[mythtv] MythUI Screenshots - "Watch Recordings"

[Justin Hornsby]

We've had this 6-button remote argument before.  It's just not realistic to expect to be able to navigate around software as featureful 
as mythtv with only six buttons.  So what if Apple get away with it?  They don't have a PVR that can do as many (really) cool things as mythtv.  Standalone PVRs have a good deal more than six buttons.  Even a bog-standard STB has a lot more than just six buttons.

The only *realistic* way around the problem of remotes with insufficient useful buttons is to add more onscreen menus, thereby
forcing people to need many more keypresses to perform the simplest of operations.   I wonder how many 20+ button remote users there are who'd object to that.  Forget about button presses of different lengths with most remotes.  Forget all about having common coloured buttons bound to contextually keyed features.  Maybe, if there was one 'defacto' MythTV endorsed remote.. then we could talk about it.  There's never likely to be one though, is there.

There are way more disadvantages to having only 6 buttons than it first appears.  Gone is your pause button.  Gone is the ability to navigate to a channel directly.  Where's your MUTE button?  How do you change the volume?  How do you seek around recordings & skip parts?  With onscreen menus?!  I've tried to use that in 'another' player & found it too frustrating for words.

As far as defining button features in a theme is concerned.. that's unrealistic IMHO.  You'd end up with a situation where people would
have to learn new buttons & probably re-jig their lirc configs. Not good for user-friendliness at all.

Too many buttons assigned to different features can be a bad thing.  So far mythtv has just about every key of a standard PC layout keyboard spoken for.  Thankfully, you don't actually need that many buttons to use a lot of them, nor do you have to bring up endless reams of onscreen menus to access them.

One of the aims of the mythui port is to improve user interaction - not only by rewriting many widgets to gain a common look but also to bring
a good deal more operational commonality.  It's working very well as far as I can see.  Long may it continue.

Regards,
Justin.

_________________________________________________________________
Win an Xbox 360 or £200 Top Shop Vouchers 
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/115454062/direct/01/