Usability feature requests

[robind]

Hi all,

Here are a few usability items that I've wished for as I've used the beta over the past few weeks. One or two of them may have already been mentioned, but since they were on my list I thought I would mention them all just in case.

1. It would be nice to be able to limit Favorites by channel. For example, if I wanted to get all the episodes of JAG on channel 6, but ignore the ones on other channels.

2. The SysTray icon would be much more useful with just a few enhancements:

2.a. I think it should always be visible, not just when SageTV is "powered off"

2.b. It would be nice if there was another icon used that indicates that SageTV is currently recording.

2.c. The popup tootip that shows what is currently being recorded is nice. It would be even better if the tooltip used when not recording would show what is the next show scheduled to be recorded.

3. This may be more a factor of the content provider than SageTV, but the LiveTV Guide and Program Info seems a bit light on the details. If the info is available I would like to see the first-aired date (or at least the year) and etc., Perhaps in an abbreivated form in the LiveTV Guide and on the On-Screen Display, and in detailed form on Program Info.

4. It would be very nice if switching the live tv channel, or adding a scheduled recording could be done from external sources such as TitanTV.com.

5. Is "Move To Library" supposed to actually move the file on disk? It would be nice if it did, and if there are more than one library dir defined then it could pop up a selector to let you choose where to put it.

6. I could really use a single command that cycles though the various Aspect Ratio Modes.

7. In the LiveTV Guide when the diaply options are set such that the video window is not shown it would be nice to take advantage of the extra space by showing another line or two of guide listings.

[justme]

Nice ideas. Many have been mentioned before but it's always good to have another voice behind them.

4. It would be very nice if switching the live tv channel, or adding a scheduled recording could be done from external sources such as TitanTV.com.

I thought TitanTV switched to an encypted format a while back to stop this sort of thing. I'm not really sure since it's been almost a year since I used the inbox software/service of the PVR card. Either way this is something that would most likely need to come from the user base after the studio is released, if even possible using TitanTV.

5. Is "Move To Library" supposed to actually move the file on disk? It would be nice if it did, and if there are more than one library dir defined then it could pop up a selector to let you choose where to put it.

Nope it a virtual directory. It's more like a "don't ever delete until I tell you to" combined with a seperate screen to reduce clutter. Although actually dividing the recording up into different phsical directories has been talked about for other things. ie like adding a "LiveTV" buffer directory

6. I could really use a single command that cycles though the various Aspect Ratio Modes.

I agree, along with a command for delete. By the way here's a listing of the current commands.

7. In the LiveTV Guide when the diaply options are set such that the video window is not shown it would be nice to take advantage of the extra space by showing another line or two of guide listings.

Mine partially does this, but I agree using the extra space better would be very nice. I'm sure it will come, if nothing else once the Studio is released .

[cassis6]

1. It would be nice to be able to limit Favorites by channel. For example, if I wanted to get all the episodes of JAG on channel 6, but ignore the ones on other channels.

Would be great. I always have the problem with some favorites available on different channels and not being able to control on which channel the recording is done; specially when a show plays first on the channel that has the worst PQ of the two.

[justme]

From the 2.0.10 beta release notes. Regarding known bugs or features yet to be added that are planned.

7. Integrate Channel selection to Favorites

[falchulk]

Why exactly would you want the systray always visable???

[robind]

Originally posted by falchulk
Why exactly would you want the systray always visable???

It goes along with showing more information and states via the systray icon. If I have the SageTV window open, but not fullscreen, and am also working in another window, it woudl be nice to be able to do just a quick glance at the systray icon to see if there is something currently being recorded, etc.