[mythtv-users] CVS UI Questions

[Daniel Savard]

Since I also found the menus counter-intuitive, I want to clarify
things. I mean, if I just give the remote control to my daughter, will
she find easily its way to do what she wants or will she always asked
me about this option she can't remember under which menu it is? Ok,
since she's not dumb at all, she will eventually "learn" the layout as
most of us. But, that's not the point. When something is intuitive,
there is nothing to learn.

Another point about menu-theme proliferation, for those who wish to
translate them, it may mean duplicated stuff. And it may also mean,
just the theme the translator likes most will be properly translated
and others will eventually goes unmaintained. Or, simply the
translator will just miss some stuff somewhere in some not so often
used menus.

XML coupled with XSLT is powerful enough to prevent an eventual
nightmare with internationalization of the themes and menu-themes. So,
may be some time should be taken to design or re-design this?


On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 13:16:15 -0400, Donavan Stanley
<geckofiend at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:41:59 -0500, Nathan Ziarek <nziarek at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > J. Donavan Stanley:
> > > Or create a new menu theme.  If enough people like the new menu theme
> > > then perhaps the "new" menus can be moved to a menu theme.  After all
> > > the current "new" menus started as a menu theme that a lot of people
> > > liked. Personally I don't care for the proposed menu from this thread but to
> > > each his own.
> >
> > Another double pointer - what don't you like about my proposed layout?
> 
> With the current menus, all of my media is grouped nicely under one
> section.  Under yours I'd have no less than three top level menus in
> order to get to my media.  The menus group things by function.
> Watching a video from MythVideo isn't really any different than
> wtaching a recording for example.
> 
> Grouping the VideoCD, DVD and MythVideo library in one section doesn't
> make a lot of sense to me, especially given that luanching a DVD or
> VideoCD player is done automagicly by the media monitor, leaving you
> with a menu with only one truely usefull option that you MUST go to in
> order see you videos.
> 
> The other menus aren't too bad, but given that MythPhone is the only
> real communication plugin it doesn't make sense to have it in it's own
> catagory.
> 
> 
> > Once again, I am not saying it is the best, but I want to aggregate
> > people's suggestions and incorporate them into a menu structure that
> > the entire (or a large percentage thereof) MythCommunity can agree on.
> >  Maybe that isn't possible, but I'd still like to continue the
> > discussion about it. If you have particular dislikes, I'd like to
> > know. Same thing about personal likes in the current layout. Every
> > little bit of feedback rounds the project into a better whole.
> 
> That's why I added the "menu theme" feature in the first place.  I
> didn't like the menus, and I was certain others felt the same way, so
> I came up with a solution that could satify everyone namely: If you
> don't like the menus, create your own theme.
> 
> 
> > How do you know that a lot of people liked the current menus?
> 
> Because they'd been released as the "AltMenus" menu theme which had
> been announced on the list.  The feedback from them as all positive
> and had been attributed to increasing the all important WAF for many
> folks.
> 
> > As I said, I figured that this would have been covered before, but I
> > haven't seen any mention on the lists. Is there a place where these UI
> > discussions are already going on?
> 
> There are discussions in the developer chat room from time to time.
> As I recall this dicussion went something like:
> 
> me: Hey Isaac, any objections to me commiting my "AltMenus"  to CVS as
> a menu theme.
> isaac: Actually I'm thinking of making them the default.
> 
> Then after my adding the ability to have menu items depend on mutliple plugins..
> 
> Isaac: Go ahead and change them over.
> 
> 
> > I think the new layout is completely counter-intuitive and would love to see the
> > discussion that brought it to that point. If it was on the list and I
> > missed it, I apologize.
> 
> I'm a little baffled how you find them counter-intuitive?  Everything
> is grouped into functional categories.
> 
> 
> > Hopefully we can keep the discussion going. I've worked on themes in
> > the past, and am working on one now, but I think this goes deeper than
> > on Iulius it (will) look[s] like this. On Titivillus it looks like
> > this. On Purple Galaxy yet another layout. Maybe you disagree...but
> > that is what I want to hear.
> 
> Don't confuse theme with menu-theme.  They're two different beasts
> comepletly.  My best advice is to implement your idea as a menu theme,
> gather feedback from the user base and the developers on it and see
> where it goes.  No one menu layout is going to please everyone 100%.
> It just so happens that the menu layout *I* liked struck a cord with a
> lot of people, including the project lead.
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 



-- 
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Daniel Savard