[mythtv] More scheduling scheduler

f-myth-users at media.mit.edu f-myth-users at media.mit.edu
Tue Nov 28 22:49:34 UTC 2006


    > Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 22:34:58 +0000
    > From: Martin Ebourne <lists at ebourne.me.uk>

    > On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 19:26:26 -0500, Michael T. Dean wrote:
    > > On 11/26/2006 07:09 PM, Martin Ebourne wrote:
    > >> I do wonder what all these issues are that people are likely to assume
    > >> will be resolved with softpadding. The only problem I can see it solves
    > >> is for channels with unreliable timing, or that sometimes run a couple
    > >> of minutes late, and for this it works very well.
    > > 
    > > Read through all the posts on the -users list where people say, "my 
    > > global padding isn't being applied for back-to-back shows" to see.

    > Exactly!

    > And that is precisely what soft padding fixes very nicely. There's lots
    > of people on the users list that already expect pre/post roll to do just
    > this. It is for exactly this reason I run the softpadding myself. 

    > However, the real problem being solved is unreliable channel timing. If
    > that wasn't an issue noone would care about any kind of padding, hence
    > my reply to David's comment.

I've gotta wonder if some of the "users are confused about global
pre/postroll" issues are because mythtv-setup requires incredibly
terse documentation strings (a line or two) at best, even when
describing complicated concepts.  That means that the docstrings
anybody sees are way too inscrutable for first-time users, whereas
longtime users and/or devos never even bother to look at the strings
because they already understand the concept---hence don't realize just
how inscrutable some of them are to newbies, who are -by definition-
going to be running mythtv-setup...

What might work better would be an ability to have some docstrings say
"This does blah blah blah.  HIT ENTER TO SEE MORE DETAILS." and have
the UI be able to put up an entire page consisting of nothing but the
long docstring (or maybe that docstring and the setting being changed).
This would allow someone to write an entire paragraph explaining that
the old pre/postroll is -only- for getting tuners up to speed, etc,
and pointing out other ways of doing what you want, etc etc.  If the
primary way of setting up Myth was via a web browser and not
mythtv-setup, this wouldn't be necessary (since browsers typically
have way more screen real-estate) and would be trivial if it was (the
magic of hyperlinks), but right now I think the limitations of TV
screens and font sizes and multiple other settings on any screen of
mythtv-setup conspire to make documentation harder to use than it
needs to be.

[I'm ignoring here the whole moving-the-goalposts appearance of the
way this particular feature has gotten treated.]


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