[mythtv-users] Programming remote button bindings (WAS: What major features are planned for 0.27?)

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Mon Dec 3 15:17:14 UTC 2012


On 12/01/2012 09:09 PM, marcus hall wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 01, 2012 at 04:49:51PM +0000, Simon Hobson wrote:
>> I disagree there. Some of the most confusing and/or 'difficult'
>> interfaces I've had to use have been those that go the minimalist
>> route.
>> Larger numbers of buttons generally make an interface 'better'
>> provided those buttons actually do something useful *AND* are
>> sensibly labelled. Having too few buttons leads to modal interfaces
>> (how very 1970s).
> Well, the suggestion was that the basic buttons should be likely to work
> without any additional configuration.  The intent was never to disallow
> further configuration, so it should be possible to add additional button
> definitions if the remote has additional buttons, but the basic buttons
> (say, up/down/left/right/select/menu, vol+/vol-/mute, and
> play/ff/rw/pause/stop/record/skipf/skipb should have functional defaults.
> That would likely get you most of the interface working without any
> configuration.  If you have other buttons and want to set up jumppoints to
> take you to various places of interest, that would be configured manually.

And adding these default mappings would result in additional required 
configuration (unmapping before properly remapping--which is /much/ more 
effort than just properly mapping for the first time because you have to 
find *all* the mappings to unmap before you can remap) for those users 
with different remotes.  Our key bindings are complex enough--we don't 
need to make them more complex.

Again, give me time and I'll fix it properly (assuming I can get time to 
fix it rather than just arguing that we should fix it properly rather 
than come up with a short-term hack that makes it a little easier for a 
few users and makes it a /lot/ harder for many other users).  The proper 
fix will provide an ability to choose your mappings from previously 
defined ones that were designed for specific functionality (based on how 
users interact with MythTV--whether they use commercial skipping or not, 
whether they use ffwd/rew or skip/jump) and/or remote layouts (where 
layout implies specific buttons and number of buttons available to 
map--having nothing to do with physical placement of buttons), as well 
as the ability to define your mappings once and then share them to all 
your frontends (rather than having to configure them on each frontend 
individually) and/or share them with other users.

Mike


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