[mythtv-users] Slightly OT: MythTV as Senior Project?

Joseph A. Caputo jcaputo1 at comcast.net
Fri Mar 4 21:34:15 UTC 2005


On Friday 04 March 2005 14:19, Brad Templeton wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 10:39:09AM -0500, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
> > On Friday 04 March 2005 0:11, Brad Templeton wrote:
> > > If you don't already, get one of the super cheap lite-on or acer
> > > IR keyboards.  Under 30 bucks and work great, I am typing on one
> > > at my tv set right now.
> > 
> > (a) All of Myth core feature should be easy to operate with only a 
> > remote.  It's kind of a design principle.
> 
> Excepting, of course, the search facilities which use a keyboard

Simple text can be entered using the remote, as with a cell phone 
keypad.  If the search text boxes don't support this, they should be 
converted to use the Myth text input widget that handles this.

> , and 
> even playing video, which has too many different possible keys for 
> most 
> remotes, especially if people are to remember them.

Any reasonble 'universal' remote has plenty of buttons for the common 
playback functions; anyway, for this particular feature, why require a 
browser, keyboard & mouse for something that is being proposed for a 
single button press?

> I understand the desire to allow operation from a remote.  I think
> that myth (unlike say Tivo which only has a remote) should take 
> advantage 
> of the fact that you can expect users to have, if not a keyboard by
> the TV, at least mythweb elsewhere.    I feel a good approach would be
> to decide what types of UI make sense when seated at the TV, and what
> types should be left to the browser, which is really much better at
> certain things.    For example, even I, as a heavy user of the system,
> don't remember where all the different config screens are.  I would
> strongly push to do at-the-tv config of only the most important and
> frequently changed config choices, and not confuse users' memories 
> with 
> the others there.
> 
> However, my main point was that for this fairly obscure feature 
> (obscure 
> because most of us aren't even watching the commercials and thus 
> aren't 
> going to feel the need to be inspired to record by them) is decently  
> handled 
> by having a keyboard arround.   My TV is hi-res, so mythweb is good 
> for 
> me.  For those who have a lower res TV, myth does have search in its
> built in menus, though it is not very usuable from a remote, though
> unfortunately you can't access it while watching live tv if that was
> your situation.

I'm looking at this feature more broadly.  It would be really nice if 
basic Myth scheduling features could be accomplished without exiting 
playback.  The EPG already supports this in LiveTV mode; I've long been 
in support of extending this feature to other screens.  I don't think 
that would be an 'obscure' feature.  I wish I had time to code it 
myself; I keep hoping someone with the time & expertise eventually has 
the same 'itch'.

> 
> > (c) alt-tabbing to a browser window would obscure the playing video
> 
> You would pause it, presumably.

Exactly what I want to avoid.

-JAC


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