[mythtv-users] Watch list problem

[Yeechang Lee]

Michael T. Dean <mtdean at thirdcontact.com> says:
> Which is why there's a sort-by-original-airdate option for the Watch
> Recordings screen.  Assuming you have good listings data (I know
> that Schedules Direct does, FWIW), it works great.

I heartily agree on the merits of this feature. It, I even venture,
ought to be made the default (since so much else of the MythTV
philosophy, if you will, emphasizes what was recorded over when it was
recorded [cf. "Live TV"]), barring two hitches:

* I don't know how it works with program listings that don't contain,
  as ScheduleDirect's do, original-airdate information. But now that I
  think about it, without the data I suppose mythfrontend would simply
  use the recorded-time info instead to sort, so it'd behave just as
  the current default does, right?

* A more serious issue is that themes don't by default display
  original-airdate data using the built-in %ORIGINALAIRDATE% variable,
  even if the data exists, so sort-by-original-airdate set as default
  would confuse people unless they bothered to look at Program Details
  for each episode.

  I've patched Retro and Retro-OSD to do this on my setup. This way,
  in Watch Recordings, instead of

  Married ... With Children
  175 TBSHD   Wed 8 Oct 2008, 3:30am - 4:01am
  "At the Zoo"
  Steve visits the zoo instead of looking for work.

I see

  Married ... With Children
  175 TBSHD   Wed 8 Oct 2008, 3:30am - 4:01am
  "At the Zoo" (Sun 26 Nov 1989)
  Steve visits the zoo instead of looking for work.

The OSD also shows the airdate in the same way.

If there is no subtitle, the airdate gets displayed by itself if
available; otherwise the entire line is skipped. Thanks to the clever
coders of the theme system that provided a proviso to make this
possible.

(See <URL:http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/4627> for a bug I fixed
within programinfo.cpp related to %ORIGINALAIRDATE%. I couldn't figure
out how to fix the related issue of how, for programs whose episodes
don't carry individual original airdates, %ORIGINALAIRDATE% gets set
to the first date the program ever aired. SportsCenter is one example
of this: Every episode displays an original airdate of Fri 7 Sep
1979. In such cases %ORIGINALAIRDATE% ought to be nulled out the way
my patch does for %movies. I hope someone more talented than me takes
up the challenge.)

Anyways, I hope that, as part of the ongoing work of converting the
stock themes to the new UI system, %ORIGINALAIRDATE% is incorporated
into them. Why not take advantage of data and features that are
already there?

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