[schnarky42]

Hello,

New to Kodi and trying to convert from WMC over to Kodi. One thing that gets confusing for my family is the Record vs Add Timers dialogue in the context menu within the full guide. Is there any way to hide the Record item from the context menu?

[metaron]

The simple answer is 'No'.

Long answer:
'Record' will record just that item on that channel at that time.
'Add Timer' gives you more options (e.g. 'record series') from those supported by your PVR backend.

I can see your point however as I've also wondered if 'Record' could be removed from the context menu for 'simplicity' reasons. The problem is its very difficult to satisfy 'simplicity' and 'flexibility' at the same time.

There doesn't appear to be a guiding force or vision driving the PVR User Interface to meet a specific 'family friendly' objective, which isn't that surprising given that this is an open source project and the user base is varied.

- something you can give to your granny (or family) to use = simple, not too many options, never crashes
- something which keeps a teenage torrent downloader happy = lots of options for managing ip content, bleeding edge to keep up with DRM changes
- something which keeps a dev happy = the features they wrote still in the code, only reasonable pressure to be bug free

If you were designing for these three groups of users, what would you propose?

[schnarky42]

The simple answer is 'No'.

Long answer:
'Record' will record just that item on that channel at that time.
'Add Timer' gives you more options (e.g. 'record series') from those supported by your PVR backend.

I can see your point however as I've also wondered if 'Record' could be removed from the context menu for 'simplicity' reasons. The problem is its very difficult to satisfy 'simplicity' and 'flexibility' at the same time.

There doesn't appear to be a guiding force or vision driving the PVR User Interface to meet a specific 'family friendly' objective, which isn't that surprising given that this is an open source project and the user base is varied.

- something you can give to your granny (or family) to use = simple, not too many options, never crashes
- something which keeps a teenage torrent downloader happy = lots of options for managing ip content, bleeding edge to keep up with DRM changes
- something which keeps a dev happy = the features they wrote still in the code, only reasonable pressure to be bug free

If you were designing for these three groups of users, what would you propose?

Thanks for the response. Balancing simplicity with flexibility is a challenge and I give Kodi developers a lot of respect for what its evolved into. With that being said, could you give your opinion about the "Settings" levels, Basic, Standard, Advanced, Expert? Was that to address the varied user base? If so, could that be extended across more areas within Kodi? I see the context menu within the live tv guide as one of those areas. You can create a timer that will record just that item on that channel at that time, emulating the "Record" button. So is it reasonable to have the ability to hide things, which to a basic user, might seem redundant?

And while I don't have exposure to a developer or teenage torrent downloader, I think there's another group of users; those that desire a unified entertainment platform. Those people are willing to deal with workarounds and other potential limitations in order to achieve the 'one-box' solution. I am in that camp and understand that what might seem like a simple request may require core framework changes. It sounds like what shows up in the context menu in the Live TV guide is core, something that a Kodi skin doesn't have access to change. Or am I off-base on that assumption?