First of all, I'd like to say that I love the Ace and Aeon-MQ skins. Right now, I'm using Ace as my full time skin, because it is simpler and easier to use for the family than Aeon-MQ. Overall, I think Aeon-MQ changes a little too frequently, and I'd like to see new versions of Ace have a little more consistency than Aeon-MQ. New features should be tested in Aeon-MQ first, and only the best ones should be eventually added to Ace, but in a way that doesn't change the look or usability too much. Most of the changes I'd like for Ace relate to making it more intuitive and usable, rather than adding new features.
Here's a list of the things I'd like changed/fixed in Ace:
1. Make the menus more intuitive to navigate
One of the main complaints I have about Ace is that sometimes navigating the menus can be counter-intuitive. For example, when I'm on the vertical main menu and I press the left arrow on my remote to access the submenu, I naturally feel like I should press the right arrow in order to go back to the main menu. However, I need to press left twice to get back to the main menu.
Also, the "top menu" (the one you can access at the top of the screen when viewing collections to modify viewtype, etc.) can be confusing to navigate. By "top menu", this is the menu I mean:
First of all, the way to access this menu is different depending on what viewtype you are currently using. If I am on the "wide" viewtype then I need to press "left" to access it, and if I am on the "multiplex" viewtype then I need to press "up" to access it. Similar to my complaint about the main menu, whenever I press a key to access some menu, I naturally feel like pressing the opposite key in order to exit the menu. On the "wide" viewtype, this would mean pressing "right" to exit, and on the "multiplex" viewtype, pressing "down" to exit. However, I see why this cannot happen with the way the menu is currently set up. Pressing "down" is used to access items, so using it to exit would require cycling through all the items in the list. Pressing "right" is used to access other submenus so that wont work either. What I would suggest is that for viewtypes where you press "up" to access this menu, the menu pops up from the BOTTOM of the screen rather than the top. This way, accessing the items in the submenu requires you to press "up" again, accessing a new submenu requires you to press "left/right" (as it currently does), and exiting the menu is done by pressing "down". Likewise, on viewtypes where you need to press "left" to access it, it should pop out from the RIGHT SIDE of the screen. Accessing items in the submenu should be done by pressing "left" again, accessing a different submenu should be done by pressing "up/down", and exiting should be done by pressing "right".
Also, exiting the "top menu" should be possible by pressing the "back" button, but it is currently not. The "back" button just behaves as it normally would, as if the menu was not even open (i.e. it goes to the parent folder of the current folder, rather than closing the "top menu").
All of this will make accessing the menus more intuitive and consistent, so that even a grandma could navigate it without getting stuck in some menu, and overall will make it feel more polished and mainstream.
2. Add an icon indicating movie sets
I prefer to have my movies grouped into sets, using the "group movies in sets" option in the XBMC Video settings. Similar to how there is an icon indicating when an item has been marked as "viewed", there should also be an icon indicating when an item is a movie set. This picture shows what I mean:
I suggest that the icon be in the shape of a folder, indicating that it contains a multiple movies.
3. The "panel" viewtype should wrap around
Similar to other vertical lists, the "panel" viewtype should wrap around when trying to navigate past the end of it. If I am at the bottom of the list and press "down", it should bring me back to the top, and if I am at the top and I press "up" it should bring me down to the bottom.
4. Fix a bug with the "panel" viewtype
There is a bug in the "panel" viewtype that can cause the cursor to become hidden. The way you can duplicate this is by following these steps:
- Make sure that your bottom row has fewer than 6 items in it, so that there are blank spaces on the right hand side. And make sure that you have more than 4 rows overall. (Have at least 3 full rows, and one partially full row).
- Scroll up, so that all 3 of the rows that are currently displayed on the screen are full.
- Without scrolling down again, highlight the bottom rightmost item THAT IS CURRENTLY DISPLAYED ON THE SCREEN.
- Press "right" to select the scroll bar.
- Press "down" until you reach the bottom.
- Press "left" to leave the scroll bar.
- You should now have a hidden cursor, which is trying to select one of the empty spaces of your partially full row. If you keep pressing "left", you will eventually reach the rightmost item in your partially full row.
5. The year shown in the "wide" and "low list" viewtypes, should be changed to the air date when viewing TV episodes.
When viewing a season of TV episodes with the "wide" or "low list" viewtypes, all the episodes generally came out in the same year, so it is a waste of space to show the year multiple times. It would be more informative to change this to the air date rather than the year. This image shows what I mean:
In general, I think changes to Ace should make it easier to use, more consistent to control, and less buggy, rather than focusing on new features and design changes. Any new features added (such as number 2 on this list) should be small and not disrupt the overall look and feel of the skin.
(I really loved the look in Aeon MQ3, maybe some better version of that.)
