[mythtv-users] Undelete - new feature idea

[Brad Templeton]

On Tue, Feb 20, 2007 at 09:31:50PM -0500, Isaac Richards wrote:
> On Tuesday 20 February 2007 9:14:52 pm David Whyte wrote:
> > On 2/21/07, Steve Hodge <stevehodge at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > It seems like all the pieces are already in place - it should be a simple
> > > patch to get this working (says the man who has never got round to
> > > looking at the code). I think it would be a useful feature.
> >
> > I would agree.  The tricky part that needs to be considered is
> > reporting the amount of disk space left.  Regardless of how many big
> > disks I put in my BE, they always seem to fill up almost immediately
> > and I use the disk space notification at the bottom of the mythweb
> > 'recorded programs' page to note whether I need to go and delete some
> > recordings or not.
> >
> > Any modification needs to ensure that those recordings that are in the
> > 'deleted' group do not count towards the amount of space that is
> > reported to be used.  This is possibly just a simple query change
> > though, I am sure.
> >
> > I looks forward to this coming soon though. ;)
> 
> I see no reason to have a separate 'undelete' feature, since, really, it's the 
> exact same functionally as toggling the auto-expire flag on a recording.
> 
> Isaac

And alas, that's the reason the thread did not get far last time.  :-)
People have different ways of thinking of their pool of recordings,
some thing one way and don't see a need for it.  Others think a different
way and want it.   The particular coder above's view happens to carry
some weight, though.

I'm one of the few people who does use multiple levels of auto-expire,
something supported in tvwish and in MythTV but not in the UI of mythtv,
which only offers a toggle of auto-expire.   I find it fairly handy
myself.

To my view there are many levels of what should be auto-expired, and
the levels are supported, the hard part is coming up with a smooth
UI for it that both lets people do what they want and doesn't add
too much complexity to those who don't.

To my mind the levels are:

    First:  Explicitly deleted material which is only there in case I
            wish to undelete.  Not visible except for the fact that disk
            space is allocated and you have some UI which allows you to
            see it so you can undelete.     Requires code which tells you
            about free space to understand not to count this.   As first
            for autoexpire, it vanishes immediately for any recordings.

    Next:   Suggestions -- programs recorded by program rather than your
            request.    (This is also how Tivo does it, suggestions vanish
            before anything.)

    Next:   Explicitly declared 'autoexpire early' programs.

    Next:   A weighted formula based on age of recording, the 'watched'
            flag and program weight values such as priority.   Series
            ahead of singles probably but that's a matter of taste.

    Never:  Programs marked not to autoexpire
    
    Modifier:  Shows tagged for expire because there is a limit on the
            number of episodes of a series to be kept, etc.



Doing delete this way has value to me and many others, but it does
require some UI coding:
        a) Option to turn it on/off
        b) View Deleted mode (possibly a program group)
        c) Possible "really delete" (though that can also be a result
            of 'view deleted' and 'delete'
        d) Code to account for disk space used by these programs in showing
           user free disk space.  Probably best to show space as
            "43gb free (includes 32gb marked for deletion.)


    Plus:
        Instead of 'toggle autoexpire' have an interface to change
        numeric values.