[mythtv] [mythtv-commits] Ticket #1635: LiveTV uses UP to go up the channel list, Guide uses DOWN.

[Derek Atkins]

Greg Stark <gsstark at MIT.EDU> writes:

>> So, I think the current behavior is exactly correct.
>
> In other words you want channel+ in the guide to do what channel-
> does in live tv osd mode. And channel- in the guide to do what
> channel+ does in live tv osd mode.

I don't really look at it that way..

I want the "arrow" keys (which happen to be CH+ and CH-) to move me
around the EPG grid.  It's a grid.  Ignore the fact that the first
column is a channel number.  It's relatively irrelevant.  I want the
grid to be treated like a grid..  Up moves up the grid, down moves
down the grid.  The fact that "down the grid" is "increasing channel"
is irrelevant to the movement.

The Live TV OSD Mode is completely different.  It's not a grid.  It's
the "current channel".  So, yeah, I want CH+ to increase the channel
number, and CH- to decrease the channel number.

> The case where I find this confusing with a regular satellite box is
> when I'm watching something, flip "up" some number of channels
> during the commercials, then want to go back but want to do it more
> quickly than one channel at a time so I bring up the guide and
> intuitively go "down". And of course immediately lose my place
> entirely.

Your mental model is broken.  Fix your mental model.  :)

> I think there should be an option to list the guide in descending order so
> that up always means up and down always means down.

I think you'll be the only person in the world that does that.  But to
channel Isaac, "send in a patch".

> I have another suggestion. It would also be nice to have an option
> to make the guide not "wrap around". I find it hard to orient myself
> with no boundaries.

Again, I think you're the only person in the world that has this issue.
I find the wrapping a feature that I wish existed in more places.

> Probably both of these things come down to whether you think about the
> channels using a mental model where you're "moving" around in a linear space
> or some less physical model. Personally my mental model here is a very
> concrete physical space thing. And I get completely confused both when the
> directions swap and when there are no boundaries.

Yeah, use a different model.. Actually you need TWO models, but the
channel model is a mathematical group.  It just keeps going round and
round and round

The EPG is a grid, like any other grid..  Think "Excel" or "Gnumeric"
or OOo or any other spreadsheet grid.  The channels still wrap in the
group concept, but when you're looking at the EPG think about how you
would move around in a spreadsheet.  The spreadsheet doesn't care
what's in the columns -- the movement around the spreadsheet is the
same regardless.  Your columns can be ascending, descending, or even
random order, but "down" moves down and "up" moves up.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available