[mythtv] Improve MythTV usability

Xavier Hervy xavier.hervy at bluebottle.com
Mon Jan 21 21:45:24 UTC 2008


Hi Guys,
The usability of MythTV have been discussed a lot of time, but some 
issues haven't been solved.
As a new ui library is on the way, I thought it was the right time to 
ask about it.
few things which need improvements:
-Input Device/
MythTV have been design to work with a keyboard when most of people use 
a remote control or even a touch screen. It would be nice to have a UI 
aware of it. If the user want to use a touch screen (mythrecipe in the 
kitchen for example), he will need a back button in the menu or the Info 
button, that should be theme independent (I should admit, I don't know 
how it can be possible).  For user with a remote control, It doesn't 
really make sense to map the keys to a keyboard. I was thinking about 
giving a friendly name to each button in the lirc config file, And use 
the name (and a icon) as it is in myth. Have only few must-have-button 
like up, down, select ( or other, it's just a suggestion) which would 
allow us to do everything in myth (not very efficiently). And allow the 
user to do some short key when ever he want. For example in the recorded 
program menu, pressing select will display a submenu with watch, 
delete... if a key is associated to an action, the key could be shown as 
an icon next to the item (a bit like in pop-up menu or a contextual 
menu). if a action-key  have been defined, the user could use it without 
showing the menu first (ex: play button to watch a recorded programs). 
And a quick way to add key without going to the settings would be nice too.
- On screen documentation:
 Some screen have an help menu, it may be time to spread this feature to 
each screen/menu. the Help could describe the purpose of the screen, 
describe the icons if needed (dependant of the theme) and display what 
action can be performed with what key, according to the user settings. 
May be those help menus can be standardised and self generated.
- 2 level of themes: one for the look and feel and one for the  layout. 
MythTV is shipped with 2 themes by default. there is a lot of other 
themes available but there are not all complete. Some feature can be 
unavailable because of this. If the themes where split in two parts, the 
first part for how to display a button a default title ... it would 
allow us to use a theme even if some part layout (second part) are 
missing/incomplete and use the default one for it (but still have the 
look of ...) . Am I wrong here  ? (I am not an expert :( )

Any comment are welcome, feel free to disagree or add more usability 
issues as I would like to code some stuff but I don't know what the best 
things to do or what is the best way to achieve my goal.

BTW what is the status of the new ui library, I don't think it is ready 
to use massively but I don't know neither what is missing. Any help is 
needed ? Can we mix both library at the same time and start porting ? 
where is the old ui library, where is the new one ? so I can compare...

Xavier

PS: I am not complaining and I am willing to provide patches.

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