[mythtv-users] Fix for forced subtitle problems

[Paul Gardiner]

On 16/12/2023 02:12, Angela via mythtv-users wrote:
> In my previous mails, I mentioned several times some misbehavior which exists since many versions, which I think should be fixed first, or what I suggested to not differentiate between forced and non-forced, which makes the interaction much easier.
> I am still hoping for comments.
> 
> I have one request, please do not change the behavior of TOGGLECC.

I don't think you need to worry about this going in against your wishes. 
I'm not a dev and can't just force this in. I wouldn't want to, in any 
case, without consensus. You are the only person who's taken any 
interest in this and you don't like it. I don't think it's going in.

I wish you'd had the chance to actually try it before making up your 
mind - not with test videos - but in the wild, rather than imagining the 
scenarios, but that's my fault for not managing to get it to work on 
master. I've looked further and I can't see what the problem is. I'm 
parking it for now. I might return to it when 34 comes out and master, 
for a while, will be close to what I'm running.

I didn't reply to many of your comments because I was hoping to wait for 
you to have tried it. Also I have no interest in trying to fix all the 
other misbehaviours. Plus, I find it very difficult to read very long 
detailed natural language pros, especially with all the references to 
forced and non-forced. I'm much happier dealing with one point at a time.

I've just reread your previous posts. I believe I understand the points 
you are making. I'll have one last go to contrast what I think is your 
point of view with mine.

I think I've found a better way to explain this with new terminology. 
I'll introduce a 3rd state: in addition to having On and Off, let's 
include Almost Off. I'll use Almost Off to refer to having a forced 
subtitle active. I think Almost Off is a good descriptive term because 
when a forced subtitle is active, mostly you see no subtitles. You could 
be fooled that subtitles are actually off, until just at a few specific 
points in the video, someone speaks Dothraki or Na'vi. I'm reserving the 
term On for showing a full subtitle. So in those terms:

(I'm going to assume that the global setting "subtitles enabled" is 
false to keep things simple - for me - I like things simple).



Option 1 - leave it as it is

	If a video has no forced subtitle track then the player starts in the 
Off state. TOGGLECC toggles between Off and On.

	If a video does have a forced subtitle track then the player starts in 
the Almost Off state. TOGGLECC changes internal state, but has no effect 
on whether or which subtitle is shown. To get to the On state, you have 
to use the menu to explicitly choose a non-forced subtitle. And once 
you've done that, you have to use the menu again if you want to return 
to the a forced subtitle.

I think we both agree that that behaviour is not desirable.



Option 2 - my interpretation of what you are suggesting
	
	Whether a video has forced subtitles or not, the player starts in the 
Off state. TOGGLECC toggles between Off and On. If you want the the 
Almost On state, you have to use the menu to explicitly choose a forced 
track, and after doing so, you have to use the menu to get back to the 
On state.

That's certainly an improvement over Option 1. It also has the advantage 
that we wouldn't even need the third state: On and Off alone are 
sufficient if we treat all tracks equally. The simplicity is nice. My 
objection is that it throws away a useful feature. I find it very useful 
to have a forced track appearing automatically, and to be able to go 
between that and a full track with a single button press.


Option 3 - what my commits do (although seemingly not on master)

	If a video has no forced track then the player starts in the Off state. 
TOGGLECC toggles between Off and On.

	If a video does have a forced track then the player starts in the 
Almost Off state. TOGGLECC toggles between Almost Off and On. If you 
want no subtitles at all, not even forced then you have to use the menu 
to and select "Disable forced subtitles", whereupon TOGGLECC will then 
toggle between Off and On.

In my opinion this is the optimal behaviour. It has more complexity in 
the programming, but is actually easier to use. You can still use 
TOGGLECC to obtain the full subtitles at any time, when you mishear 
something, but you get the non-forced automatically which you're likely 
to want because you don't understand Dothraki.