Thanks for the heads up. Yes, pretty uneducated, but he did raise some key points on usability (with the mouse one presumes) that we will definitely be addressing for Atlantis.
He also raised some key points about the manual situation, which ofcourse we will be addressing, but it will take time + effort. We'd very much appreciate some help in this regard if anyone is keen on going through and making the current manual less xbox-centric.
Cheers,
Jonathan
Beyond the various inaccuracies, I was just blown away that they recommend linuxmce for actually playing media. I wouldn't wish linuxmce on my worst enemy.
I thought the article was interesting, he seems to want to like xbmc, but it seems he just loaded it up for 10 minutes or so then wrote the article, XBMC really grows on you over time.
jmarshall Wrote:He also raised some key points about the manual situation, which ofcourse we will be addressing, but it will take time + effort. We'd very much appreciate some help in this regard if anyone is keen on going through and making the current manual less xbox-centric.
Cheers,
Jonathan
I think i'd be interested in helping out, what's required?
I'll send you a PM.
Shorty
I read the article on digg when it first hit front page.
my comment:
Quote:I've been doing some pretty extensive testing of Atlantis (Current feature frozen version of XBMC). With the notable inability to test the current osx version, i've dug deep into the Windows, Linux and Xbox versions.
The native xbox version is still by far the best. While development has moved on to focus heavily on the PC versions, the xbox version retains all that makes it great. It's essentially the same app on the xbox as it was a year ago, just very polished.
While i was having some luck with the Linux version (under Ubuntu64.. I have heard it works better under 32bit), I have had some solid issues. As of the current nightlies,XBMC for Linux no longer sees my USB hard drives in linux, and also refuses to scale properly to my screen.
The Windows version in its current state is great. Not even a few months ago it was missing a lot of small features that rendered it unusable. It still has a whole lot of ground to make up before it surpasses other media center apps in Windows, but it is making great strides. My only complaint is that it still functions rather slowly on a large library.
If you haven't used XBMC in a while, give it another try. It might not be the best out there, but it's getting there. And it is by far one of the best looking media center apps.
And check out the "MediaStream" skin. One of the most beautiful skins around (included with the latest T3CH Xbox SVN build)
I'd like to think my take is fairly educated. I've been using xbmc since the very first public release, and i was using XBMP prior to that.
SupaDawg Wrote:As of the current nightlies,XBMC for Linux no longer sees my USB hard drives in linux
You need to add <usehalmount>true</usehalmount> to advancedsettings.xml (see wiki for full file syntax and creation if need be).
SupaDawg Wrote:...also refuses to scale properly to my screen.
This should be fixed in svn, though font's are a little skinny for some reason.
jmarshall Wrote:He also raised some key points about the manual situation, which ofcourse we will be addressing, but it will take time + effort. We'd very much appreciate some help in this regard if anyone is keen on going through and making the current manual less xbox-centric.
As outlined in internal discussions, the manual is not slated for an overhaul until after the Atlantis release (ie make it less platform centric)
I guess the quick n dirty fix would be to actually document the keyboard and mouse layout which is somehow completely missing!
(And link to it from PC platform articles)
I guess it stems from the fact that until relatively recently keyboard and mouse were merely a curiosity to some eccentric Xbox users (and the particularily eccentric keyboard and mouse developer
)
[edit]
The Templates are up, any help appreciated:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Default_Controls
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Keyboard_and_Mouse
Dear XBMCers,
I feel your pain. I know what it feels like when someone rubbishes your work. But please re-read the article. I haven't criticized the projects -- merely highlighting what works and what doesn't work for me.
I am not here to defend my review, and I promise to re-review XBMC after a couple of months. I'd appreciate an email when the final version is out and the documentation has been updated.
regards,
Mayank
Mayank, great to see you drop by.
But as someone that is passionate about the application, can you at least share my experience that your heading may be a little misleading?
(The average internet user today has the attention span of a kitten, so that's most likely the only thing he will take away from your "p"review.)
"I know what it feels like when someone rubbishes your work"
Think you need to spend a bit more time with "probably the best media centre softare out there!"and a little less time reviewing it.... 2p
geekybodhi Wrote:Dear XBMCers,
I feel your pain. I know what it feels like when someone rubbishes your work. But please re-read the article. I haven't criticized the projects -- merely highlighting what works and what doesn't work for me.
I am not here to defend my review, and I promise to re-review XBMC after a couple of months. I'd appreciate an email when the final version is out and the documentation has been updated.
regards,
Mayank
Well, had you bothered to come here and ask a simple question about the features you thought were missing - and actually there - you might have been less dissapointed and been able to write a more accurate review. I mean really, no controls when playing music - you have to wait till the end of a list?! Perhaps if you used a remote control from the couch your experience would have been better <shrug> Script issues and your inability to play streams is why you wrote it up as "lacks impressive..."? Wow
Web server is there, several folks using it, had you asked.....
Oh well, I guess that folks interested will end up here at some point and can get corrected but had you been more accurate or perhaps even asked for some help I think it would've been a much higher quality review. Certainly there's room for improvement and I don't think anyone would deny that but geez the software is still in daily development!
geekybodhi:
Thanks for your review. As you can see from the SVN changelog + sho's post above, we are responding to the particular usability issues you discovered in a timely fashion (i.e mouse OSD stuff is both fixed and improved in SVN, and we're looking in to the documentation problem).
As sho points out, the only issue we had with your review is the headline. The actual review text is very much in praise of the application for the most part, which makes the headline (which is very much NOT in praise of the application) rather perplexing.
I'm aware that sensationalising a headline is very much standard practise nowadays, but I feel you may have misrepresented your own article, rather than leaving it to digg + slashdot to do it for you.
Cheers,
Jonathan
