[mythtv-users] Feature idea: User Profiles and other goodies?

[Kendrick Vargas]

Has anyone given any thought to a really simple authentication method for
frontend -> backend usage? I'm not thinking so much in the direction of
requiring a username and password to gain access to any resources. I'm
thinking more along the lines of being able to have user profiles that, if
the user wanted, could be secured with a password or something to that
effect. I'll explain my reasons for this being a cool feature below :-)

MythTV is growing to be an incredibly AWESOME suite with insane potential.
It is quite possibly the most perfect and flexible interface I've seen for
just about any job that requires management from simple push button
interfaces (like remote controls or buttons under a monitor). It's
networkable TV viewing and mythnotify based OSD stuff is cooler still.

What I'm thinking would be great for this would be user profiles that
would work sorta like Windows XP's users works. A mythbackend could be
configured to allow users to create profiles on their own, without
passwords even needing to be set. Security could be tightened so that
users could be created in advanced and optionally have passwords required.

It seems that the future of myth will have video enabled VoIP phone
functionality, caller ID notifications while watching TV, PIM meeting
reminders, etc... :-) With all this functionality, different people will
want to be able to take their preferences (and not the kid's or spouse's
or dog's) where they go. While some of the preferences/settings in the
database seem to be hardware related, a large number could easily be
categorized as user preferences.

Sure, I suppose some of this could be stored in a user's .mythtv
directory, etc, but what if you don't have users? What if you've got myth
frontend compiled on a non unix system? The beauty of myth is that it
provides a rather sexy interface that doesn't depend on a windowing
system and thus can appear OS agnostic.

As for other goodies that would tie beautifully into this, I'm thinking
the VoIP/Video Conferencing stuff Mr. Paul Volkaerts is working on.
Settings like allowing an incoming call to automatically pop up in a PiP
window (i.e... for network game play) without needing confirmation,
whether or not to display various mythnotify messages from the network
(like caller id, or new mail notifications).

Other goodies that would benefit from having multiple users would be
having inter family messages, like mom leaving a message for bobby telling
him there's a special treat in the oven. Or how about a PIM like interface
to allow syncing things over bluetooth (for example) or wireless. That
would totally kick ass for all those bluetooth cell phones or wireless
PDAs that are proliferating all over the place. It'd also make a great way
for everyone to keep their data easily backed up, especially when your
myth box and the addition of a $40 bluetooth adapter becomes a great
bluetooth hot spot :-)

How about the possibility for a user to not display certain modules on the
main menu, either by host or globally across all hosts? How about
customizable email notifications based on the user that's logged in. Or
maybe on screen (mythnotify style) meeting/anniversary notifications from
the afformentioned PIM stuff?

Anyways... just thought I'd throw this out there :-)
			-peace

-- 
Let he who is without clue kiss my ass