(2013-01-27, 15:03)Ned Scott Wrote: Pretend you are a brand new user and you've just installed XBMC. What do you want to know? What kind of topics/guides are you looking for? What do you tell a new user of XBMC about?
No need to pretend, as you can see from my post count, I am a new user
I've been using a HTPC for about 6 years but never ventured far from WMC and Binnerup's My Movies. Have previously tried XBMC (twice as I recall) but gave up after I became frustrated with the promise of the oh-so-beautiful screen shots compared to what I managed to get working (I should add I'm a competent PC user who has been building my own PCs for 10+ years but have never really taken the time to understand XBMC). So to your questions...
I've found the wiki useful but it seems outdated or plain inaccurate in some areas (I can't judge which being new). Compared to some software documentation, the wiki is very useful. However, determining the currency of information is critical - if one page is dated, it's hard to judge whether the next one is also or not. There is the 'last updated' date but I'm talking more about whether the info. is good for the current (Eden and Frodo?) builds or not. I also read stuff and then fail to get it to work with the skins I use (maybe I'm being thick, but the directions choose menu x > then y > then z don't seem consistent between skins - tough to account for I guess but frustrating when it doesn't work (is the wiki info. tested against a 'default' skin?)). For eg,
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Vid...he_library section 6 - that screen doesn't seem to exist for me (or I haven't learned yet how to access it).
I've taken a step by step approach to setting up XBMC. So far I've imported my movies (300-ish) but not yet music, TV shows or music video. I found the guide on importing videos useful but had some experience of this from other software. On the other hand, I found the information on importing music videos less than useful. (Do I need a folder structure like movies? do i use a movie importer? Are these scraped? Would nfos be useful? I haven't (yet) found answers to my questions.) I have yet to understand how 'nodes' work - I am genuinely mystified by how I sometimes seem to land on a node menu and sometimes not.
I went to the trouble of setting up nfos and posters/fanart ('thumbs' etc) in each movie folder but, as far as I can tell, TMDb overrode these (it certainly did in some cases). This is contrary to what the wiki says about using fanart. I then spent many hours 'correcting' (ie setting the media according to my preferences) fanart display by searching through userdata/thumbnails to overwrite the cached images. I did this because I could find no info. about how else it might be achieved (in the wiki or elsewhere - except the section 6 referred to above).
I have set up Next PVR using the info. from the wiki and the Next PVR website. However, I have 2 burning, unanswered questions (prompted by the inevitable comparison with my WMC use): will the PC wake to record and can I do series recordings? These may be answered somewhere but not up-front in the wiki - as critical features (to me at least) this may be an oversight.
I found the wiki sometimes assumes knowledge of XBMC which I don't have. To be fair, this doesn't seem to happen in the introductory sections, rather, it's when I land on a page from google which is perhaps aimed at someone with more xp.
Finally, I've looked for a breadcrumb trail a few times - when the info isn't quite what I want but another related page might hopefully do the trick.
Leaving aside the last two issues, I think the first thing I'd say is that the 'Quick Start Guide' is a misnomer for getting XBMC up and running
well You have to pre-configure several libraries with scraped data/fanart. They then need to be imported and corrections made. Get a PVR installed and working. Then the skin(s) can be chosen, and menus configured. Set up your RSS and weather. And then choose some add-ons. I've been working at it for 10 days and have achieved as described above - no music or TV shows yet.
So, I'd like, please, a much more task oriented approach which would cover a fuller range of topics, with the intended outcome that a new user, who can invest the time, will have a set-up like those fabulous screenies
:
1 An overview of functionality - a list, substantially bigger than the one now, with a list of key features for each item. This list might be onward linked to the sections on how to get each feature to work. A simple example would be weather, linking to a page which describes how to set location - a simple task, but a nice place to start. Similarly, RSS and a link to a page showing how to eg add feeds and display multiple feeds. For a movie library, a link to an 'index' page which deals with the tasks needed to effectively set-up and configure the library. Which leads me to 2.
2 Pages (probably multiple), linked from an index page, on topics such as file naming and so on - much as they already are for movies, TV shows and music. I'd add Pictures, Music Video, Home Video to this list. This should cover a wider range of tasks than just importing - like correcting fanart (the current pages include some of this info but not all). Basically, the full range of tasks to get XBMC set up much more fully than the current guide does. This could be split between 'basic' and 'advanced' tasks or perhaps 'necessary' and 'optional'.
3 More info on how the menu and nodes idea works, navigating XBMC, using the settings menu and the purpose, use and integration of add-ons.
4 Info on the various skins, whether they are current and working as intended.
5 Ditto for add-ons.
The last two may be stretching it!
TL;DR - I'd like a fuller, task-oriented guide to getting XBMC set up to a standard which most experienced users would expect from their own XBMC set up.
Hope this is helpful. Will give it some more thought to see if I can be more specific.
Kris