[mythtv-users] lightweight TV user-interface

[Jason Baker]

Ross Campbell <ross.campbell at gmail.com> writes:

> On 12/7/05, Jason Baker <baker29 at cs.purdue.edu> wrote:
> > if I want to tweak the interface to the music and movie libraries, I
> > need to do it in C++.
> 
> You should check out the different options for the default layouts for
> the MythVideo first.

That's certainly a good idea.  My impression of MythTV comes from the
online documentation and a couple quick peeks at the source code.  
If MythTV does everything I want, then I'm certainly happy to use it
for everything.  Right now, I'm just trying to decide whether the
whole thing is worth the trouble.

> > It seems to me that a user-interface based on php and javascript might
> > be a lot easier to hack, and could work at least as well as MythTV.
> 
> See mythweb

OK.  Here's a simple customization.  Democracy Now is available each
weekday after 12pm eastern.  The video link is (currently) of the form
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/%Y/%b/video/dnB%Y%m%da.rm&proto=rtsp
(at least in english language locales).  I would like to have a menu
item called "watch news" (or something) that plays the latest
Democracy Now show.  

If mythweb supports javascript, I suppose that I
could put this menu item in a .html file.  Otherwise, I would have to
generate this stupid little URL either by hacking mythTV, or setting
up a local webserver with some sort of server-side scripting.  And, IF
I need to run my own webserver anyway, that just makes me wonder
whether a UI based on a PHP and javascript wouldn't be preferable to
one based on QT and C++.

> > My question for the list is two-fold.  First, is my impression of
> > MythTV wrong?
> 
> If you think that mythtv isn't customizable enough, then you're wrong.
> If you think that full access to all of the source code doesn't give
> you enough to hack with, then... I don't know what to tell you. What
> exactly do you want to hack?

I'm a little confused.  Are you saying that every peice of software is
exactly as easy to maintain and extend as every other peice of
software?  If I must hack something, I'd prefer to hack something with
a small code base.  

Jason