SageTV 9 Web UI (Discussion)

[stuckless]

I have started (and by started, I mean, basically starting the documentation/technology phase) a Web UI replacement that would cover SageTV Web UI, SageTV Mobile Web, and BMT.

Currently we have 3 web projects and 0 people supporting them

The goal is to start out small with a few core features, and the grow the project with features as we need them.

To start, it might be a good idea to get a sense of what people currently do with the existing web tools today, and try to be fairly specific and avoid over generalized comments like "fix metadata". If you are going to request something new, then be specific as well... Avoid, "I want to work like XXXX" type of comments that have 0 value.

For me, here is what I use.

SageTV Web UI/Mobile UI
- Refresh SageTV library
- Add new favourites (emphasis really on just being able to search, then add as favorite, changing quality and setting the overall priority)
- Bulk delete recordings

BMT
- Find items with missing metadata and then using the search/save to manually search, select, and save metadata for an item.
- Refresh SageTV library
- Bulk delete recordings

Android/Phoenix APP (not the miniclient)
- Show unwatched TV shows to know what I can watch tonight
- Show upcomming recordings to know what is getting recorded tonight
- Refresh SageTV library

I've included the Android Phoenix APP here, because for what I use it for, I can replace with a couple simple views in a web UI.

[Taddeusz]

I use the the current web interfaces for pretty much all the same things. But only because that is pretty much all they are currently good for. I tend to use Plex for actual media consumption. I only mention Plex because SageTV does not by itself fill the void that it does.

The focus of a new interface should be on media consumption rather than just system maintenance. Maintaining things is all well and good but when it comes down to it SageTV is a "media center". Plus, we want to attract new users that might not be as tech savvy as many current SageTV users tend to be.

Just a few things I would like to see:

• Be Attractive (let's be honest, while perfectly functional for what it does the current interface is ugly)
• Limit textual lists of things
• In-Browser Player
• Show recently recorded/added media broken out by type (tv or movie)
• Multi-user
• Show partially watched media (by user is preferable)
• "Kid mode" to limit access to adult media & prevent accidental damage

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

Just a few things I would like to see:

• Be Attractive (let's be honest, while perfectly functional for what it does the current interface is ugly)
• Limit textual lists of things
• In-Browser Player
• Show recently recorded/added media broken out by type (tv or movie)
• Multi-user
• Show partially watched media (by user is preferable)
• "Kid mode" to limit access to adult media & prevent accidental damage

I agree with your points, for the most part, except... i do see the web ui are being a maintenance tool. Not only because that's how I use it today, but, because, I'll never use the web UI to watch a video. Sure, when I install Plex, I always pull up a few videos in the web UI, because I can... but beyond that, I've never actually used it to watch a video. We can probably add in a web player, but no one is going to happy with it, and if you are running Android, then the Android MiniClient will be a much better player. The only way to get a decent player would be to create a native app instead of a web app, and that is a different scope. (Or, really beef up the server side transcoding, and eliminate comskip).

So, what is Limit textual lists of strings?

For Multi-User, how do you see that working, for a web app? (Does sagetv support multi-user today?)

Per user things, like show partically watched, would be possible is sagetv does this today (I don't know if that is the case or not... if it does, then this shouldn't be too hard)

Agreed that "kid mode" is important. I guess if we do have multi-user support, then we can have the concept of a simple, read-only account type.

I would note that I see a separate project for a native client vs a web app. I see the web as basically just extending features of the existing sagetv server, making it a quick task to do some things. I don't see the web app as being any type of real client, since I don't the experience would be ideal.

[jusjoken]

I do not use the WebUI at all.

I use BMT nearly daily for...

• find missing metadata - and then correct it if needed (add matcher, fix fields etc)
• handle "other" media manually - home videos or other media not found - manually set metadata for these so they will display well in Gemstone
• force SageTV to scan for media

I use BMT occasionally for....

• export properties to support moving media files around and retaining the metadata (then later delete those properties files)
• bulk delete of media
• fanart management - set defaults, add my own etc. I do this in either Gemstone, CMT and Gemstone - perhaps we need 1 that does it WELL and remove the functions from the others....there are only so many developers so having functions everywhere just increases that effort for maintaining features
• quick way to check out various Views - what might I want to watch etc.
• set/change some phoenix configuration options

I would not use the interface for watching media. I see it more for a quick browse and for settings/maintenance.

Support across as many browsers/device types as possible would be a good goal as well that I am sure you have thought about.

Some level of user control as mentioned already would be good as my wife might want to browse media views but shouldn't be changing settings

Perhaps in the future a feature to build a vfs view (sources, filters, sorts, etc). with a nice UI would be a great addition and be usable for views within the new Web UI as well as for Gemstone.

k

[BobPhoenix]

I use the WebUI to get the airingID for an airing I have deleted from one server due to a bad recording. I copy the recording from another server and rename the file with the deleted airing ID to reconnect. Or at least I use to when I was using SageTV v6. Not needed (for the most part) with v7/9. I also have to do this when I move my server around from one platform to another. I have 6 recordings listed of "PerryMason-S06E07-TheCaseofthePottedPlanter-8330591-0" when I transferred from Windows to Linux. Only 1 of them is correct the rest are other shows.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I agree with your points, for the most part, except... i do see the web ui are being a maintenance tool. Not only because that's how I use it today, but, because, I'll never use the web UI to watch a video. Sure, when I install Plex, I always pull up a few videos in the web UI, because I can... but beyond that, I've never actually used it to watch a video. We can probably add in a web player, but no one is going to happy with it, and if you are running Android, then the Android MiniClient will be a much better player. The only way to get a decent player would be to create a native app instead of a web app, and that is a different scope. (Or, really beef up the server side transcoding, and eliminate comskip).

Yeah, I see a new web interface being more of a web client with the ability to maintain things. Maybe a web client would be better as a separate project not only to keep some of that functionality separate but also to appeal to the current user base that does not want that sort of thing? However, that might not attract new users to SageTV that might otherwise use something like Plex.

As far as in-browser playback I have to disagree. Just as an example the Plex web player does quite well. The only complaint I have is that they don't de-interlace interlaced media. They use ffmpeg as their backend and an HTML 5 player on the client end. No native app required. Since ffmpeg in SageTV can already be used with comskip in Placeshifter I'm sure that functionality could be translated to a web player. Might be a bit of work though.

Originally Posted by stuckless

So, what is Limit textual lists of strings?

I was just thinking for a more client centered focus using the artwork to list or group media is more appealing then just having a list of titles as in the current interface.

Originally Posted by stuckless

For Multi-User, how do you see that working, for a web app? (Does sagetv support multi-user today?)

Per user things, like show partically watched, would be possible is sagetv does this today (I don't know if that is the case or not... if it does, then this shouldn't be too hard)

Agreed that "kid mode" is important. I guess if we do have multi-user support, then we can have the concept of a simple, read-only account type.

SageTV does have user profiles. Not sure how difficult it would be to integrate the web interface with those.

[Taddeusz]

I had another thought. Move away from HTTP basic authentication and use a web form for login. I believe we've discussed this before. iOS is incapable of saving or retrieving basic auth credentials. Yes, you can put the credentials in the URL but then Safari pops up a big fat warning about that before it lets you proceed to the site. Just kind of a PITA.

[KarylFStein]

I use the WebUI mostly to set recordings/favorites when out of the house, monitor SJQ, BMT and SageAlert. In other words to maintain things. For sharing pictures/home movies with family I am currently waiting for Mezzmo 5 to be released to see how it compares to Emby. The only reasons I don't like Plex are because I don't want to make people sign up for a Plex account and it doesn't let me use my own SSL certificate. The Android and (maybe future) iOS clients (my kids like Apple devices) fit the bill for me for playback.

Oh, and sometimes I use the web remote to mess with my kids when they're watching something .

At this point the only thing I use SJQ for is daily premiere/late night alerts to my email. It's a great tool, though, and it'd be nice if someone would mark the web UI for it compatable with v9, (and keep it in mind for future redesigns of the WebUI) .

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

As far as in-browser playback I have to disagree. Just as an example the Plex web player does quite well.

I agree that you "can" do decent playback in the browser, but it's more a function of the server, than the web app itself. ie, Today, with the state of things, I don't think the browser playback would be very good... mainly because it's not already good That being said, I can see us activating a "simple" player, but a part of me is reluctant to do that, unless we really beef up the server parts for transcoding.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

I had another thought. Move away from HTTP basic authentication and use a web form for login.

Yeah, I made a note of that from our previous discussions. We'll have it use form based authentication.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by KarylFStein

At this point the only thing I use SJQ for is daily premiere/late night alerts to my email. It's a great tool, though, and it'd be nice if someone would mark the web UI for it compatable with v9, (and keep it in mind for future redesigns of the WebUI) .

Sadly, that is not likely to happen. SJQ is a separate plugin, entirely, and my guess is that it is no longer going to be maintained. I recently created a PushBullet plugin for sending alerts to phone for various sagetv events. It's pretty simplistic, but maybe something like that could fit the bill for "notifications".

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by stuckless

I agree that you "can" do decent playback in the browser, but it's more a function of the server, than the web app itself. ie, Today, with the state of things, I don't think the browser playback would be very good... mainly because it's not already good That being said, I can see us activating a "simple" player, but a part of me is reluctant to do that, unless we really beef up the server parts for transcoding.

How much hope does the HLS server in v9 bring to this problem? Between that, updating ffmpeg, and supporting H.264 for streaming, could it turn into a real solution?

Truth be told, though, I'm unlikely to use a web app for streaming more than ~twice a year. Network connectivity at work is too slow to use it there, and when I'm traveling I'm more likely to use an Android tablet than a laptop.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by reggie14

How much hope does the HLS server in v9 bring to this problem? Between that, updating ffmpeg, and supporting H.264 for streaming, could it turn into a real solution?

Truth be told, though, I'm unlikely to use a web app for streaming more than ~twice a year. Network connectivity at work is too slow to use it there, and when I'm traveling I'm more likely to use an Android tablet than a laptop.

I think the streaming problem is solvable... at least for the 80% case... But it will require tweaks to the server part, and I'm not sure I'm going there, yet Truth be told... My kids (teenagers) would likely use the video in a browser solution, since it would be easier (and more familiar) for them to use than the desktop placeshifter.

[Monedeath]

I haven't really used BMT, but did use the web interface to manipulate metadata on recordings directly.

[ranger]

Originally Posted by stuckless

SageTV Web UI/Mobile UI
- Refresh SageTV library
- Add new favourites (emphasis really on just being able to search, then add as favorite, changing quality and setting the overall priority)
- Bulk delete recordings

BMT
- Find items with missing metadata and then using the search/save to manually search, select, and save metadata for an item.
- Refresh SageTV library
- Bulk delete recordings

That pretty much sums up what I use it for. I never really used the program guide function in the web ui to schedule recordings, but there were a couple of reasons. One is that I just didn't really like the UI, but the major reason is at home I would just use a client interface and I refused to expose the web UI it to the Internet as I just was not comfortable with the level of security. Improving the authentication mechanism and maintaining SSL would be a big plus.
As far as the web interface providing and streaming content, I'm a bit on the fence. If it could honor the edl files, that would be a big plus over PLEX, but without that, the development time might be too much until the developer community grows a bit more.

[doc]

I use the SageTV WebUI for the following reasons. Please excuse the English spelling

• Look at the recording schedule
• Add/maintain favourites
• Look at the list of recordings
• Look at programme guide
• Search epg, then add shows as favourites
• Manage recording conflicts
• Set shows as watched and then delete them
• Stop playback on an extender/power off
• Edit metadata. Some movies have a genre of 'other', so I change them to 'movie' so they all appear together in the recordings list

I think that's most of it.

[Stu Gare]

I'd like to see the web UI/server upgraded to support latest Java version, before new functionality is added.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by Stu Gare

I'd like to see the web UI/server upgraded to support latest Java version, before new functionality is added.

The new web ui will require Java 8. But to be clear, I'm not touching the existing web ui plugins or the jetty webserver. This is a new project/plugin that leaves everything else behind.

[wayner]

I use the Web UI all of the time. I use it to monitor what is being played on the SageTV servers, to see how many clients are connected, I use it to search the EPG, I use it to add shows to record, I occasionally use the web remote, I use it to monitor SJQ jobs. I also use it remotely a fair bit - from work I can check out the server and see what is going on, particularly if too many extenders are connected which may cause issues.

I use BMT all the time to fix/edit metadata and fanart. I occasionally do batch edits but normally I am just editing one file at a time..

Functionality I would like to see added:

• More info on playback "Now Playing on Kitchen Star Trek 23:45 of 2:04:00, last UI interaction was 23:41 ago."
• Ability to generate thumbnails and see them through the web UI.
• Show what can and can't be changed in metadata - often I will change a metadata field in BMT but it will revert back unless you edit Raw Metadata.
• Integration of addins like Alerts/Pushbullet, SJQ, SRE (if it survives). etc.
• Continued ability to add your own web pages easily - which Slugger added a few years ago.

I also think ensuring that SJQ continues to work is very useful as being able to do automatic pre and post processing of files is highly useful and it makes more sense to make this flexible. What I mean by that is that you can run whatever batch file you want to transcode a file rather than having to use the built-in Sage video conversions which may not be able to keep up with new codecs and stuff like QuickSync. Same thing for marking/cutting commercials.

As long as this doesn't require hardcore coding skills I am willing to help out as I can do a bit of coding in languages like Groovy, Java, Python, etc.

[KryptoNyte]

I love the WebUI. One of Sage's greatest manipulation features in my opinion.

At one point, I pictured the SageTV client simply going away completely, and the WebUI essentially taking it's place, however, as Stuckless has already experienced to some extent with Android, the video rendering portion is one of the most time consuming challenges to that kind of an undertaking, and even when it's great, the performance varies wildly on different devices. I think that's a lot to ask of a developer, especially when I can't contribute much, so although I think that option could have a place in a new WebUI, it wouldn't be there in the beginning.

That said, I embrace and appreciate the simple look and operation of the WebUI as it is right now. I also use RemotePotato which is basically the same thing for WMC, but has a Silverlight flashy look and feel to it - and as nice as it looks, I don't really appreciate the usability as much as I do the simplicity and power of the Sage WebUI as it is today. This coming from a guy that would probably never want a better OS than Windows 7.

I guess that I'd like to have just what we already have but allowing an upgrade of Java beyond v7 on the server, with the following considerations;

1) I'd like to view SageTV logs natively in the WebUI

2) It would be slick if there was some of access to tuner settings or detailed monitoring of the Sage tuners, which I believe EnterNoEscape (ENE) is already working on for his own tuner web interface. Is there any way ENE's tuner status could be integrated into this project instead of a separate entity?

3) I'm more into power and simplicity than I am fancy flash, but that's just me.

4) In the details for any given recording it would be great of there was a link to click on to head straight to TheTVDB.com webpage for that series, and another link for IMDB directly to that show/movie. I can't seem to find this ability in the current webui to go straight to the IMDB for the show itself, actors yes, just not the show.

5) This will probably seem like a strange request at first, and of less importance, but in any given show's detail, for a future show (any show in the upcoming EPG for example), would it be possible to have it show the exact filename and file location target in advance? In some post-processing, it would be good to see the exact filename syntax if this is possible. I can't always guess in advance how "The X-files" [as an example] will show up in the final filename (that extra dash in there can throw a monkey wrench into the post-processing works).

6) Is there any way that the WebUI can autoupdate to reload just the revised fields on the fly, so that when a new recording begins the homescreen will autoupdate without having to manually reload it?

7) In the scheduled recordings section, could a column be added for which tuner has been selected for that particular recording? Not sure that would fit in the space, but maybe there is a way to truncate meaningfully?

8) In the list of favorites, would it be possible to drag and drop a row up or down to modify the order/importance?

9) In the EPG grid view, I like to show all channels at the same time, but when I want to move forward 4 or 6 hours, I have to scroll back to the top. In the options for this section, would it be possible to inject the time headings at a user selected interval of channel listings, so that it might reappear every 15 or 20 rows?

[EnterNoEscape]

Since the Sagex API is currently made available via the old Jetty webserver, will that remain as it is? I'm just concerned that the old Jetty will not like coexisting with the latest Jetty. I'm a huge fan of this interface for scripting things outside of SageTV.

Also I use SJQ to run a task every day at 1am to send an email myself and my wife with all of the shows premiering that day. I modified the script so that if an HD channel is available, it uses the HD channel and it also turns the show title into a link so I can just click on the link and it takes me directly the airing the email is referring to. I figure I could leverage push bullet to get the same result, but where I'm really going with this is, can we make sure that a specific airing/mediafile details page can be opened directly via a URL parameter. For example, the current web interface can go directly to an airing via /sage/DetailedInfo?AiringId=<airing_id>?