V7 UI Impressions

[briankeys]

Just to share my two cents, I didn't like the clutter of the old SageTV interface and used SageMC instead preferring it's simpler UI. I was looking forward to installing SageTV7 and the new glassy interface is a treat to the eyes... The usability however was a bit of a let down. No gaping deficiencies, just a bunch of little things. When I delete a show in SageMC for example, I get an yes/no confirmation and that's it. In SageTV7, I get a menu with four different delete options. Seems petty but my brain is fried from work, my eyes are fuzzy and can't see clearly and now I have to exercise my brain to figure out which option to use.

When I click on 'TV' I go to the recordings screen which is great. Except it only goes to the last recordings screen that was being used. If I want to change it to one of the other three recording screens, I have to hit options and up / down a few times followed by select. In SageMC, I only needed one recording screen. Movies where grouped into a folder at the top of the list so they didn't clutter up the favorite recordings. I've been trying to do that with Sage but can't quite get there with the filter and grouping options that are available. I can set one recordings screen to show only favorites which eliminates the movies but it should also display manual recordings of batman or spongebob that my girls find when browsing the guide. If I enable the manual recordings along with the favorites then I am back to movies mixed in with regular shows. What I need is to be able to filter by category but have an option to exclude categories such as 'film' and 'movie'. I tried checking all the other categories except these two but that didn't work as some shows seem to be listed in multiple categories.

I'm in a strange place where I like the look of SageTV7 but much prefer the usability of SageMC. The latter has some flaws however such as when viewing future airings of a certain show, I might see three episodes that I can record in the coming days however some of them are actually from last year or the year before but SageMC thinks they are in the future as it only seems to monitor day and month, not year. The 'disable comskip' button in the options menu was always a little unpredictable and some shows persisted in skipping non existent commercials even after comskip was disabled. The favorites recording options would also be ignored occasionally. I'd set a show to only record five episodes and Sage would completely ignore that limit and record every showing.

These glitches all seem to be non existent in SageTV7 so I'm using it right now and do enjoy the overall appearance. The general usability is pretty cool to play with but at the end of the day when I'm tired and only have less than an hour to watch a show, I find the menu dance gets a little irritating.

But that's just me, we all have different tastes and perspectives and while I'm a little disappointed in the new UI, I certainly respect and appreciate all the work and talent that was invested in making what is for sure a dramatic improvement over the old SageTV

[bialio]

When I click on 'TV' I go to the recordings screen which is great. Except it only goes to the last recordings screen that was being used. If I want to change it to one of the other three recording screens, I have to hit options and up / down a few times followed by select

There is a shortcut to switch between views. The skip forward / backwards keys cycle through all the views. I'm sure this is documented somewhere, but I discovered it on accident.

btl.