[mythtv-users] 0.22 annoyances

[Yeechang Lee]

On Jan 1, 2010, at 12:34 AM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> One is the menu (for that part of the application), the other is the
> right-click/shortcut menu for the specific item.  But rather than
> recognizing it for what it is, it seems that lately we have a bunch
> of people using one-button mice (er, remotes) calling it bad UI
> design.

You know lots about code but statements like the above show that you
know very little about how normal people use MythTV.

(Exhibit A being, of course, the thread starting at
<URL:http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/293679#293679>.
While I admire your willingness afterwards to go to the trouble of
creating a brand-new "Recording Rules" page, the simpler
solution--renaming "Set Priorities"/"Recording Priorities" to
"Recording Rules" (#5759) and adding to it the new fields your new
page offers, or creating your new page but then deleting "Set
Priorities" entirely--would've supported my point, eh? As you yourself
acknowledge in the ticket, "all of the same functionality and
information is available through both screens." So, instead,
MythFrontend now has two near-duplicate pages. Yay, you.)

Your left/right mouse-button example fails because

* Most people only have one remote button marked "menu"
* Most people only have one remote button marked "info or somesuch,
  and binding DETAILS to it is far more useful in most MythFrontend
  contexts
* Even those like me with universal remotes with programmable-display
  buttons have trouble seeing the point of binding INFO to a button
  when it is not useful anywhere in MythFrontend outside Watch
  Recordings
* Justin Hornsby's work shows how easy it is to get rid of the need
  for a second menu button in the one MythFrontend context where it is
  needed in 0.22

> If you look at the historic usage of the MENU and INFO buttons,  
> you'll notice that approach holds true more often than not  
> throughout MythTV.

No, quite the opposite. Again, where is a second menu button used in
MythFrontend itself (whether pre- or post-0.22), outside Watch
Recordings?

(Now I'll bet Mike or someone else comes up with a half-dozen other
places in MythFrontend (as opposed to a plugin), that me or David
Brodbeck or others didn't know about, where the second menu button is
useful. That would prove, not disprove, my larger point. Until 0.22
almost everyone only bothered to bind MENU because RIGHT--a key
*everyone* has on their remote--also brought up the second (INFO) menu
in Watch Recordings. RIGHT no longer performs this secondary function
(a UI decision I completely agree with), but is it reasonable to then
expect everyone to suddenly find a second "menu" button on their
remotes?)

> Things have changed some in 0.22 (and will likely change even more
> in the future).

See, here you yourself acknowledge the correct answer to my rhetorical
question above. Justin's work or something very much like it will be
implemented at some point, as other developers have stated on the
mailing lists. Could it be because requiring two menu buttons really
turns out, after all, to be bad UI design?

David Brodbeck <gull at gull.us> says:
> It may not be bad design, but the logic of it was certainly obscure to  
> me. Am I just slow?

If you are, let me put on the dunce cap as well.

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