Hi all,
I had to write this to point how unwieldy and unfriendly xmbc is to use and setup the first time.
* Install, no issue, all fine, start up the app and am greeted by the menu nice and quickly. Cool.
* OK, how to I add my media... oh, I see, here in videos there is an add source link. Righto, I'll select that, point it at my movies and say it's of type 'Movies' and click ok... nice. And I'll do that again and point it at my tv shows and say it's of type 'TV Shows'... all good. OK, one more time, I'll point it at my folder of videos I've made with the kids, and select type... um... erm, it's not TV, it's not Movies, it's just videos. No, it's not 'NONE', why would I create a source and label it 'NONE' that's just silly.
* Ok... now I want to look at my movies and tv shows. Um, it's showing me folders... that's very bland. How do I get it to show the files in a pretty way with art etc.? OK, go to the wiki... oh, I have to switch it to library mode. Right... done.
* Now I can't see anything, where are my movies? Where are my TV Shows? I can't see anywhere that it's doing anything, I can't tell it's scanning, I can't tell it's getting info. What is it doing, why can't I see my stuff?
Some time later and looking at the wiki etc.
* It would seem I need to tell it to scan my media into the library... why wouldn't that be on by default? Who would want their media in there without having it in the library? Even with there being valid reasons for not wanting to, the DEFAULT should be that it scans it.
* OK, now I can see my movies and tv shows, but why do the icons/banners/posters for all of them keep coming and going and being the wrong size for the things they are being put into? Why do are they blank each time I come into the tv or movie screen? Why are they not downloaded and just 'there'... this is very odd. They seem to redownload every time I come into the page, that can't be right (noticed with default and 'Alaska' skins)
* And I'm not seeing any episode screen shots
* And I'm only seeing fan art occasionally for movies, this is all very odd.
* My music scanning seems to have stopped and I don't know how to see how far through it thinks it is, or how to tell it to continue to scan.
* How to do ANYTHING of a setup nature on any of the folders is REALLY not intuitive, why would I press C? How do I know exactly which folder I should be pressing C on anyway? Why is there not some page I can go to to check on the status of the library for each of my sources and tell it to rescan or fix or continue or whatever? Why am I forced to guess at whether the scan is still going or thinks it's finished, or encountered an error? Why?
So... yeah. NOT a happy experience. I have been using MediaPortal for years now and never had this sort of pain in setting up. The clear split between the configuration application and the actual running application makes things a lot more clear and a lot more tailored to their purpose. The configuration app is very clear when it's done it's media scans (yes, you have to download plugins to do your tv show scraping and movie scraping, that's not there out of the box, but once you have they are a doddle to use), when it's had issues, how you might like to change the movie or tv show it thinks it's found etc. Same with music library.
I applaud the attempt at trying to make XBMC fully usuable and configurable using just the remote, I guess that comes from it originally being on the XBox, but to have the ONLY way to get to those features be by pressing 'C' or a button on a remote that is different from remote to remote, and is not hinted at anywhere in the interface is just downright not intuitive, not friendly and enough to make you (well, me) just give up.
And then, when I thought I was getting somewhere, and I could see my shows and movies, I could never get it to actually keep showing the posters or banners of them, why was it doing that? And why was it using banner sized images when it was in poster display mode or vice versa? It's all a case of NO feedback, BAD defaults and design decisions that seem to have been made without thinking at all how someone new to the app would possibly work out how to use it.
So, yeah... I tried it again because the Android App for controlling it is really quite awesome, and MediaPortal really has nothing to compare (iPimp is web based so not as tailored), but after a couple of hours of trying to get it anywhere near where I've got my MediaPortal setup I've given up, and been reminded why I gave up on XBMC the last time I tried to set it up.
Please guys, you have a pretty awesome looking project here that is being REALLY let down by its method of config and feedback on processes (scanning, scraping, downloading etc.).
And it's that initial hurdle that kills off further use I'm afraid.
I had to write this to point how unwieldy and unfriendly xmbc is to use and setup the first time.
* Install, no issue, all fine, start up the app and am greeted by the menu nice and quickly. Cool.
* OK, how to I add my media... oh, I see, here in videos there is an add source link. Righto, I'll select that, point it at my movies and say it's of type 'Movies' and click ok... nice. And I'll do that again and point it at my tv shows and say it's of type 'TV Shows'... all good. OK, one more time, I'll point it at my folder of videos I've made with the kids, and select type... um... erm, it's not TV, it's not Movies, it's just videos. No, it's not 'NONE', why would I create a source and label it 'NONE' that's just silly.
* Ok... now I want to look at my movies and tv shows. Um, it's showing me folders... that's very bland. How do I get it to show the files in a pretty way with art etc.? OK, go to the wiki... oh, I have to switch it to library mode. Right... done.
* Now I can't see anything, where are my movies? Where are my TV Shows? I can't see anywhere that it's doing anything, I can't tell it's scanning, I can't tell it's getting info. What is it doing, why can't I see my stuff?
Some time later and looking at the wiki etc.
* It would seem I need to tell it to scan my media into the library... why wouldn't that be on by default? Who would want their media in there without having it in the library? Even with there being valid reasons for not wanting to, the DEFAULT should be that it scans it.
* OK, now I can see my movies and tv shows, but why do the icons/banners/posters for all of them keep coming and going and being the wrong size for the things they are being put into? Why do are they blank each time I come into the tv or movie screen? Why are they not downloaded and just 'there'... this is very odd. They seem to redownload every time I come into the page, that can't be right (noticed with default and 'Alaska' skins)
* And I'm not seeing any episode screen shots
* And I'm only seeing fan art occasionally for movies, this is all very odd.
* My music scanning seems to have stopped and I don't know how to see how far through it thinks it is, or how to tell it to continue to scan.
* How to do ANYTHING of a setup nature on any of the folders is REALLY not intuitive, why would I press C? How do I know exactly which folder I should be pressing C on anyway? Why is there not some page I can go to to check on the status of the library for each of my sources and tell it to rescan or fix or continue or whatever? Why am I forced to guess at whether the scan is still going or thinks it's finished, or encountered an error? Why?
So... yeah. NOT a happy experience. I have been using MediaPortal for years now and never had this sort of pain in setting up. The clear split between the configuration application and the actual running application makes things a lot more clear and a lot more tailored to their purpose. The configuration app is very clear when it's done it's media scans (yes, you have to download plugins to do your tv show scraping and movie scraping, that's not there out of the box, but once you have they are a doddle to use), when it's had issues, how you might like to change the movie or tv show it thinks it's found etc. Same with music library.
I applaud the attempt at trying to make XBMC fully usuable and configurable using just the remote, I guess that comes from it originally being on the XBox, but to have the ONLY way to get to those features be by pressing 'C' or a button on a remote that is different from remote to remote, and is not hinted at anywhere in the interface is just downright not intuitive, not friendly and enough to make you (well, me) just give up.
And then, when I thought I was getting somewhere, and I could see my shows and movies, I could never get it to actually keep showing the posters or banners of them, why was it doing that? And why was it using banner sized images when it was in poster display mode or vice versa? It's all a case of NO feedback, BAD defaults and design decisions that seem to have been made without thinking at all how someone new to the app would possibly work out how to use it.
So, yeah... I tried it again because the Android App for controlling it is really quite awesome, and MediaPortal really has nothing to compare (iPimp is web based so not as tailored), but after a couple of hours of trying to get it anywhere near where I've got my MediaPortal setup I've given up, and been reminded why I gave up on XBMC the last time I tried to set it up.
Please guys, you have a pretty awesome looking project here that is being REALLY let down by its method of config and feedback on processes (scanning, scraping, downloading etc.).
And it's that initial hurdle that kills off further use I'm afraid.
