[mythtv] improvement to MythMusic RIP location

[Tako Schotanus]

James Armstrong wrote:

>
>>>> I've got at least 500 CDs that I intend to rip (not sure what 
>>>> that'll be
>>>> in gigs)... I've got around 200 albums already as ogg and the current
>>>> interface isn't bad but it is getting a little unwieldy.
>>>>   
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> How is it unwieldy?  People whine and moan about it, but I've not 
>>> seen one description of either a) how it's bad, or b) how to make it 
>>> better that would actually work with a remote control.
>>>
>>>  
>>>
>> Well, for me there are 5 things that would make it already a lot more 
>> usable:
>>
>> 1. Have something like splitartist that includes album names. 
>> Especially usefull if you have a lot of albums with various artists 
>> but even so, believe it or not, I often can remember album names 
>> without knowing exactly the artist name.
>>
>> 2. Have an "all" item in the splitartist that will contain all 
>> artists for those times that you're just browsing. (in combination 
>> with #1 it might be usefull to have an "all artists" and "all albums")
>>
>> 3. Have multiple levels for splitartist (again to be combined with #1 
>> and #2 if possible of course) because some letters still have so many 
>> items in them that scrolling around in them still is difficult.
>>
>> 4. Make it so that the option "list as shuffled" has no effect on the 
>> "all my music" entry. I like seeing what is next but I always have 
>> this option turned off because it makes the "all my music" entry 
>> impossible to browse through.
>>
>> 5. Have some kind of menu where you could select things like: "play 
>> current album" and "play current artist" which would mean clearing 
>> the curent playlist and setting it to the current album or artist.
>>
>> No spectacular changes as you can see, just things that would make 
>> life a bit more pleasant :-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -Tako
>>
>>
> I think a start would be to have a similar interface that the 'Find 
> Programs' uses where there is a column of 0-9 and A-Z that would speed 
> up searching for the Artist.

I agree that both should use a similar system. Which one I leave to 
others to decide, but both of them definitely need multiple levels :-)

If there's currently one screen I really never use it's Find Programs 
because selecting one letter still leaves me with a zillion entries.

I'm still thinking that we should have a alpha-num on-screen keyboard 
for thess kind of things, kind of like you have for console games where 
you can enter your name when you get a high score. Then both the Find 
Programs and the Artist/Album screens could just have a simple text box 
where you can enter the first characters of the item you are looking 
for. The list would be updated each time you enter a letter.

If the keyboard is implemented as a pop-up whenever the text box gets 
focus it would save a lot of screen real-estate. I imagine it would also 
be easier to implement (otherwise the space for the keyboard would have 
to be designed into each screen that uses it).

How about that idea?

-Tako