[mythtv] Improve MythTV usability

Xavier Hervy xavier.hervy at bluebottle.com
Tue Jan 22 17:40:52 UTC 2008


On Tue, 2008-01-22 at 11:39 +1100, Nigel Pearson wrote: 
> ....
> > 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).
> 
> or a "gesture" which is mapped to those actions.
Did myth support gesture ? 
> 
> 
> ....
> >  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.
> 
> Agree with all that,
> but "screen purpose" and icons are
> extra documentation that someone
> needs to add somewhere, and maintain.
Agree with the extra documentation but at least the key binding and icon
description give a lot of help already... 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The keybindings table contains almost enough information
> for a context-sensitive, self generated, key help popup:
> 
> context      action  description           keylist
> --------------------------------------------------
> TV Frontend  DELETE  Delete Program              D
> Music        DELETE  Delete track from playlist  D
> --------------------------------------------------
> 
> Something like
> MythMainWindow::ShowKeyHelp(const QString &context)
> could:
> 
> 
> 1) Get a list of all the relevant keys for context
> 
> 2) Prune that list down to just the non-Global ones
> (we don't really need to know every number key)
or global key can be display at the end of the list 
> 
> 3) Translate the descriptions to the users' language
I guess I can do my bit... 
> 
> 4) Maybe group related keys together,
> and prioritize (show oft used ones first)
I can log the user interaction in order to do that ... 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Eagerly awaiting someone to produce a patch for this :-)
The function ShowKeyHelp is quite easy to do then (1 and 2 only). It
doesn't address all the usability issues but it's a step in the good
direction.
I will try to implement this as soon as possible.

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