Difference between revisions of "Feature Wishlist"

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* Add option to limit the time length or filesize of recordings.  Long length MythTV recordings would automatically span multiple files similar to film rolls.  Allows TV marathons, sporting events, etc to be broken up into manageable pieces.
 
* Add option to limit the time length or filesize of recordings.  Long length MythTV recordings would automatically span multiple files similar to film rolls.  Allows TV marathons, sporting events, etc to be broken up into manageable pieces.
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[[Category:Developer Documentation]]

Revision as of 21:44, 15 March 2006

Before making any feature requests to the MythTV developers, one first needs to understand the most basic truth about MythTV: "MythTV is a project by developers, for developers." If you look at things in that light, comments that get made by developers to users who submit feature requests ("Sounds good; I look forward to your patch") make a whole lot more sense.

The developers of MythTV work for free (obviously), in their spare time. Most/all of them write software for a living, where they work all day long on things that other people want them to work on. When they work on Myth they focus on what's important to them. A feature gets implemented because a developer wants it bad enough to spend his spare time writing it and testing it, and believes in it strongly enough to defend it from the other developers (which helps to avoid the feature creep common in some projects). Bugs, especially crash bugs, get worked on by all of the devs as they encounter them as those impact everyone.

That's not to say that the users don't matter, or that the developers never implement something that comes from a user. It's just that unless a developer says either "why didn't I think of that" or "I could knock that out in a couple hours" it will be a much lower priority.

Requests from people who have contributed back to the project in some way carry a LOT more weight. Developers by and large tend to be rather blunt. People often mistake being terse and to the point for being insulting. Then they start a flame war on the mailing list (which is pretty much certain death for a feature request) all because a developer either a) didn't take 3 paragraphs to tell them "I'm not going to work on this" or they think that the developer should drop whatever they're doing because *they* want it done. A lot of the devs are a bit defensive when it comes to requests, largely due to previous bad experiences.

And, finally, remember this: if there's something you want badly enough, you can always offer to pay someone to do it.

Editor's note: Even moreso than on most pages, if you add a note here that a wishlist item is now available or in process, please note which version that information applies to ('added in 0.19', for example). Remember: wiki pages live forever. --Baylink 17:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

How to make a suggestion

If you've got an idea for a feature that you'd like to see implemented here's some guidelines for submitting it:

  • Before anything else, check the Current Version release notes to make sure it's not already in there (yes, this happens).
  • Clearly indicate that it's a request, not a demand.
  • Indicate your understanding that code speaks louder than words. (i.e. "If I could I'd write up a patch that does this but I'm not a dev")
  • Be very clear with how you envision your idea working. The more details you have in your request the better chance you have hitting that magical "knock it out in a couple of hours" mark.
  • Make sure you're not repeating a previous request. (search the mailing list archives)
  • Do NOT be offended if a developer responds with "sounds good; I look forward to your patch".
  • Requests from people who have contributed back to the project in some way carry a LOT more weight.

In Development

There are many items which are in active development (people are writing code). Some of them are listed below, and others at the developers' Trac wiki page.

Backend Addons

See Feature Wishlist (Backend Addons).

Frontend Addons

See Feature Wishlist (Frontend Addons)

Plugin Addons (to existing Plugins)

See Feature Wishlist (Plugin Addons)

New Plugins

See Feature Wishlist (New Plugins)

Ideas with response

this defeats the purpose of a PVR, add a menu item to launch a non-buffering tv program in place of Myths "watch tv" item - This is better stated as a request for "fast channel changing" or "no 2 second delay". Current workaround is to switch channel changing behavior to "browse mode", but actually having "fast channel changing" would really help new user acceptance of mythtv.
uhm... can you spell l-a-w-s-u-i-t?) NEVER going to happen with core Myth
Very distro dependant, apt-get solves 99% of the problem for most folks (those who are *using* packages, maybe... --BayLink)
  • Action sound, a short confirmation 'blip' to say that a keypress was received and is 'being processed'
This is difficult to achieve without impelemting and requring all audio devices to be routed through an ALSA mixer (which has it's own issues at the moment) --- As a work around, look on the backend setup screen. There is a config option for "Execute command when key pressed" (or something like thing) that you can configure to play a sound

Already implemented

  • playlist queue - ability to manage a queue of recorded programs or videos for sequential playback
  • Ajax Based Mythweb for Speed up and more interactivity
  • Ability to mask Media Library entries based on entering PIN to identify user. e.g. Kids can not see anything in a specific program group.

Unsorted

With reference to website / mailing list

Without reference to website / mailing list

  • Ability to automaticly change Xine/MPlayer (etc.) keybindings file when you change MythTV hotkeys (seems difficult to me - HenkPoley). Or just a webpage with Xine/MPlayer configs that conform to MythTV default keybindings.
  • Add option to limit the time length or filesize of recordings. Long length MythTV recordings would automatically span multiple files similar to film rolls. Allows TV marathons, sporting events, etc to be broken up into manageable pieces.