[mythtv-users] Messages from system to user

[Kevin Kuphal]

Sounds perfect.  The ReplayTV does just that.  It's similar like Outlook
with auto-preview.  It shows the Subject in bold (in a list) with a
date/time stamp and then a one-liner or detail information.  If you
click/select the message you get a pop-up that displays the full text of the
message and the option to close or delete.

I think an additional feature might be a periodic check of the table in the
frontend and an OSD notification if there are unread messages.

Thanks for tackling this!

Kevin


> This struck me as something that I'd like to see.  It would 
> be very nice for non-technical users to be able to check on 
> the status - when I get my parent's MythBox set up, for example.
> 
> I've started doing a bit of work, but I wanted to run it by 
> the group to get opinions/comments/flames/etc.
> 
> As Isaac says, I'm thinking an add-on module for the display 
> of the notices; however, the actual logging would have to be 
> embedded in the actual programs/libraries.
> 
> I've modelled it somewhat after syslog, but logged to the 
> database.  I created a mythlog table:
> 
> +--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
> | Field        | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
> +--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
> | module       | varchar(32)  |      |     |         |       |
> | priority     | int(11)      | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
> | acknowledged | tinyint(1)   | YES  |     | 0       |       |
> | logdate      | date         | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
> | logtime      | time         | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
> | host         | varchar(128) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
> | message      | varchar(255) |      |     |         |       |
> | details      | text         | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
> +--------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
> 
> Module is the name of the program or module that is reporting 
> the message (ie. mythbackend, mythfilldatabase, etc).  
> Priority is like the syslog priorities (debug, info, warning, 
> etc), with a view to being able to view only messages of a 
> certain priority and above.  Acknowleged is a boolean - once 
> a message has been acknowleged, it won't be displayed again.  
> Date, time, and host are self-explanatory.  Message is a 
> "summary" one-line message, suitable for display in a list, 
> and details is a longer description of the entry (if needed).
> 
> I tossed a call into MythContext to make a log entry, again 
> similar to syslog:
> 
>    void LogEntry(const QString &module, int priority,
>                  const QString &message, const QString &details = "");
> 
> So, a simple log entry might be:
> 
> gContext->LogEntry("mythbackend",LP_INFO,"MythBackend starting");
> 
> Obviously, some work would have to be done on each package to 
> insert calls to log various operations.
> 
> For a frontend interface, I'm thinking about a list view 
> showing the unacknowleged messages (date/time/message), with 
> details being shown (in an area at the bottom of the screen) 
> when a particular message is selected.  It would also include 
> either a spinbox for selecting the min priority to view or 
> else press 1-x to select the min priority.  I'm also thinking 
> about prompting to acknowlege all messages when you exit the 
> interface.
> 
> It could be integrated into MythWeb, as well.
> 
> How does this sound?  I've got the logging stuff done (it's 
> really pretty simple) and a couple of samples put into the 
> various programs, but I don't want to start on the interface 
> until I'm sure it'll be useful...
> 
> -- 
> Matt White                          whitem at arts.usask.ca
> Arts and Science Computer Labs      University of Saskatchewan
> 
>