Kodi Community Forum

Hi guys,

So after using this skin now solid for a few weeks I've quickly learnt that I really dislike where the submenu items are located.

1- they're icons, not text items... and for some reason they're located in the opposite corner of the menu itself.
2- Having to navigate to the widgets, then up to an icon bar, then hovering over each icon for the text to appear so you can see what the buttons do is massively counter intuitive and not to mention just totally frustrating when the wife asks "how do I see the genres" and I respond by saying "press back to go to menu, press right, press up, not that one, not that one, that one" to which she responds "so how do I get to genres"

Which ultimately leads me here, pleading with you to rethink the submenu.
I can make suggestions:
1. Arctic Zephyr's vertical menu acts the way a sub menu should when focused, it's all you see.
2. Titans vertical menu has a second window for submenu items when focused. Although not as elegant as Arctic Zephyr, still acts the way you'd expect a sub menu to act.

One thing I've learnt using more kodi skins than you can poke a stick at is that icons suck for navigational purposes and should really only be used in obvious scenarios like a play, stop and pause etc...

Having an icon of a "head" to indicate genres... And another "head" to indicate actors and an icon of a "book" to represent 'library root' is just confusing as hell, it's not at all obvious what these items are until you hover over them to be told what it actually is... If I need to be told, then perhaps icons are not the best idea for that item.

And another thing;
Can the "search" function be added to all window menus? Not just the home screen. When in video library it's nice to be able to search withour having to leave the library.

Anyways I'm sure you can guage my frustration but I have to let you guys know as a user that navigational wise, this skin at the moment is not as user friendly as it should be.

Loggio.

Here is how I imagine it should work, when you click a main menu item, the item sets focus to the submenu showing you the items within it... simple, no confusion, no icons, no need to navigate left, right, up, down, side to side etc.





Loggio.

I have 17.0 Alpha 1 but I can't find this theme :/

(2016-03-21, 21:48)loggio Wrote: [ -> ]Here is how I imagine it should work, when you click a main menu item, the item sets focus to the submenu showing you the items within it... simple, no confusion, no icons, no need to navigate left, right, up, down, side to side etc.





Loggio.

Thank you! Exactly my impression. Please rethink the current layout

And in addition, also 110% agree on these comments here:

(2016-03-01, 11:36)Raitsa Wrote: [ -> ]Amazing skin, very impressed here, great work guys.

One small wish though.
I would love to have subtitle download even more easily on hand.

reFocus has a very clever, easy and fast way to do it: you just press ok and this screen shows up:

(2016-03-08, 14:37)voochi Wrote: [ -> ]Some suggestions:

Main menu is cluttered and navigation unintuitive. You have mixed vertical and horizontal menus on the same screen, in a non-grid layout. This is a UI no-no.

Navigation between items on the homescreen is unintuitive:
From the search box, if I press right I go to the star item. From the star item if I press left, I expect to go to the search box...nope, takes me diagonally down to movies. Oh dear. Major UI no-no to be so inconsistent.


Same lower down, I'm on Winter Sleep and I press left, I expect to go to the power button...nope, takes me diagonally UP to movies again.


This is the problem with mixing so many menus in different orientations.

Do we still need Kodi name and logo so prominent on the homescreen? No. It adds to the clutter and uses valuable space. Everybody using Kodi knows they are using it, don't need to remind them in large letters. Suffice to show the name and logo during bootup.

Limited customization: For example, allow to choose whether "random movies" is on home screen. For me it serves no purpose and simply adds to clutter.

Wall view (and banner view) animation (highlighted poster slides to left and box appears beside it) is gimmicky and disconcerting. Posters slithering around when I just want to scroll down through the list. Seems like including an animation just for the sake of it. Please include disable option. If you must keep it, at least put a delay so the posters are not slithering around while scrolling through the list.

(2016-03-09, 05:57)DaAwesomeP Wrote: [ -> ]

(2016-03-09, 05:56)mazey Wrote: [ -> ]it cant be on the left, options open on the left. every scroll bar ive ever seen is on the right, so its in the right spot.

I was thinking specifically in popup/dialog boxes where there isn't anything on the left and buttons are on the right.

Couldn't agree more.
And when you go back to the homes screen from another window, the main menu should become refocused at the top of the list, the "last item pressed" should not be. Especially if you clicked an icon, or a widget...

The way I see it is that Kodi needed a new skin, and the look of estuary ticks all the boxes. However, one of the biggest things wrong with confluence was its rubbish mix of horizontal home menu, and Vertical everything else. The navigation was just a mess... Left, right, up, down, buttons being in the wrong places... Menus not acting the way you'd expect them to. It was just a mess. The fact kodi lasted so long using confluence is beyond me.

Estuary is a huge welcome in my opinion. But unless it's made to be more intuitive, I'm afraid at the moment, the navigation of the home menu is just messy. Why mix horizontal and vertical menus together, a users experience will be much more satisfying if their eye is not tracked all over the screen trying to find their way around. If you have a menu list, use it. Don't navigate away from it to a bunch of cluttered, small icons.

The sub menus are important items, they should not be seperate from the menu.

I am curious if any of the points listed above will make it into Estuary. I actually kind of like the skin - would even use it if it would not be so "rough around the edges"

(2016-03-21, 21:48)loggio Wrote: [ -> ]Here is how I imagine it should work, when you click a main menu item, the item sets focus to the submenu showing you the items within it... simple, no confusion, no icons, no need to navigate left, right, up, down, side to side etc.

Agree. And it looks clean.

Have the authors given any thought to this?

I really feel that to make Kodi 'out of the box' user friendly and not to mention give the UI complete consistency these submenu icons really need to go.

I installed kodi 17 today to see what it would look like and this skin sucks big time.. what's with the side thing? it's the wrong side for me. it should be at the bottom where it belongs.

Bump.

Can we seriously look at this?
It's just a navigational nightmare in terms of 'WAF'

Other than this, the skin is pretty rock solid.