[mythtv-users] [RFC] Proposed settings rework

[Rod Smith]

On Tuesday 03 November 2009 04:07:22 pm Robert McNamara wrote:
>
> Fine Tune Font Size (should be theme controlled)

This is one I wouldn't want to see go away. It's been quite a while since I 
set up my Myth box, but I distinctly recall having to fine-tune the font 
sizes to get something that was both legible and small enough to fit enough 
text in the menus, dialogs, etc. for my screen resolution, screen size, and 
viewing distance. Because these three factors all vary quite a bit from one 
setup to another, I find it hard to believe that theme authors could possibly 
come up with something to please everybody. The alternative for a theme 
author would be to come out with several variants, which would be a pain for 
everybody. As a user, I'd hate to use a theme just because it happens to use 
the right font size even when I think it's otherwise ugly, or to use a theme 
with illegibly-small or ridiculously-large fonts because I think it's 
otherwise attractive.

> Display live preview of recordings (will be theme controlled)

This is another item that really does vary a lot from one installation to 
another. I found the previews distracting, and worse, they slowed things down 
enough that I didn't like them. (They made the UI sluggish.) This performance 
degradation is likely to be worse on systems with weaker CPUs, so it's 
perfectly reasonable for a person to want to disable live previews in favor 
of static or no previews.

> OSD Font (themer controlled upon MythUI conversion)
> Font Size (themer controlled upon MythUI conversion)
> Default Caption Font Type (themer controlled upon MythUI conversion)
> ALL the caption font settings (themer controlled upon MythUI conversion)

See above. It might be reasonable to fold these settings up with general UI 
font settings, though, if that's convenient.

> Maximum commercial skip (3600, the default)

If the default really is 3600 (not 360), then that's WAY too long. Aside from 
infomercials (and if you've knowingly recorded one of them, you presumably 
WANT to watch it), commercials I've seen rarely exceed 5 minutes, although 
they occasionally go up to 6 minutes. I don't know if there's a setting for 
this that I've overlooked (or set and forgotten), but on my system, it 
refuses to skip anything when it sees a too-long commercial, so if you set a 
fixed maximum commercial length, you might want to consider setting it so 
that it skips up to that fixed maximum (assuming it's reasonable -- in the 
5-7 minute range, say) when it detects a longer commercial. That way, if the 
commercial really is ridiculously long, you'll at least have skipped a good 
chunk of it, and another press of the commercial-skip button should take up 
the slack. In fact, if you set it that way, using a relatively short length 
(4 or 5 minutes) might make sense, since pressing the commercial-skip button 
a second time is less of an inconvenience than rewinding to find where the 
commercial actually ended.

Nick Rout wrote:

> (2) make the settings more accessible. From each screen/plugin add a
> context menu button to go straight to the config options for that
> screen. (presently its escape back to main menu, forward through
> several setup menus, make the changes then escape back out to main
> menu and all the way back to your screen. My suggestion is not only
> more user friendly in terms of button presses, but may save those
> endless posts asking "where is the settings option for foobar" - the
> answer will become "from the foobar screen hit [info] and choose
> [settings]"

This is an excellent suggestion. I've wasted more time than I care to 
contemplate moving back and forth between the recordings list and the plaback 
settings options pages when trying to fine-tune my playback settings.

-- 
Rod Smith