[mythtv-users] [RFC] Proposed settings rework

[Michael T. Dean]

On 11/03/2009 07:27 PM, Rod Smith wrote:
> On Tuesday 03 November 2009 04:07:22 pm Robert McNamara wrote:
>   
>> Fine Tune Font Size (should be theme controlled)
>>     
> This is one I wouldn't want to see go away. It's been quite a while since I 
> set up my Myth box, but I distinctly recall having to fine-tune the font 
> sizes to get something that was both legible and small enough to fit enough 
> text in the menus, dialogs, etc. for my screen resolution, screen size, and 
> viewing distance.

This setting applies /only/ to Qt/unthemed sections of MythTV (it's 
actually called, "QtFonTweak," which was both descriptive of its purpose 
and a fun little slurred-together name).  As soon as the settings/setup 
is mythui'ed, the setting will be completely unused in the code.

Change the value to the the 2 limits and you'll see absolutely no 
difference in menus or any themed portion of Myth.

>> Display live preview of recordings (will be theme controlled)
>>     
> This is another item that really does vary a lot from one installation to 
> another. I found the previews distracting, and worse, they slowed things down 
> enough that I didn't like them. (They made the UI sluggish.) This performance 
> degradation is likely to be worse on systems with weaker CPUs, so it's 
> perfectly reasonable for a person to want to disable live previews in favor 
> of static or no previews.
>   

sed -i -e '/<livepreview/d' CPUHungryTheme/*.xml

(making up tag names, but you get the point--just edit the theme if you 
must use a theme whose author likes live preview, but you don't want it)

>> OSD Font (themer controlled upon MythUI conversion)
>> Font Size (themer controlled upon MythUI conversion)
>> Default Caption Font Type (themer controlled upon MythUI conversion)
>> ALL the caption font settings (themer controlled upon MythUI conversion)
>>     
> See above. It might be reasonable to fold these settings up with general UI 
> font settings, though, if that's convenient.
>   

Since the font face and size determines the amount of space required to 
present the text, it makes a lot of sense to make these theme 
controlled.  If not, then users will see the themes as broken when "the 
text doesn't fit" or "there's all sorts of wasted space."  This is the 
same reason that the UI theme now handle /all/ font face and sizing 
selection--because you can't expect to just stuff any old font/size in 
there and have everything fit properly.

Even the <size:small> and <size:big> were removed from the UI themes, 
and, therefore, the setting allowing users to select default, small, or 
big fonts was removed.  Before they were removed, themers had to write 
the theme with one size, then go back through and re-test/adjust all 
100+ screens in the theme 2 more times for the other 2 sizes.  Because 
of the amount of work this was, none of the themes really did this 
properly (and many left out one or both of <size:small> and 
<size:big>--so the settings seemed to be "broken" when in fact the 
themes were incomplete).  Generally the themes all worked well on one 
size and not on others (basically, they worked well on the setting the 
author specified)--and to make matters worse, the one size that worked 
was different with different themes.

Those same <size:small> and <size:big> tags will also be removed from 
the OSD themes when the OSD is converted to mythui because it's just not 
feasible to expect themers to redo their theme 3 times.  It's actually 
easier for someone to take a (much-simplified because of the lack of 
settings) theme and modify it for their particular desires (and only 
have to test the changes once--versus 3 different times).  Then, if they 
feel it warrants redistribution, they can make their modified version 
available.

> Nick Rout wrote:
>   
>> (2) make the settings more accessible. From each screen/plugin add a
>> context menu button to go straight to the config options for that
>> screen. (presently its escape back to main menu, forward through
>> several setup menus, make the changes then escape back out to main
>> menu and all the way back to your screen. My suggestion is not only
>> more user friendly in terms of button presses, but may save those
>> endless posts asking "where is the settings option for foobar" - the
>> answer will become "from the foobar screen hit [info] and choose
>> [settings]"
>>     
>
> This is an excellent suggestion. I've wasted more time than I care to 
> contemplate moving back and forth between the recordings list and the plaback 
> settings options pages when trying to fine-tune my playback settings.

Agreed, and as Robert mentioned, this is an eventual goal--but one made 
much easier to accomplish once we get rid of some of the cruft.  (After 
all, would you really want a 12-screen "context settings" for TV Playback?)

Mike