[mythtv-users] iPod theme for MythTV?

Steven Adeff adeffs.mythtv at gmail.com
Mon Feb 9 18:30:17 UTC 2009


On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Brad DerManouelian
<myth at dermanouelian.com> wrote:
> On Feb 8, 2009, at 9:39 AM, Steven Adeff wrote:
>> On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 10:50 AM, Brad DerManouelian <myth at dermanouelian.com> wrote:
>>> On Feb 6, 2009, at 7:42 AM, Steven Adeff wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'll disagree with the iPod being a great interface, but to answer
>>>> your question... It's not really possible with how the current plugins
>>>> work, they're just not dynamic in this manner. Though with the new
>>>> MythUI I would imagine just such an interface should be possible.
>>>
>>> Interested to hear what interface you prefer. I might take a crack at a
>>> theme once the UI is a bit more settled.
>>
>> I just think the advantage of a large screen and more buttons would
>> allow for a little more creativity in managing music playback.
>>
>> I don't know what new interface features the new UI allows for so I
>> don't know if I can give any useful ideas, but there are a lot of
>> music playing software out there to take ideas from.
>
> You're dealing with a screen 10 feet away from you so it's much less usable
> area than a computer display. Taking queues from portable media players is
> probably the best way to achieve a usable music player UI. I was just
> curious to see what you thought a great interface was so I could take a look
> and incorporate some of those ideas into a theme.

at least in my environments (50" tv at 14ft in the living room and 24"
monitor at 10ft, both HDTV) i have quite a bit of visable real estate.
Just using the current browse mode as a comparison, I could easily
make the fonts smaller and add more columns without losing clarity. My
personal ideal browsing mode would be similar to Winamp's three column
layout, with left/right moving between columns, a lower window showing
all the tracks currently filtered and some sort of browser like
Winamp's left bar browser. I don't know if that would necesarily be
good for other users, but for the way I think it would be the best.

Another option, which would mesh that and the iPod style interface is
to do something like how Dolphin/Finder work, where as you click a new
column opens to the right with the next level displaying, and as the
columns out number the width they scroll to the side. It would be
similar to how the iPod moves back and forth in the menus but with
some idea of where in the tree you are.

I believe the newer iPod (maybe just iPhone) has a album browser type
view, but I don't think this is what Jean-Yves was refering to.

One thing I think definitely needs to be possible is to allow the user
to define the sorting sections (again, similar to how Winamp allows
you to define them). In general i think, along with solid defaults,
viewing options need to be customizable by the user with only the
structure being defined by the theme.

-- 
Steve
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/User:Steveadeff
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