[mythtv-theming] Mythbuntu theme feedback. Changes are a coming

[Joey Morris]

Steven Adeff <adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com> wrote on Sun, Sep 01, 2013 at 10:01:49AM -0400:
> On Sun, Sep 1, 2013 at 5:13 AM, Martin Moores <moores.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 30 August 2013 22:41, Thomas Mashos <thomas at mashos.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> I've made some changes to the Mythbuntu theme for 0.27. Only to the
> >> recording and video (browser view) screens. I did this to try and show
> >> more fanart. Here are some screenshots
> >>
> >> http://imagebin.org/269181
> >> http://imagebin.org/269182
> >> http://imagebin.org/269183
> >>
> >> Notice on the first two one is with the group highlighted, the other
> >> is with the recordings highlighted. The recordings shift to the left
> >> side when active in order to show the description on the right.
> >>
> >> The last one is the mythvideo one, it still shows the fanart on the
> >> complete background, but for some reason it didn't grab the background
> >> when I did the screenshot via SSH
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > Also, having only 5 recording items shown rather than the current 11 would
> > make things harder when scrolling through a long list on a remote, over
> > running what your after and then scrolling back up for example?  Think I
> > would have to try this before dismissing completely I guess, but as
> > mentioned above, having transparent text over the background image is fine
> > in my opinion.
> 
> everything Martin said. pictures are pretty, but usability is king.

I wonder if any usability studies have been done on the optimal number
of items to display on a single page of a paged list. A quick web
search didn't turn up anything useful.

When I started working on my theme, I wanted to fit as many items on
the screen as possible. I had 18 items per page at first, I think. But
I found that to be too many. Once I reached the page containing the
item of interest, if the item was near the middle, it took an annoying
number of keystrokes to reach the item. I ended up settling on 8 per
page.

I think the optimal number would vary depending on the total number of
items in the list. You'd probably want a larger page size for a list
of 1000 movies than a list of 20 TV episodes. This argues for
supporting both "big jumps" and "small jumps" through the list. A
small jump might be 1 page, while a big jump might be 5 pages. Or a
big jump might happen by pressing 8 and moving to the 80% point in the
list. I think I've seen some discussion on the list about MythTV
supporting this or something similar.

Regarding the changes Thomas made to the Mythbuntu theme, I like the
cleaner look of it. But I agree with the others that usability trumps
aesthetics, and in this case I think reducing the number of items per
page to 5 hurts usability. Also, on the recordings screen when the
recordings list has been shifted to the left, I'd miss being able to
see at a glance the dates of all the recordings. With the new version,
I'd have to select a recording to see its date.