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0.22 annoyances

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ben32768 at yahoo

Dec 29, 2009, 7:15 AM

Post #1 of 84 (2601 views)
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0.22 annoyances

I've been using MythTV since 0.15 and in that time I've seen some fairly major changes. However, until now, the good has always outweighed the bad when upgrading to a new version. With 0.22 I find this is no longer the case.

Starting with the UI. I realise the UI code has undergone some major changes, and I'm sure this resulted in a cleaner code base, but it's a shame more care wasn't taken to maintain usability. It seems a number of arbitrary decisions have been made with the design which break existing functionality.

List box behavior seems to be completely broken now. List boxes inexplicably change focus when you reach the end, so if I'm scrolling to the end of a list of articles in mythnews, the focus will switch back to the news sources list instead of just stopping at the end. Now I have to carefully scroll down, making sure I don't go past the last entry, otherwise I'll have to scroll down all over again. I don't understand the reasoning for this change. If I'd wanted to switch to the left hand list box, I could simply press left.

Probably related to this, if I scroll all the way to the right in the browser, the UI will switch focus to some pointless control above the browser window. There must be a better way to do this.

As others have noted (here for example : http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2009-November/270659.html), the right button on the recordings menu no longer works. The menu is now inaccessable on my remote. I could reconfigure it, but I don't want to use a less accessible button to access one of the most commonly used menus, just because I might be using a theme which supports horizontal scrolling (I'm not and I don't intend to).

There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer access)

Memory use is astronomical on all the themes I've tried (mythbuntu, blue abstract, mythcentre wide, graphite), and mythfrontend seems to leak memory like a sieve, even when it's just idling. I've seen it peak at around 3GB at times. Restarting the frontend fixes it temorarily, but it always becomes unusable again after a day or so. My 1GB system just isn't sufficient any more, as a workaround I'm planning to upgrade to 4GB, but I really shouldn't need to do that for an lightweight SD-only media box.

When skipping forwards/back through a recording, it pauses for a long time between skips when the button is held down, so skipping forward through a show takes a very long time. This is probably caused by the fact that it's playing the video between iterations, which didn't happen in 0.21

In my house at least, 0.22 has been a big step backwards in terms of usability. So for the time being, I'm switching back to 0.21 and holding out to see if any of these issues are fixed in the next release. I guess in the meantime I should submit some bug reports.

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dheitmueller at kernellabs

Dec 29, 2009, 7:42 AM

Post #2 of 84 (2540 views)
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Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Ben Woodhouse <ben32768 [at] yahoo> wrote:
> In my house at least, 0.22 has been a big step backwards in terms of usability. So for the time being, I'm switching back to 0.21 and holding out to see if any of these issues are fixed in the next release. I guess in the meantime I should submit some bug reports.

Rather than submitting bug reports, how about rolling up your sleeves
and submitting some *patches* instead?

Devin

--
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com
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greg12866 at nycap

Dec 29, 2009, 7:50 AM

Post #3 of 84 (2541 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

Ben Woodhouse wrote:
> I've been using MythTV since 0.15 and in that time I've seen some fairly major changes. However, until now, the good has always outweighed the bad when upgrading to a new version. With 0.22 I find this is no longer the case.
>
> Starting with the UI. I realise the UI code has undergone some major changes, and I'm sure this resulted in a cleaner code base, but it's a shame more care wasn't taken to maintain usability. It seems a number of arbitrary decisions have been made with the design which break existing functionality.
>
> List box behavior seems to be completely broken now. List boxes inexplicably change focus when you reach the end, so if I'm scrolling to the end of a list of articles in mythnews, the focus will switch back to the news sources list instead of just stopping at the end. Now I have to carefully scroll down, making sure I don't go past the last entry, otherwise I'll have to scroll down all over again. I don't understand the reasoning for this change. If I'd wanted to switch to the left hand list box, I could simply press left.
>
> Probably related to this, if I scroll all the way to the right in the browser, the UI will switch focus to some pointless control above the browser window. There must be a better way to do this.
>
> As others have noted (here for example : http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2009-November/270659.html), the right button on the recordings menu no longer works. The menu is now inaccessable on my remote. I could reconfigure it, but I don't want to use a less accessible button to access one of the most commonly used menus, just because I might be using a theme which supports horizontal scrolling (I'm not and I don't intend to).
>
> There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer access)
>
> Memory use is astronomical on all the themes I've tried (mythbuntu, blue abstract, mythcentre wide, graphite), and mythfrontend seems to leak memory like a sieve, even when it's just idling. I've seen it peak at around 3GB at times. Restarting the frontend fixes it temorarily, but it always becomes unusable again after a day or so. My 1GB system just isn't sufficient any more, as a workaround I'm planning to upgrade to 4GB, but I really shouldn't need to do that for an lightweight SD-only media box.
>
> When skipping forwards/back through a recording, it pauses for a long time between skips when the button is held down, so skipping forward through a show takes a very long time. This is probably caused by the fact that it's playing the video between iterations, which didn't happen in 0.21
>
> In my house at least, 0.22 has been a big step backwards in terms of usability. So for the time being, I'm switching back to 0.21 and holding out to see if any of these issues are fixed in the next release. I guess in the meantime I should submit some bug reports.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users [at] mythtv
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>
>
Something needs to be said here...
It easy to sit back and criticize someone's work. I have been following
the progress Mythtv has been making, and there's a lot of work being
done by about 10 principle developers...
I have been involved in many projects in my life,but have left a few do
to this kind of reaction....It's open source...If you don't like
something fix it if you have the skills,if not sit back and wait..
Submit bug reports if you must,but don't moan and groan about something
that is costing you nothing...
_______________________________________________
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mythtvusers at markgarland

Dec 29, 2009, 8:11 AM

Post #4 of 84 (2550 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

> Something needs to be said here...
> It easy to sit back and criticize someone's work. I have been following
> the progress Mythtv has been making, and there's a lot of work being
> done by about 10 principle developers...
> I have been involved in many projects in my life,but have left a few do
> to this kind of reaction....It's open source...If you don't like
> something fix it if you have the skills,if not sit back and wait..
> Submit bug reports if you must,but don't moan and groan about something
> that is costing you nothing...

I guess it is a tricky line to tread, and one that different people will see
differently.

At one end of the spectrum, there was someone a few weeks back who wrapped
their post in "<rant>" tags, and I would suggest that this is not the best
way to get the time-limited devs on your side. ;-)

However, at the other end of the spectrum, if something isn't working well
for someone, then I think this list is *exactly the right place* to air
these concerns - who knows, a dev may have implemented a feature which they
feel is useful for their personal usage however many of the user base may
agree that it does not work for them, and this may be enough to get it
changed.

Where exactly the OP's post fits on this spectrum, I'll let you decide,
however I've reread the post twice and can't really see the reaction here.

My fear would be (and I am not saying that this is happening on this list)
if people get too scared to raise issues they are having because they have
seen too many "don't moan and groan about something that is costing you
nothing" responses. I remember reading so many flaming posts on the
Hibernate forums that as a newbie I was too scared to post my question, and
this surely can't be good for the project as a whole.

HTH,

MG

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peterl at standingwave

Dec 29, 2009, 8:27 AM

Post #5 of 84 (2540 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Dec 29, 2009, at 8:11 AM, Mark Garland wrote:

>> Something needs to be said here...
>> It easy to sit back and criticize someone's work. I have been following
>> the progress Mythtv has been making, and there's a lot of work being
>> done by about 10 principle developers...
>> I have been involved in many projects in my life,but have left a few do
>> to this kind of reaction....It's open source...If you don't like
>> something fix it if you have the skills,if not sit back and wait..
>> Submit bug reports if you must,but don't moan and groan about something
>> that is costing you nothing...
>
> I guess it is a tricky line to tread, and one that different people will see
> differently.
>
> At one end of the spectrum, there was someone a few weeks back who wrapped
> their post in "<rant>" tags, and I would suggest that this is not the best
> way to get the time-limited devs on your side. ;-)
>
> However, at the other end of the spectrum, if something isn't working well
> for someone, then I think this list is *exactly the right place* to air
> these concerns - who knows, a dev may have implemented a feature which they
> feel is useful for their personal usage however many of the user base may
> agree that it does not work for them, and this may be enough to get it
> changed.
>
> Where exactly the OP's post fits on this spectrum, I'll let you decide,
> however I've reread the post twice and can't really see the reaction here.
>
> My fear would be (and I am not saying that this is happening on this list)
> if people get too scared to raise issues they are having because they have
> seen too many "don't moan and groan about something that is costing you
> nothing" responses. I remember reading so many flaming posts on the
> Hibernate forums that as a newbie I was too scared to post my question, and
> this surely can't be good for the project as a whole.
>
> HTH,
>
> MG

What Mark said. The OP wasn't a rant. If people don't know something is broken, it will never be fixed. Yes, it would be swell if everybody who used Myth was also a developer and would simply submit a patch, but that's not realistic.

-Pete

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gbr at majentis

Dec 29, 2009, 8:27 AM

Post #6 of 84 (2534 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

----- "Mark Garland" <mythtvusers [at] markgarland> wrote:
> > Something needs to be said here...
> > It easy to sit back and criticize someone's work. I have been following
> > the progress Mythtv has been making, and there's a lot of work being
> > done by about 10 principle developers...
> > I have been involved in many projects in my life,but have left a few do
> > to this kind of reaction....It's open source...If you don't like
> > something fix it if you have the skills,if not sit back and wait..
> > Submit bug reports if you must,but don't moan and groan about something
> > that is costing you nothing...
>
> I guess it is a tricky line to tread, and one that different people will see
> differently.
>
> At one end of the spectrum, there was someone a few weeks back who wrapped
> their post in "<rant>" tags, and I would suggest that this is not the best
> way to get the time-limited devs on your side. ;-)
>
> However, at the other end of the spectrum, if something isn't working well
> for someone, then I think this list is *exactly the right place* to air
> these concerns - who knows, a dev may have implemented a feature which they
> feel is useful for their personal usage however many of the user base may
> agree that it does not work for them, and this may be enough to get it
> changed.
>
> Where exactly the OP's post fits on this spectrum, I'll let you decide,
> however I've reread the post twice and can't really see the reaction here.
>
> My fear would be (and I am not saying that this is happening on this list)
> if people get too scared to raise issues they are having because they have
> seen too many "don't moan and groan about something that is costing you
> nothing" responses. I remember reading so many flaming posts on the
> Hibernate forums that as a newbie I was too scared to post my question, and
> this surely can't be good for the project as a whole.
>
> HTH,
>
> MG
>

I think you have to realize that MythTV is bigger than just an open-source project. It's being used by people that have no idea how a computer even works. This is a valid part of any projects user base, and as a dev myself (not MythTV), I need to keep them in mind as much as the technical people.

That being said, .21 to .22 was a big change (QT3 to QT4), and the test base is a bit small for a project of this size. Sometimes issues get through, and that's what -fixes are for.

Gerald

jedi at mishnet

Dec 29, 2009, 9:21 AM

Post #7 of 84 (2538 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 10:50:44AM -0500, greg wrote:
> Ben Woodhouse wrote:
> >I've been using MythTV since 0.15 and in that time I've seen some
> >fairly major changes. However, until now, the good has always
> >outweighed the bad when upgrading to a new version. With 0.22 I
> >find this is no longer the case.
> >
> >Starting with the UI. I realise the UI code has undergone some major changes, and I'm sure this resulted in a cleaner code base, but it's a shame more care wasn't taken to maintain usability. It seems a number of arbitrary decisions have been made with the design which break existing functionality.
> >
> >List box behavior seems to be completely broken now. List boxes inexplicably change focus when you reach the end, so if I'm scrolling to the end of a list of articles in mythnews, the focus will switch back to the news sources list instead of just stopping at the end. Now I have to carefully scroll down, making sure I don't go past the last entry, otherwise I'll have to scroll down all over again. I don't understand the reasoning for this change. If I'd wanted to switch to the left hand list box, I could simply press left.
> >
> >Probably related to this, if I scroll all the way to the right in the browser, the UI will switch focus to some pointless control above the browser window. There must be a better way to do this.
> >
> >As others have noted (here for example : http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2009-November/270659.html), the right button on the recordings menu no longer works. The menu is now inaccessable on my remote. I could reconfigure it, but I don't want to use a less accessible button to access one of the most commonly used menus, just because I might be using a theme which supports horizontal scrolling (I'm not and I don't intend to).
> >
> >There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer access)
> >
> >Memory use is astronomical on all the themes I've tried (mythbuntu, blue abstract, mythcentre wide, graphite), and mythfrontend seems to leak memory like a sieve, even when it's just idling. I've seen it peak at around 3GB at times. Restarting the frontend fixes it temorarily, but it always becomes unusable again after a day or so. My 1GB system just isn't sufficient any more, as a workaround I'm planning to upgrade to 4GB, but I really shouldn't need to do that for an lightweight SD-only media box.
> >
> >When skipping forwards/back through a recording, it pauses for a long time between skips when the button is held down, so skipping forward through a show takes a very long time. This is probably caused by the fact that it's playing the video between iterations, which didn't happen in 0.21
> >
> >In my house at least, 0.22 has been a big step backwards in terms of usability. So for the time being, I'm switching back to 0.21 and holding out to see if any of these issues are fixed in the next release. I guess in the meantime I should submit some bug reports.
> >
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >mythtv-users mailing list
> >mythtv-users [at] mythtv
> >http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> >
> Something needs to be said here...
> It easy to sit back and criticize someone's work. I have been
> following the progress Mythtv has been making, and there's a lot of
> work being done by about 10 principle developers...
> I have been involved in many projects in my life,but have left a few
> do to this kind of reaction....It's open source...If you don't like

...what because someone "dared" to criticize?

Some things that might seem like a good idea when discussed in a small
closed circle of developers might quickly seem less reasonable when
exposed to a larger set of eyeballs. Criticism should not necessarily
be casually dismissed. Infact, it probably should be solicited earlier
in the development cycle.

[deletia]
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mythtv at michaelandholly

Dec 29, 2009, 10:52 AM

Post #8 of 84 (2523 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

My 2.5 cents worth here..

I would think that the developers would openly WELCOME constructive
criticism. Being a developer myself I know that it's not possible for
me to think of everything. It is by the "criticism" and suggestions
coming from the user base that things improve and for everyone. This
criticism needs to take the proper form.

This may not be the place for those discussions as I'm sure
information meant for the developers can be easily missed mixed in
with all the other information. I can see how they might ignore or
even resent simple ranting or flaming about a decision made in the
development process.

On Dec 29, 2009, at 9:21 AM, jedi wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 10:50:44AM -0500, greg wrote:
>> Ben Woodhouse wrote:
>>> I've been using MythTV since 0.15 and in that time I've seen some
>>> fairly major changes. However, until now, the good has always
>>> outweighed the bad when upgrading to a new version. With 0.22 I
>>> find this is no longer the case.
>>>
>>> Starting with the UI. I realise the UI code has undergone some
>>> major changes, and I'm sure this resulted in a cleaner code base,
>>> but it's a shame more care wasn't taken to maintain usability. It
>>> seems a number of arbitrary decisions have been made with the
>>> design which break existing functionality.
>>>
>>> List box behavior seems to be completely broken now. List boxes
>>> inexplicably change focus when you reach the end, so if I'm
>>> scrolling to the end of a list of articles in mythnews, the focus
>>> will switch back to the news sources list instead of just stopping
>>> at the end. Now I have to carefully scroll down, making sure I
>>> don't go past the last entry, otherwise I'll have to scroll down
>>> all over again. I don't understand the reasoning for this change.
>>> If I'd wanted to switch to the left hand list box, I could simply
>>> press left.
>>>
>>> Probably related to this, if I scroll all the way to the right in
>>> the browser, the UI will switch focus to some pointless control
>>> above the browser window. There must be a better way to do this.
>>>
>>> As others have noted (here for example : http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2009-November/270659.html)
>>> , the right button on the recordings menu no longer works. The
>>> menu is now inaccessable on my remote. I could reconfigure it, but
>>> I don't want to use a less accessible button to access one of the
>>> most commonly used menus, just because I might be using a theme
>>> which supports horizontal scrolling (I'm not and I don't intend to).
>>>
>>> There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except
>>> there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the
>>> sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer
>>> access)
>>>
>>> Memory use is astronomical on all the themes I've tried
>>> (mythbuntu, blue abstract, mythcentre wide, graphite), and
>>> mythfrontend seems to leak memory like a sieve, even when it's
>>> just idling. I've seen it peak at around 3GB at times. Restarting
>>> the frontend fixes it temorarily, but it always becomes unusable
>>> again after a day or so. My 1GB system just isn't sufficient any
>>> more, as a workaround I'm planning to upgrade to 4GB, but I really
>>> shouldn't need to do that for an lightweight SD-only media box.
>>>
>>> When skipping forwards/back through a recording, it pauses for a
>>> long time between skips when the button is held down, so skipping
>>> forward through a show takes a very long time. This is probably
>>> caused by the fact that it's playing the video between iterations,
>>> which didn't happen in 0.21
>>>
>>> In my house at least, 0.22 has been a big step backwards in terms
>>> of usability. So for the time being, I'm switching back to 0.21
>>> and holding out to see if any of these issues are fixed in the
>>> next release. I guess in the meantime I should submit some bug
>>> reports.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> mythtv-users mailing list
>>> mythtv-users [at] mythtv
>>> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
>>>
>> Something needs to be said here...
>> It easy to sit back and criticize someone's work. I have been
>> following the progress Mythtv has been making, and there's a lot of
>> work being done by about 10 principle developers...
>> I have been involved in many projects in my life,but have left a few
>> do to this kind of reaction....It's open source...If you don't like
>
> ...what because someone "dared" to criticize?
>
> Some things that might seem like a good idea when discussed in a small
> closed circle of developers might quickly seem less reasonable when
> exposed to a larger set of eyeballs. Criticism should not necessarily
> be casually dismissed. Infact, it probably should be solicited earlier
> in the development cycle.
>
> [deletia]
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users [at] mythtv
> http://mythtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users

_______________________________________________
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chris at westnet

Dec 29, 2009, 11:37 AM

Post #9 of 84 (2525 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Devin Heitmueller wrote:

> Rather than submitting bug reports, how about rolling up your sleeves
> and submitting some *patches* instead?

Are only C coders allowed to express an opinion on this lsit ?

==========================================================
Chris Candreva -- chris [at] westnet -- (914) 948-3162
WestNet Internet Services of Westchester
http://www.westnet.com/
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david at istwok

Dec 29, 2009, 11:41 AM

Post #10 of 84 (2524 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 03:15:27PM +0000, Ben Woodhouse wrote:
> List box behavior seems to be completely broken now. List boxes
> inexplicably change focus when you reach the end, so if I'm
> scrolling to the end of a list of articles in mythnews, the focus
> will switch back to the news sources list instead of just stopping
> at the end. Now I have to carefully scroll down, making sure I don't
> go past the last entry, otherwise I'll have to scroll down all over
> again. I don't understand the reasoning for this change. If I'd
> wanted to switch to the left hand list box, I could simply press
> left.
>
> Probably related to this, if I scroll all the way to the right in
> the browser, the UI will switch focus to some pointless control
> above the browser window. There must be a better way to do this.

This behavior is all now controlled by the theme instead of by the
widget code. Personally, I dislike the "scrolling past the end moves
focus to the next widget" behaviour too and would like to see the
default themes changed back to more pre-0.22 like behavior.

> As others have noted (here for example :
> http://www.mythtv.org/pipermail/mythtv-users/2009-November/270659.html),
> the right button on the recordings menu no longer works. The menu is
> now inaccessable on my remote. I could reconfigure it, but I don't
> want to use a less accessible button to access one of the most
> commonly used menus, just because I might be using a theme which
> supports horizontal scrolling (I'm not and I don't intend to).

As has been noted multiple times, the right button menu was a casualty
of allowing the theme to control widget traversal. The menu can still
be accessed by pressing the button tied to the INFO action. The
option is open for someone to add support so a theme can specify that
an action (such as bringing up a menu) should occur instead of widget
traversal.

> There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except
> there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the
> sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer
> access)

There is no loss in functionality between the watch recordings and
delete recordings screens except for the disk space usage display.
Someone does need to add the space usage back in. A separate delete
recordings screen is probably never coming back though.

> Memory use is astronomical on all the themes I've tried (mythbuntu,
> blue abstract, mythcentre wide, graphite), and mythfrontend seems to
> leak memory like a sieve, even when it's just idling. I've seen it
> peak at around 3GB at times. Restarting the frontend fixes it
> temorarily, but it always becomes unusable again after a day or
> so. My 1GB system just isn't sufficient any more, as a workaround
> I'm planning to upgrade to 4GB, but I really shouldn't need to do
> that for an lightweight SD-only media box.

I haven't noticed excessive memory usage with MythCenter[wide]. I'm
not saying it can't happen, just that I haven't noticed it.

> When skipping forwards/back through a recording, it pauses for a
> long time between skips when the button is held down, so skipping
> forward through a show takes a very long time. This is probably
> caused by the fact that it's playing the video between iterations,
> which didn't happen in 0.21

I haven't seen this. Are your sure your seektable isn't corrupted?

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 10:42:25AM -0500, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Ben Woodhouse <ben32768 [at] yahoo> wrote:
> > In my house at least, 0.22 has been a big step backwards in terms
> > of usability. So for the time being, I'm switching back to 0.21
> > and holding out to see if any of these issues are fixed in the
> > next release. I guess in the meantime I should submit some bug
> > reports.
>
> Rather than submitting bug reports, how about rolling up your sleeves
> and submitting some *patches* instead?

I would welcome patches to the default themes to "fix" the focus
change problems. We would need concurrence from other developers to
put them in svn, but I would seriously consider using them myself.

David
--
David Engel
david [at] istwok
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robert.mcnamara at gmail

Dec 29, 2009, 11:44 AM

Post #11 of 84 (2522 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 11:41 AM, David Engel <david [at] istwok> wrote:
>> There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except
>> there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the
>> sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer
>> access)
>
> There is no loss in functionality between the watch recordings and
> delete recordings screens except for the disk space usage display.
> Someone does need to add the space usage back in. �A separate delete
> recordings screen is probably never coming back though.

David, thanks for taking the time to write a measured response to
this. It's worth noting that the disk space usage is also themable
both as a progressbar indicator, a textual value, and a per-recording
disk space measurement. Just requires the themer to use it. I use
all of the above in Arclight, see example:

http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/PBB.png

Robert
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tortise at paradise

Dec 29, 2009, 11:47 AM

Post #12 of 84 (2528 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Devin Heitmueller" <dheitmueller [at] kernellabs>
To: "Discussion about mythtv" <mythtv-users [at] mythtv>
Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 4:42 AM
Subject: Re: [mythtv-users] 0.22 annoyances

> Rather than submitting bug reports, how about rolling up your sleeves
and submitting some *patches* instead?

_______________________________________________

I agree with some of the other subsequent posts about the value in recording detailed reasoned constructive criticism and having it
recorded on the list. I also feel this important and it should not be discouraged as it is needed to guide future development
directions. Its not hard to go onto the next post as the reader feels appropriate.

I also agree use of a horizontal scroll in a landscape window is counter intuitive however I presume others like it so respect that.
FWIW IMO the most efficient screen layout is icons e.g. the iPhone layout.

While there has been a very successful move to make things look smarter and at least on the bleeding edge of what is in the market
place I vote useability should always come before looks.

The suggestion about submitting patches (from my limited experience) appears incomplete.

What also should be appended is .... submit patches....and then wait....

How does one get submitted patches incorporated, even on an interim basis? {until the dev's revise the patches how they see best?
(Other than learning to compile them in oneself - or become a dev!)}

I also will acknowledge here the limited dev resource here and that one might have to very reasonably wait quite some time.

I am providing information I see as missing in the above response to the OP.

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david at istwok

Dec 29, 2009, 12:30 PM

Post #13 of 84 (2506 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 11:44:33AM -0800, Robert McNamara wrote:
> this. It's worth noting that the disk space usage is also themable
> both as a progressbar indicator, a textual value, and a per-recording
> disk space measurement. Just requires the themer to use it. I use
> all of the above in Arclight, see example:
>
> http://www.fecitfacta.com/Arclight/PBB.png

Cool. I didn't realize the underlying support for that was done yet.

David
--
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mtdean at thirdcontact

Dec 29, 2009, 1:02 PM

Post #14 of 84 (2507 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On 12/29/2009 02:41 PM, David Engel wrote:
>> There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except
>> there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the
>> sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer
>> access)
>>
> There is no loss in functionality between the watch recordings and
> delete recordings screens except for the disk space usage display.
> Someone does need to add the space usage back in. A separate delete
> recordings screen is probably never coming back though.

So, David (and Nigel), does that mean we can close
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/7336 as wontfix? IMHO, adding the
desired info to the Watch Recordings screen (if the themer so desires)
should be sufficient (since all the support for doing so is already in
the code).

Mike
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mythtv at sky

Dec 29, 2009, 1:48 PM

Post #15 of 84 (2504 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 12/29/2009 02:41 PM, David Engel wrote:
>>> There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except
>>> there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the
>>> sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer
>>> access)
>>>
>> There is no loss in functionality between the watch recordings and
>> delete recordings screens except for the disk space usage display.
>> Someone does need to add the space usage back in. A separate delete
>> recordings screen is probably never coming back though.
>
> So, David (and Nigel), does that mean we can close
> http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/7336 as wontfix? IMHO, adding the
> desired info to the Watch Recordings screen (if the themer so desires)
> should be sufficient (since all the support for doing so is already in
> the code).
>
> Mike

Maybe we could have an optional 'deleterecordings' screen that could
have a slightly different layout than the 'watchrecordings' screen.
Leave it up to the themers if they want both in there theme or just the
one. Change playbackbox to use the 'deleterecordings' screen if it's
found or fall back to 'deleterecordings'.

Paul H.
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david at istwok

Dec 29, 2009, 2:04 PM

Post #16 of 84 (2502 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 04:02:30PM -0500, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> So, David (and Nigel), does that mean we can close
> http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/7336 as wontfix? IMHO, adding the
> desired info to the Watch Recordings screen (if the themer so
> desires) should be sufficient (since all the support for doing so is
> already in the code).

I wouldn't object to closing it. Since Nigel created the ticket, I
suspect he feels more stronly about it than I do, so I will defer to
him on any final decision.

David
--
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nick.rout at gmail

Dec 29, 2009, 2:21 PM

Post #17 of 84 (2484 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 4:50 AM, greg <greg12866 [at] nycap> wrote:
> Ben Woodhouse wrote:
>
> Something needs to be said here...
> It easy to sit back and criticize someone's work. I have been following the
> progress Mythtv has been making, and there's a lot of work being done by
> about 10 principle developers...
> I have been involved in many projects in my life,but have left a few do to
> this kind of reaction....It's open source...If you don't like something fix
> it if you have the skills,if not sit back and wait..
> Submit bug reports if you must,but don't moan and groan about something that
> is costing you nothing...

the original post certainly wasn't a rant, it ws pretty well
reasoned. Obviously it shows a degree of frustration - and thats
something the developers should be cognisant of. Even if ultimately
they don't care about the user experience (which I doubt) then they
should at least be aware of the problems.

The right button / i button switch is probably an unfortunate but
necessary change (to allow horizontal scrolling menus). I have had the
i button mapped forever, but perhaps thats cos my mce remote has one.
People will get used to it.

The scrolling in list boxes probably is a bug. I don't often use
mythnews, but just tried it and the new behaviour is very counter
intuitive. IMHO when you scroll past the top/bottom you should go to
the bottom/top. This IMHO should be implemented in all list boxes
including 'watch recordings' and the video lister. I hate to harp on
again about the xbmc gui, but it does this very well. The current
behaviour is definitely a bug - its not what most users expect in a
gui.
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robert.mcnamara at gmail

Dec 29, 2009, 2:23 PM

Post #18 of 84 (2495 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout [at] gmail> wrote:
>
> The scrolling in list boxes probably is a bug. I don't often use
> mythnews, but just tried it and the new behaviour is very counter
> intuitive. IMHO when you scroll past the top/bottom you should go to
> the bottom/top. This IMHO should be implemented in all list boxes
> including 'watch recordings' and the video lister. I hate to harp on
> again about the xbmc gui, but it does this very well. The current
> behaviour is definitely a bug - its not what most users expect in a
> gui.

Speak to your themer (or better still, write your own) as this is 100%
theme controlled.

Robert
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mtdean at thirdcontact

Dec 29, 2009, 2:43 PM

Post #19 of 84 (2488 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On 12/29/2009 04:48 PM, Paul Harrison wrote:
> Michael T. Dean wrote:
>
>> On 12/29/2009 02:41 PM, David Engel wrote:
>>
>>>> There's no delete recordings view, which would be fine, except
>>>> there's no way to see how much space there is left, or change the
>>>> sort order (unless that's now in the hidden menu I can no longer
>>>> access)
>>> There is no loss in functionality between the watch recordings and
>>> delete recordings screens except for the disk space usage display.
>>> Someone does need to add the space usage back in. A separate delete
>>> recordings screen is probably never coming back though.
>>>
>> So, David (and Nigel), does that mean we can close
>> http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/7336 as wontfix? IMHO, adding the
>> desired info to the Watch Recordings screen (if the themer so desires)
>> should be sufficient (since all the support for doing so is already in
>> the code).
> Maybe we could have an optional 'deleterecordings' screen that could
> have a slightly different layout than the 'watchrecordings' screen.
> Leave it up to the themers if they want both in there theme or just the
> one. Change playbackbox to use the 'deleterecordings' screen if it's
> found or fall back to 'deleterecordings'.

That seems to be basically what that patch does.

Mike
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nick.rout at gmail

Dec 29, 2009, 2:59 PM

Post #20 of 84 (2486 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Robert McNamara
<robert.mcnamara [at] gmail> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout [at] gmail> wrote:
>>
>> The scrolling in list boxes probably is a bug. I don't often use
>> mythnews, but just tried it and the new behaviour is very counter
>> intuitive. IMHO when you scroll past the top/bottom you should go to
>> the bottom/top. This IMHO should be implemented in all list boxes
>> including 'watch recordings' and the video lister. I hate to harp on
>> again about the xbmc gui, but it does this very well. The current
>> behaviour is definitely a bug - its not what most users expect in a
>> gui.
>
> Speak to your themer (or better still, write your own) as this is 100%
> theme controlled.
>
> Robert

Thanks Robert, the 'problem' seems to exist on all the themes I have
on my 0.22 test machine (graphite, mythcenter, mythbuntu, terra,
metallurgy.) Can you point me where to start delving? I did join the
themeing mailing list, but starting a theme from scratch was too big a
job for my time. Perhaps I can contribute by looking into this aspect
as a first try!
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robert.mcnamara at gmail

Dec 29, 2009, 3:01 PM

Post #21 of 84 (2485 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout [at] gmail> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Robert McNamara
> <robert.mcnamara [at] gmail> wrote:
>> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Nick Rout <nick.rout [at] gmail> wrote:
>>>
>>> The scrolling in list boxes probably is a bug. I don't often use
>>> mythnews, but just tried it and the new behaviour is very counter
>>> intuitive. IMHO when you scroll past the top/bottom you should go to
>>> the bottom/top. This IMHO should be implemented in all list boxes
>>> including 'watch recordings' and the video lister. I hate to harp on
>>> again about the xbmc gui, but it does this very well. The current
>>> behaviour is definitely a bug - its not what most users expect in a
>>> gui.
>>
>> Speak to your themer (or better still, write your own) as this is 100%
>> theme controlled.
>>
>> Robert
>
> Thanks Robert, the 'problem' seems to exist on all the themes I have
> on my 0.22 test machine (graphite, mythcenter, mythbuntu, terra,
> metallurgy.) Can you point me where to start delving? I did join the
> themeing mailing list, but starting a theme from scratch was too big a
> job for my time. Perhaps I can contribute by looking into this aspect
> as a first try!

Nick,

The options that are likely to interest you are wrapstyle and
scrollstyle on the buttonlist.

Robert
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ke-myth at retriever

Dec 29, 2009, 3:06 PM

Post #22 of 84 (2499 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 02:37:01PM -0500, Christopher X. Candreva wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
>
> > Rather than submitting bug reports, how about rolling up your sleeves
> > and submitting some *patches* instead?
>
> Are only C coders allowed to express an opinion on this lsit ?

Nonsense, C++ coders are welcome too. ;)
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mythtv at sky

Dec 29, 2009, 3:12 PM

Post #23 of 84 (2489 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 12/29/2009 04:48 PM, Paul Harrison wrote:
>> Michael T. Dean wrote:
>>
>>>
>> Maybe we could have an optional 'deleterecordings' screen that could
>> have a slightly different layout than the 'watchrecordings' screen.
>> Leave it up to the themers if they want both in there theme or just the
>> one. Change playbackbox to use the 'deleterecordings' screen if it's
>> found or fall back to 'deleterecordings'.
>
> That seems to be basically what that patch does.
>
> Mike
Sorry so it does I didn't look at the ticket. Seems like a good idea me :-)

Paul H.
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jarpublic at gmail

Dec 29, 2009, 6:34 PM

Post #24 of 84 (2446 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

> The right button / i button switch is probably an unfortunate but
> necessary change (to allow horizontal scrolling menus). I have had the
> i button mapped forever, but perhaps thats cos my mce remote has one.
> People will get used to it.

I keep seeing this, but from what I understand I think this is too
narrow. It wasn't just for horizontal scrolling menus. It is because
the theme doesn't just have a single (or double) vertical list like
the old UI did. It could have other widgets, menus, etc to the right
of your recordings, or your recordings may be on the left and
everything else is on the right. The point is themers are free to put
widgets list etc in any order or arrangement they like on the screen.
So binding the right arrow to a menu would hamper the ability to
navigate in such a system. The suggestion to allow a themer to bind a
right movement to a menu seems like a valuable option. But confusing
usability with "what I am used to" is a false notion. The new freedom
of the MythUI can actually greatly improve the usability but it is up
to the theme writer to make that happen.
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robert.mcnamara at gmail

Dec 29, 2009, 6:38 PM

Post #25 of 84 (2444 views)
Permalink

Re: 0.22 annoyances [In reply to]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 6:34 PM, Johnny <jarpublic [at] gmail> wrote:
>> The right button / i button switch is probably an unfortunate but
>> necessary change (to allow horizontal scrolling menus). I have had the
>> i button mapped forever, but perhaps thats cos my mce remote has one.
>> People will get used to it.
>
> I keep seeing this, but from what I understand I think this is too
> narrow. It wasn't just for horizontal scrolling menus. It is because
> the theme doesn't just have a single (or double) vertical list like
> the old UI did. It could have other widgets, menus, etc to the right
> of your recordings, or your recordings may be on the left and
> everything else is on the right. The point is themers are free to put
> widgets list etc in any order or arrangement they like on the screen.
> So binding the right arrow to a menu would hamper the ability to
> navigate in such a system. The suggestion to allow a themer to bind a
> right movement to a menu seems like a valuable option. But confusing
> usability with "what I am used to" is a false notion. The new freedom
> of the MythUI can actually greatly improve the usability but it is up
> to the theme writer to make that happen.

Very well distilled, thank you.

As an aside, none of us writing themes are UI experts/professionals.
We all endeavour to walk the balance between what we like and (if we
publish the theme) what others will like. You don't need any coding
experience whatsoever to write a theme, you just need time, so the
barrier to entry is very low indeed. If you feel that the usability
under the new UI is suffering, *please* take matters into your own
hands and make it behave as you think it should-- no C++ required.

Robert
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