[mythtv] SoC 2006: Configuration Revamp Information

[Ross Campbell]

> Justin M. Hunt wrote:
> > Please post any feedback you have on these proposed removals, or any other ideas for the configuration revamp.

I was just discussing a similar issue of product setup complexity
comparing one product that has about 20 config options and basically
works out of the box, and another competing product that has about 300
options that would confuse most typical end users.

In almost every case, the "simple to config" product has highest
customer satisfaction.

I've been involved in projects where we've tried to deploy new tools
and technology, and had MONTHS of focus groups with 'power users' to
determine their requirements, and in most of those cases, I've found
that power users are nearly impossible to please and they'll do
whatever they want anyway. In a few cases, we expanded project scopes
SIGNIFICANTLY to try to satisfy 5-10% more people and ended up with
unnecessary complexity that frustrated a good 50% of the userbase.

I'd take the same approach here... I believe the *DEFAULT* config
system must cater to less technical users, assign reasonable DEFAULT
values to many options that the majority of users have no need to
change, and even pre-configure other configurable options for the most
likely or most common hardware or most common setups.

Then, I'd have an expert mode setting that displays *all* of the
options in all their glory for anyone who wants more. I don't even
know if an "intermediate" menu setting is even needed.

Would it be helpful to gather current config settings from mythtv
users to get more real data about what options should have a default
set and not be listed in the 'basic' configuration?

Maybe you could send out a simple sql script to dump mythtv config
options and have people mail that info to you so that we could get
more datapoints for what options are actually modified with what
values and what frequency?

-Ross