the
buttons would actually "transport" a tape back and forth.

>From a quick survery, on Mac OS X, mplayer has a menu named "Controls"
for this function, VLC names the respective window as "Controller" and
QuickTime Player has an option called "Show A/V controlls" which
actually shows some advanced options such as Image Contrast or Play
Speed.

If you are writing a spec, "media player controls" will probably be
understood by everybody working on application design &
implementation. If you are looking for a user-facing term, I think the
reason there is no such common term is that users are accustomed to
seeing these controls all the time, so they basically know them by
look. Even in cases where they are hidden (e.g. in full screen
display) there is usually a quick way to activate them again (e.g.
moving the mouse towards the screen edge, as in most software DVD
players)  without using some button or menu option named "Show media
players controls" or something.

Sorry if I got carried away from the purpose of your question, but
it's quite interesting to think why some things may have remained
unnamed.

Cheers,

Alex

On 5/16/07, Mark Bardsley <markb at luxworldwide.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Is there a common name for the collection of buttons usually near the
> bottom of media players? I am speaking of FFW, RWD, Play, etc. for apps
> like iTunes and Windows Media Player. The name I am looking for should
> describe the entire collection of buttons. The first that came to mind
> was "media player controls" but I am fairly certain I just made that up.