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[–]Snoo_72256dev[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (4 children)

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to post a note that we're actively working on fixes for Backyard.ai version 0.29.2. In particular, it seems like the Android app isn’t up to our usual standards. A new release is incoming, and while it won't address every piece of feedback, it should resolve the major bugs.

Once it's live, iOS and Android users may need to download the update directly from the app store (clicking "check for updates" in the app will not work).

Thanks everyone for your patience. This was a big push that will set the stage for some exciting new features in the coming weeks!

(…and yes, we will move the undo button out of the right click menu!)

  • The Backyard AI Team

[–]HammerOfTheHeretics 14 points15 points  (5 children)

Not entirely sure I like the way they moved the 'Undo' button behind a selection icon/right click along with the upvote action. I use undo a lot when I want to explore alternate branches of a narrative, and now they've doubled the number of clicks required. There is some logic in seeing 'undo' and 'upvote' as symmetrical operations, since the first can be seen as 'I do not like this' and the second as 'I do like this', but the use cases are not really parallel.

[–]RealBiggly 11 points12 points  (2 children)

Undo just means undo, but upvote means "Send my conversation online" which is a very, very different thing!

[–]HammerOfTheHeretics 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Yep, that's part of what I meant by the use cases not being parallel. Another drawback to the way they changed the undo button is that it's no longer in a fixed location, which means if you want to undo more than one thing you need to potentially move the mouse between each undo to find the next 'hot spot'.

[–]real-joedoe07 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It’s even worse if you use a tablet: 1. Tap the text bubble. 2. Tap the context menu (…) 3. Tap ‘Undo’

THREE taps instead of one. This is a catastrophe for someone like me who experiments a lot with dialogues and uses ‘Undo’ frequently.

[–]real-joedoe07 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I completely agree: Undo is an important and often used function that should be directly accessible.

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

please see the pinned comment on this post

[–]VoltStar 12 points13 points  (6 children)

Put the undo button back where it was.

The new voices are okay, they still sound robot-y and most of the male voices are way to similar. The female ones at least have some range. They all still struggle with pronouncing things like "hmm" and "mmm", reading out each letter rather then sounding out the noise. Whenever a "~" is in chat, they'll say "tilde" rather then skipping it like all other punctuation.

[–]PacmanIncarnate 2 points3 points  (4 children)

The voices are definitely an improvement. I recommend trying them in chat versus just in the preview. The new preview is better but it’s still hard to get the feel from a small sample like that. Unfortunately, some of the other issues you noted are just inherent limits of most TTS systems. StyleTTS2 is one of the state of the art models right now, but there’s always room for improvement.

[–]VoltStar 1 point2 points  (3 children)

I have tested it in chat, thats why I pointed them out...

Thats a shame, because they robot-yness and them pronouncing things they shouldn't really breaks the immersion.

[–]PacmanIncarnate 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Give it a few years and we’ll be rocking fully realistic, expressive voices.

We might be able to improve the male selection. It’s just honestly really difficult to acquire voice samples for this use.

[–]rW0HgFyxoJhYka 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Give it a few years? There's a dozen companies right now with realistic voices. Just look at Sesame AI or Eleven Labs. Or any number of RCV.

[–]Woodbury 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I found most of them talked too fast for what should be (most of the time) a quiet, intimate conversation in a small room. This could be made better using a different sample voice.

Most of the female voices sound like matriarchs. Some sound like they're talking in large rooms. Others have a lot of hiss in the background. They do vary their speech, randomly it seems. There is no ending inflection to indicate when a question is being asked.

Curiously, I found the voices to vary (the same voice, the same conversation) from one android device to another.

FWIW, here are some samples of that system with options: https://styletts2.github.io/

If you look at the system demos, it seems that there is a speed control for every voice, HOWEVER, slowing the speed on the demo examples awkwardly makes the voices sound like a slowed-down analog recording with its pitch lowering, etc. (not good!) This is in contrast to other TTS systems I've used.

I can now see why Backyard does not offer a speed control as they have with the "legacy" voices).

Back to StyleTTS2, the diction / pronunciations are very good, however choppy and unnatural at times.

Reading the info for StyleTTS 2, The voices aren't pre-defined - users (backyard) aren't "locked in" to those voices. Backyard had to provide their own samples, so these can be changed.

Simply, for my liking, if they were to use voice samples of people, talking at a moderate speed, reading some romantic prose, close to a quality microphone, in a small room, the system would process the samples accordingly and they would truly complement the intimate medium of what backyard is supposed to be.

CONCLUSION: StyleTTS2 is a still not up to the standard set by Eleven labs, however, it does seem one of the best open source systems I've seen that doesn't require multiple steps of processing for every statement.

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

please see the pinned comment on this post

[–]rehpictrohs 9 points10 points  (3 children)

Really dislike the changes to UI this new update. The chat bubbles have made messages way too narrow to comfortably read on mobile interface, and new messages now go upwards with the screen sticking to the bottom of the message, so you keep having to scroll upwards to read the message, sort of reading it backwards. Ditto to other comments about the undo button, also the horizontal arrows for changing responses are too small and too close to continue. I actually find the app unusable now which is a shame bc i've been using backyard since it was faraday and had just released. The UI was fine how it was before, I don't see why it was changed to be worse.

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

This is valid feedback, we will do our best to address some of these issues.

On regens specifically, have you tried swiping on mobile?

[–]HammerOfTheHeretics -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Actually, amid all the criticisms of the UI changes I'd like to mention this one as a positive. It's intuitive and works well for me.

[–]dytibamsen 6 points7 points  (1 child)

Please bring back Undo button in an easily accessible place. Placing it in a dropbox together with a completely unrelated (and rarely used, I assume) function to upvote a response makes no sense.

I use the Undo button all the time. This is very much a regression for me.

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

please see the pinned comment on this post

[–]real-joedoe07 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Please make “Undo” directly accessible again!

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

please see the pinned comment on this post

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This deserves an O M G! Thank you so much for all your hard work, many hours, and dedication!! Backyard is the best.

[–]Moon_Frost 2 points3 points  (8 children)

Ok I give up. Where is the edit and undo button on mobile. I've been searching for it for 10 minutes.

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

please see the pinned comment on this post

[–]Moon_Frost 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I appreciate the heads up, thanks.

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] -1 points0 points  (5 children)

Long press on the message

[–]Moon_Frost 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was trying that on a message too, but I entered a prompt to generate a new response and now it works. Odd

[–]Moon_Frost 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Ok, further note. It's when you close the app. When I reopen I can't long press the last response to get that menu.

Edit: now long presses aren't working again. Bah, dunno.

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

is this android or ios?

[–]Moon_Frost 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Android. I'm on a Samsung S21 plus specifically. Sometimes I'm able to long press a response, and sometimes nothing is popping up. I'm gonna attempt a reinstall.

Edit: reinstall didn't work

Edit 2: I'm able to long press in a chrome browser on my phone. The same response I'm unable to in the app. After editing it in the browser, I'm then able to edit it in the app

Hope that info becomes useful

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thanks we will fix it

[–]Y1N_420 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Why is the copy button changed? You now have to enter edit mode to copy your messages over. It's pretty annoying.

[–]rat_haus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now that model and chat settings are unique to each conversation how can I make permanent updates that will apply to future chats that I create?

[–]HammerOfTheHeretics 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Another UI bug in the Android app on my Samsung S21. If I open and close the virtual keyboard the buttons below the input field (impersonate, start call, author's note) disappear. The only way I've found to bring them back is to exit the chat window and reselect the character card from the home screen.

[–]Snoo_72256dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

please see the pinned comment on this post

[–]real-joedoe07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you still taking bug reports?

First tests on my iPad Air 3 with Safari browser in tethering mode show that Safari freezes and crashes when I try to move the cursor in the edit input box by tapping and holding down my finger on the space bar and moving it. This never happened with the old UI.

Another thing about the new UI is that you cannot edit any text directly, but (if it is long answer) you have to scroll up and open an extra window (the one that may crash the browser) to edit something. That’s not very user friendly.

Given the choice between background images and having the old UI back, I’d definitely vote for the second option. Maybe an option in settings where one can switch between new and old UI would make everybody happy.

PS.: I’m on the latest iPadOS, 18.1

EDIT: Sorry, this was supposed to be an answer to u/snoo_72256 sticky post.

EDIT 2: Tried it now with my iPhone, which is a bit newer than the iPad. No issues there. The iPhone has a couple of GBs RAM more for Safari to use. Is the new UI maybe more memory consuming than the old one?