[mythtv] How to edit the gui? (And some profile related stuff)

[Isaac Richards]

On Tuesday 09 September 2003 08:49 am, Geoffrey Hausheer wrote:
> On Tue, 09 Sep 2003 01:25:02 -0700, "Bruce Markey bjm-at-lvcm.com
> Ahh, I didn't look into how the cards  were initially enumerated as to
> how it currently chooses a card.  That simplifies things somewhat.  I am
> open to doing things your way (similar to my original plan).  However,
> after looking at it more thoroughly, it means throwing away everything
> I've done so far (my current code deals with profiles during scheduling,
> this method doesn't require the scheduler to be involved (it just picks
> the best card it can), so the profile-selector moves into the recording
> code).  But I might as well try to get a consensus before I submit
> anything.

I think the best way from a ease of use standpoint would be to have fixed size 
groups, with 3 or 4 quality levels with fixed names.  Creating a new 
recording group would automatically create the 3 or 4 different levels for 
that group.  So, 'High quality' means 'high quality' regardless of which 
profile group is eventually selected to record the show.  We can predefine 
groups for 'Software encoding (slow cpu)' (which would use rtjpeg), 'Software 
encoding (fast cpu)' (for mpeg4), 'MJPEG Encoding (g400-tv, DC10+)', 'MPEG2 
Encoding (PVR-250, PVR-350)', and even have it autoselect between all those..  
A 'Use this recording group on these hosts' list wouldn't be hard to do 
through the UI, either -- would there be any more granularity needed than 
per-host?  Hmm.. it'd probably be easier to enumerate the available hosts 
(and card types per host) and allow the user to select a default profile 
group or set it autodetect.  Be really similar to the capture card input 
mapping screen in setup, that way.

  
>     However, it means that the current code which allows for specifiying
>     a profile per host won't work anymore.  Anyone using that feature
>     will need to modify their profiles by hand.  I think this would be
>     one of the first times that upgrading mythtv would mandate redoing
>     the setup, and that may not be acceptable.  On the other hand, I'm
>     not sure that anyone knows about that feature, or is using it.
>     I think I'll hold off on doing any more and see if I get any more
>     feedback.  Besides, I still need a primer on how to do the GUI
>     coding, no matter which way I go.

I don't mind breaking backwards compatibility and requiring people to set some 
things up again at all -- I still haven't bumped the version number up to 
1.0, after all =)

For the UI stuff, that depends on how you want to do it.  If you want to do 
something similar to the existing settings UIs, that's _basically_ just Qt 
wrapped by all the settings classes Matt wrote.  I think you can probably 
reuse a lot of the existing setup classes for that, since you'll mostly be 
just creating listviews (like the current 'select profile' screen), etc..

I'd be happy to help out doing the UI code, as well, once you've got a more 
concrete idea of exactly what the new screens should look like.

Isaac