[mythtv-users] MythTV vs XBMC

Sat May 10 01:20:18 UTC 2014

On 9 May 2014 at 22:48:55, Michael T. Dean (mtdean at thirdcontact.com) wrote:
> On 05/09/2014 01:18 PM, Sam Jacobs wrote:
> > On 8 May 2014 at 11:54:56, Jean-Yves Avenard wrote:
> >> From a usability perspective:
> >> - be able to use the numeric keypad of the remote to enter text, just
> >> like T9. Searching a video is just too painful.
> > Yes! This was actually *removed*, several years ago, but I’m unable to find exactly  
> when or even a reason why.
>  
> Removed because:
>  
> a) It's unintuitive.

That’s a matter of opinion, really. 

> b) It didn't work in all text boxes, so it was inconsistent.

Fix that, then? I mean, buttonlists didn’t, until 3 days ago, have a disabled state*, making them inconsistent with the other widgets, but the fix wasn’t to remove the disabled state from the widgets that *did* have it.

* Will this be backported to 0.27-fixes, does anyone know?

> c) We now have a full-fledged on-screen keyboard available.

Which requires 28 key presses just to enter “The “. More than three times the 9 that would be needed if I could use the number keys. “doctor who” is 64 vs. 21, again slightly more than 3 times. “eurovision” fares better, with 60 vs. 28, but even that requires more than twice the number of key presses. Clearly, mine and Jean-Yves’s preferred method would be significantly better in the case that the remote control has the labels.

> d) We use remote controls--not phones--to control MythTV and the vast
> majority (all?) remote controls do not have the letters above the
> numbers so people would have to memorize which button to hit for various
> letters and it makes it hard to type numbers (especially for people with
> real keyboards).

You seem pretty convinced that the vast majority of people don’t have remote controls with alpha labels, which leads me to think that maybe it’s a question of location. For example, I notice that the Virgin Media TiVo remote has the labels, whereas the US version seems to lack them.

In the UK, over a third of households subscribe to Sky—and *all* Sky remotes have the labels. Virgin Media have about half the subscribers Sky do, and as far as I can tell all VM’s remotes have the labels, too. Over a million households now have YouView boxes, and all of *those* remotes have the labels. Many Freeview and Freesat boxes have the labels on their remotes—all of Humax’s seem to, for example, and so does the remote for my £20 Freeview HD box. So I feel pretty safe in saying that well over half of UK households have a remote with alpha labels.

Many US remotes have alpha labels too—while TiVo and Comcast remotes, for example, don’t seem to have them, most Time Warner remotes seem to, as do most remotes from AT&T (I’m looking at Google image search results here). The majority of the “Windows Media Center remote“ results show remotes with alpha labels.

> e) People used to say, "I can't type zero in the text box because when I
> do I get a space," because they didn't realize that you have to hit 9
> three times (or whatever number it was that wasn't zero) to get a zero.

That’s why this sort of thing should be an option.

> f) (OK, this wasn't so much a concern back when it was removed) Even
> phones don't use that input style, anymore, so why would people think
> that a DVR would. (It's not 1999, anymore, people. ;)

BSkyB customers would think that—Sky have now even put the search bar itself right on the home screen, and guess how you enter text into it…

Mobile phones that still have number buttons still use the method, though. Phones that don’t use the method don’t have the number keys.

Imagine how UTTERLY STUPID the designers of a phone would have to have been, if that phone had alpha labels but forced you to use the directional buttons to enter text! Tell me that would not have frustrated the hell out of you.

> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/250554#250554

Thank you for finding that, it’s much appreciated.

Sam

--  
Sam Jacobs on MythTV 0.27, UK Freeview SD & Freesat HD, EIT-only EPG
Mac mini, MBE+FE: OS X Mavericks, bundled FE, macports BE
Acer Aspire L310, SBE: Debian testing, Elgato EyeTV for DTT Stick (Hauppauge Nova-T USB Stick in disguise!) & DVBSky S960 DVB-S2 USB

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