[mythtv-users] 0.22 annoyances

Michael T. Dean mtdean at thirdcontact.com
Fri Jan 1 08:34:41 UTC 2010


On 01/01/2010 01:08 AM, Nick Rout wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 5:46 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
>   
>> On 12/31/2009 05:31 PM, Yeechang Lee wrote:
>>     
>>> MythTV has, for bad-UI-design reasons, used two menus on Watch
>>> Recordings for a long time.
>>>       
>> You know, there /is/ a reason it was designed this way.  Perhaps you mean,
>> "MythTV has, for reasons I don't understand, used two menus on Watch
>> Recordings for a long time."
>>
>> Not trying to pick on you, specifically, but a /lot/ of people are calling
>> this bad UI design, when in fact they just don't understand the reasoning
>> behind the decisions.
>>     
> Instead of being your usual enigmatic self, why don't you actually
> tell us the reason?

One is the menu (for that part of the application), the other is the 
right-click/shortcut menu for the specific item.  But rather than 
recognizing it for what it is, it seems that lately we have a bunch of 
people using one-button mice (er, remotes) calling it bad UI design.

If you look at the historic usage of the MENU and INFO buttons, you'll 
notice that approach holds true more often than not throughout MythTV.  
Things have changed some in 0.22 (and will likely change even more in 
the future).

The point is when you're thinking of calling something, "bad UI design," 
remember that the person who volunteered his or her own time to do the 
work to make this program with a design you may not understand (while 
allowing you to use it for free) is probably reading the list, too (and, 
no, I'm not trying to claim credit for that--it's long before my time).  
Telling someone their designs are bad is /not/ a good way to motivate 
him or her to do more work.

Mike


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