[BritneysPAIRS]

we all know jmarshal comes up with hairbrained scheme that are just downright silly.

untill you use them and you see they are actually genius :kickass: .

its hard to be as visionary as the features added they seem silly at first but the proof is in using them............and they are perfect. normally he has some direction in mind and we judge it on our knoweldge of what we have now and cant see the vision as clear as him.

good luck in what ever you do...crazy as things are you can tell they are well thought out and implimented


ps hopefully i can have my tv shows and tv videos now id like these button as he patch that is in backburner at moment due to passwords etc......

[pin87a]

after thinking about it for a bit i have come to the conclusion that simplifying the gui to the point where everything "just works" (which i believe should be a goal worth considering) is going to require removing or dramatically changing existing features. which would be a wildly unpopular idea...

anyways... here are a few view related ideas that would make things significantly easier for the end user.

1. remove views based on data scraped from 3rd party websites. specifically the imdb metadata based views in my videos. using a view scheme based on data that may or may not be available makes things difficult for both the end users and the developers (frequent updates are required). metadata based views work well with music files because the data is contained in the files themselves. since that data is not contained in video files simple file name based views would be better.

2. limit the amount of views to one really good thumbnail based view and one list based view and make it a "set it and forget it" option in the settings section for each category. possibly having the thumbnail views setup differently for each category. for example a thumbnail view in my programs might be a cool full screen view with side scrolling icons and a thumbnail view in my music might be something similar to the current album view however each album item would expand downwards to display the tracks that belong to the album. there are a lot of very talented people involved in the xbmc project and i'm sure we can come up with views for each category that look nice and are user friendly.

3. replace the <selectbutton> "switch view" thing with a more straightforward way of navigation. such as the ipod style navigation kraqh3d and keiths are working on.

4. remove non relevant information from the list views. for example the file size of mameox.xbe and thematrix.avi isn't really useful, but the playing time of an audio track is. this doesn't really effect usability, but it would make the screen a little less cluttered.

5. minimize the amount of buttons on the left "pane." for example maintenance and setup items like the scan button could probably be re-located to the settings section.


before you start with the flames and insults, the above comments are meant to be constructive criticism that can hopefully start a discussion on how we can truly make xbmc easier to use for everyone. since all of us here are very familiar with xbmc and how it works it is sometimes hard to step back and attempt to view things from the average user's perspective. i appreciate all of the effort that has gone into making xbmc the excellent program it is today, but i believe that taking xbmc to "the next level" both visually and usability wise would require taking a step back to re-evaluate the current interface and feature set of the application.

[jmarshall]

hi pin87a and others:

this is the exact kind of post that i was after

1. i agree that the database system works much nicer in my music. however, it is also very powerful in my videos (not that we are using it to it's fullest extent), if only for movies that imdb has information on. the issue ofcourse is other types of videos (home movies, music videos, tv shows and the like) which don't fit in at all with this scheme. while i'd prefer not to drop the imdb views altogether, i agree that we need to come to some way of better use of it.

2. yeah - i agree with this one 100% - there is no real need imo for 2 different thumbnail views, and no real need to have the user switching between thumbs + lists - it should either be automatic (and really well tuned) or not available. in the sizing case, we can have this setup in the settings if users wish to view more per page etc - it's a one-off type setting most of hte time.

for music in particular, i think if we take into account the stuff kraqh3d etc. is working on, then this is a trivial operation. the idea would be to move users away from the purely filebased view to the database view. many (most) music playing programs are doing this, as it makes the most sense due to the metadata. it forces users to have well maintained tags, however, and on xbox this presents a problem as there is no decent interface available to most people to change their tags from the xbox itself. ideas/suggestions on this are most welcome.

3. agreed - kraqh3d's got code to do this just about complete, and we'll be adding it as an extra view as soon as it's available - the extra view will just be an interim step so we can have a feel for how well it's working and optimize it as necessary.

4. agreed - programs view should really be always thumbs, or at worse a list view without sizing information - this is irrelavent to the user. i'm not sure what sort of info is inside the xbe, but if there is any useful metadata there, then we could replace it with this, or simply remove the second label in the list control entirely.

5. indeed - agreed that this should be the goal. making the screen less cluttered + removing things that don't need to be there immediately.

given the above, i still think it makes sense to look into this multiview architecture. the main advantage as far as xbmc is concerned is that all the view code can be moved to a separate class. the advantage as far as the skinner is concerned is that there is more flexibility - we can redesign the separate controls to fit into the above schema more readily, without upsetting other areas of xbmc. (listcontrols are used all over the show, in many cases a much simpler control (without thumbs or second labels etc. etc.) is all that is required).

as always, lets discuss this openly and try and move the project forward

cheers,
jonathan

[Gamester17]

2. limit the amount of views to one really good thumbnail based view and one list based view and make it a "set it and forget it" option in the settings section for each category. possibly having the thumbnail views setup differently for each category.

i agree with that part but only that part, i think moving the "list/small-cover/large-cover" views into options for each catagory is a good idea, (don't think doing it automaticly is smart)

4. remove non relevant information from the list views. for example the file size of mameox.xbe and thematrix.avi isn't really useful, but the playing time of an audio track is. this doesn't really effect usability, but it would make the screen a little less cluttered.

i agree with the xbe "my programs" part, however don't agree with that for the "my videos" and "my music" sections unless make 'display file-size' optional (disabled by default though)

[BritneysPAIRS]

hi there i will mock up some pic of an interface id like to see but there is stuff i think could be done better

1) in programs just put in times played instead of size.

2) when you change anything from say.....view by name its alphabetical. when you go view usage its from 0 - most i think thats silly it should be set to most at top and least at bottom.

3) when you change anything from say.....view by name its alphabetical. when you go view by date it goes from oldest to newest. id say it should be newest to oldest at top.

what im saying is the most common way you would use the function should be at top is actually better than the correct way you have it now.  :thumbsup:

4) alot of stuff in left plane shouldnt be in options but should be moved to the context menus thats what they are for, id say. easy to change from where you are but still hidden away. these are great.

5) should be able to open a any folder from the button scroller (done now cheers works great)

6) on button scroller in context menu add (add button ) this then goes into a file manager view and can click till you get to default.xbe (default.xbes and folders the only things you can see in filemanager) to run and when you click it, it adds a button of the xbe, the name (or folder depending on the my programs option of how it gets name) and grabs the imbedded icon or default.tbn for skinner to put on a standard button.

7)on button scroller in context menu add (add folder ) this then goes into a file manager view and can click till you get to the folder you want (only folders are shown in filemanager) to add and then click a button it adds a button of the selected folder and grabs folder.jpg if there is one.

very flash. can add there own buttons front, i realise is this a video or pic or music. ummmm ill think about that one maybe when you click to add button is asks id1 id2 etc my programs my videos my music my pictures unless renamed in language.

8) add to context menus add password to scroller and make password so if you setup a folder below it and select into it it asks for passwords at moment it will go straight into it


9) showing files that are in playlist like filemanger highlighs files you have picked

10) if you have only one file (maybe more but stacked to 1) in a video folder just play it

[modplug]

i think the user should be able to execute movies by clicking on
folders (i.e f:\video\movies\thematrix) and when the folder is
pressed it starts the file(s) under the folder, without making the
user enter the folder and then start the file. of course this should
be optional - but i rather have my files well sorted in folders than
all in one folder. mainly because that's the way i have it on my pc
and because the video database ain't all that yet.

this has been mentioned in a few posts before, but i think it should be mentioned under this topic.

anyway, keep up the good work

[j_guzzler]

not sure but can't you achieve this by pressing 'y' on the gamepad, it will add all contents from the folder to the playlist. (sorry dont know if this is only a funtion for my music, as i like having all of my movies in one folder so that i can see all of the movie posters)

[Livin]

jm,
how is this coming?

can you incorporate one feature into the rework...

ability to define different types of videos (maybe by folder/share they are in?) where each can have different views... tv shows, movies, shorts, etc.

they really need different views becasue movies with multiple files are essentially "1 file" split up; where tv series are actually multiple files named simularly.

example:
simple stacking with movies...
 'getshorty -part1.avi' & 'getshorty -part2.avi' are part of same movie.
no stacking with tv shows...
 'alias s02e04.avi' & 'alias s02e08.avi' are separate shows.

... can you incorporate this?

[jmarshall]

simple stacking does the job.

i've started looking into it in the last few minutes in fact.

it probably will take a while for it to evolve to the point where i'm happy enough with it.

cheers,
jonathan