V7 UI Impressions

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by David G

No, that would be consistent and predictable because you're playing a DVD. The point is that not even an option for this was ever provided, and the answer was the completely unintuitive 'page' keys.

On the remote, the Channel UP/Down buttons act as Page Up/Down. And since my remote abbreviates Channel as "Ch", it goes well as buttons for Chapter Up/Down also. But the feature you are asking for is not a popular one that everybody has a problem with, so it is unlikely that they would put that on the priority of TO-DO list. You already have your say so lets just leave it at that.

[David G]

Here's another one I just noticed. In the recorded shows list, I have a program being recorded. There is a REC icon next to it, and it is highlighted in a yellow-ish/tan color. The problem is that this highlight is brighter than the current selection's highlight, and your eyes/brains are tricked into believing that the show being recorded is the one currently selected.

The program being recorded probably doesn't need the highlight at all, the REC icon is sufficient (though it clashes with the new theme - different issue). The current selection could use a stronger highlight.

[osburnfamily]

Sadly, I must agree with the general premise of the OP. If you’ve read my long post a while back about my HTPC experience, you’ll hopefully understand I’m not trying to pile on or do any bashing or malice toward Sage. But after installing 7—the MCE IR Blaster aside (it does irk me—but there would be a “work around”), I too am pretty disappointed.

I didn’t expect the new UI to be like VMC/7MC. But, I did expect it to be innovated like VMC/7MC was to the original MCE. My feeling after using it the last 24 hours is that it’s really nothing more than the best of the original STV, and the best of SageMC, merged together with a lot of new high-tech glassy feel to it. But at the end of the day, it’s still the original STV/SageMC. IMHO.

The only real innovation on the UI side seems to be they made it easier for other people to be the true innovators.

I don’t want to “skin” my HTPC. I just want the ability to take an already awesome UI, and re-arrange the menus to my liking—not throw out the UI for something else.

I’m sure the under-the-hood stuff is sweet. The plugin-manager was pretty cool. But not enough to make me switch at the expense of the above.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by osburnfamily

I don’t want to “skin” my HTPC. I just want the ability to take an already awesome UI, and re-arrange the menus to my liking—not throw out the UI for something else.

To be fair, your story of HTPCs in your house (which I did find helpful to understanding your HTPC dilemmas) was more about your issues with QAM tuners, Getting the MCE IR Blaster (do they still make those?) to work and the hacks & add-ons that you liked with Windows 7 MC.
I don't doubt that you dislike the SageTV UI and do like the UI you've modded from the base Windows 7 MC, but what don't you like about this one?

The one UI-centric thing you said you like about Windows 7 MC is this: "polished glassy look AND feel" of Windows Vista MC (and Windows 7 MC I'm guessing)
Is that it? Or is it the vertical/horizontal combo menus, the sound effects when you move the remote focus around, etc etc?


By the way. I should probably get this out there. I'm not in any way knocking those who don't care for the new UI. And I don't begrudge anyone who prefers the Windows Media Center UI either. I use Windows 7 MediaCenter for testing (I'm actually testing two different capture devices on W7MC as I type this) and feedback and blogging. But I'm always surprised when people use that UI as the end-all of UIs. It's WAY better than the old default SageTV UI in my opinion. And much better than Boxee even. But while I think it looks really nice and all, I don't think it is that great from a usability standpoint. And most people seem to be making changes to it via hacks to make it work the way they want it to. Which is very similar to adding a different theme or replacement UI (not that there are any publicly available yet) to SageTV 7. There's just not that big of a difference to me. It's more of a personal preference I think.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by Narflex

Wouldn't that be inconsistent since then the behavior is different depending upon what media you playback?

Of course it would be inconsistent but would be "intuitive" to him since that's what he wants (and therefore intuitive for everyone else and good "design").

Since he is such an expert in this area, I think he should draw up a new UI and then some other anonymous "expert" can come on here and pick it apart and tell him how horrible it is and how he has no idea what he is doing.

[osburnfamily]

Originally Posted by Brent

To be fair, your story of HTPCs in your house (which I did find helpful to understanding your HTPC dilemmas) was more about your issues with QAM tuners, Getting the MCE IR Blaster (do they still make those?) to work and the hacks that you liked with Windows 7 MC.
I don't doubt that you dislike the SageTV UI and do like the UI you've modded from the base Windows 7 MC, but what don't you like about this one?

The one UI-centric thing you said you like about Windows 7 MC is this: "polished glassy look AND feel" of Windows Vista MC (and Windows 7 MC I'm guessing)
Is that it? Or is it the vertical/horizontal combo menus, the sound effects when you move the remote focus around, etc etc?

lol--sadly, they still make the IR Blasters. And you're correct about the QAM saga.

I think I mentioned it in my other post-- we didn't like the vertical/horizontal scrolling for the longest time. Mainly because we didn't know where things were and it felt like we kept "getting lost". Also, it didn’t make send that on one strip your “default” icon was all the way to the right, while another you’d be all the way to the left. And, only recently after upgrading to hardware that made it very snappy, did we even have animation effects. Still don't have sound effects. Last thing we like is hearing a bleep or dong just moving through mediacenter. A three-year-old with the remote under that setup will drive you insane in about 10 minutes!

But what eventually put it all together was that I could rearrange the tiles within their respective strips, and then define which one was always the default tile. (For those that don't know... tiles are the individual "things" on a given menu. As in Guide, or Recorded TV. And strips are the given menus, like "Videos" or "Television" or "Music".)

The other thing we did like was that the cursor was always locked in the center and the strips scrolled through. (SageMC had this capability if I recall)

So at the end of the day, I ended up with the stock ui that was arranged just to our liking (no skins—no sagemc on top of stv). And our liking ended up being our favorite tiles arranged on each strip from left to right based on frequency of use. The most used tile of each strip being the default tile. So everything is "left justified". Up and down on the remote simply scrolls the strips.

The TV Strip goes Guide/Recorded TV/Search Guide/Live TV/Burn DVD. I merge the Music & Pictures stuff together on one strip, with the Music "folder" being first (pictures are only ever used for music slideshow purposes). Everything video that's not-TV/Tuner related on it's own "Videos & Movies" strip, with the Videos Folder being first, then NetFlix, Hulu, ArcSoft BD Player, MS DVD Player, PlayOn (in order).

The Extra Programs strip has stuff like weather, games, etc… and the System Settings strip was fairly straight forward… Shutdown/Restart or Close/Exit then Settings.

[osburnfamily]

Originally Posted by Brent

... And most people seem to be making changes to it via hacks to make it work the way they want it to. Which is very similar to adding a different theme or replacement UI (not that there are any publicly available yet) to SageTV 7. There's just not that big of a difference to me. It's more of a personal preference I think.

And I think here, just as you said--is a personal preference and where I would respectfully disagree. A different skin or replacement UI isn't the same thing as changing the default UI's "arrangement". There's no additional overhead on the system to have the icons justified one way vs. another. But there's considerable change when you're litereally loading modules never intended by the original design to be ran.

How could Sage or MS expect to guarantee basic core stability under those conditions? That's why I would never knock Sage if SageMC crashes all the time... or MS, if MediaBrowser crashed all the time. The default stuff works all the time!

One other point--I don't necessarily consider using MediaCenterStudio to rearrange the icons as a hack. It was written to do what MS SDK allows for in modifying MediaCenter... much the same way that I expect the Sage Studio does?

Now if you're constantly having the personally hit the registry, or supply xml's... then yeah---that's a "hack". The same way modifying the .properties files (IMHO) is a hack.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by osburnfamily

And I think here, just as you said--is a personal preference and where I would respectfully disagree. A different skin or replacement UI isn't the same thing as changing the default UI's "arrangement". There's no additional overhead on the system to have the icons justified one way vs. another. But there's considerable change when you're litereally loading modules never intended by the original design to be ran.

I guess. But MediaCenterStudio, My Channel Logos, MCBackup, GuideTool, MediaBrowser etc are all 3rd party tools - not even true, intended (by MS) to be installed add-ons whereas SageTV's Studio was actually designed to be used to create add-ons and such. And now, with the plugin manager installing these is pretty simple - download & install right from the UI as designed by SageTV itself.
One of the really nice things people won't see with SageTV7 for a while is the stuff built-in for developers to use. It was built with plugins in mind - just like Apple built the iPhone to have "apps".

I think SageMC had so many issues and speedbumps along the way because it was sort of band-aided along over time. That's the biggest reason the main devs of SageMC decided to start over with their new project...

Now if you're constantly having the personally hit the registry, or supply xml's... then yeah---that's a "hack". The same way modifying the .properties files (IMHO) is a hack.

Agreed.

I'm going to have to stop typing for the night. These Gin & Tonic's are really good and, well I sometimes tend to ramble on needlessly

[HelenWeathers]

Intuitive, to my way of thinking, is what I'm used to. If it's not what I'm used to, then it's not intuitive. I'm still looking for the knob that should pull out to turn on the headlights of my car. I just drive during the day for now.

[osburnfamily]

"..But the issue I think is you're decrying the "lack" of customizability in Sage, but you seem to have no problem with doing exactly the same thing in WMC. If you're fine using Media Center Studio, what's the problem using SageTV Studio? ..."

Tone of the question aside... It's an incredibly fair question. If SageTV Studio has the ability to re-arrange the default sage menus, the same way MCS does... Then I'd be willing to take another look a S7. I honestly don't know what STS's capabilies are. But only if it's all within the original STV resources.

I guess I'm just really stuck on that point.

MCS, Backup, etc... they all do the things mentioned. But it's all within the original SDK framework. Guide Logos is the only thing that actually "adds" data to to the original programming. But even that is only the actual images.

[osburnfamily]

Originally Posted by Brent

I'm going to have to stop typing for the night. These Gin & Tonic's are really good and, well I sometimes tend to ramble on needlessly

Me too! My wife & I are re-watching the last season of Lost as a marathon, ahead of the finale on Sunday. She keeps evil-eyeing me as I sit here with my laptop. lol

Nice chat though.

[Brent]

Cheers!

[TallMomof2]

IMO, the UI is a big improvement. Besides being far prettier, it's retained and enhanced the functionality. I even added the Serenity theme, my DH will like this better than the default STV.

One of the somewhat minor improvements that made me very happy was to see the TV Show Editorial moved from Online to TV. Much more logical *and* intuitive.

I mostly navigate with a mouse and the flyout menus are very nice. (Once my kidlets find the HD200 remote, I'll put v7 through the paces on my HD200.)

It would be nice be able to lockout via password/PIN certain menu items so that the kids/husband don't make unwanted changes or delete the wrong thing.

One of the informational items I miss from the Malore menus in v6 is disk space at the top of the acreen. It's enabled but I assume it's one of those things that didn't translate to v7.

Overall, it's well worth the $40.

[heffneil]

I haven't read through all the above posts but I have to say that the plugin module or the add in section is just wonderful. I remember at first getting acquainted with plug ins and other add ons and it was downright confusing. The learning curve was almost to the point of unbearable. This new addition of the plug in module will make things much easier for new adopters and even for us as we want to add and remove plug ins...

Neil

[David G]

Originally Posted by cncb

Of course it would be inconsistent but would be "intuitive" to him

And to anyone who's ever used a DVD player, but whatever.

since that's what he wants (and therefore intuitive for everyone else and good "design").

You missed the point by a mile. That story wasn't about the RW2/FW2. It was about Sage telling me there's already a contrived way to do what I'd like, so why should they bother really. Development priority was never brought up.

Since he is such an expert in this area, I think he should draw up a new UI and then some other anonymous "expert" can come on here and pick it apart and tell him how horrible it is and how he has no idea what he is doing.

You know what I find hilarious? People who pretend to believe (or worse, really do believe), that one must be immune from criticism in order to criticize. Anyhow, last I checked, I'm the one paying Sage's product, not the other way around.

[David G]

Originally Posted by David G

Here's another one I just noticed. In the recorded shows list, I have a program being recorded. There is a REC icon next to it, and it is highlighted in a yellow-ish/tan color. The problem is that this highlight is brighter than the current selection's highlight, and your eyes/brains are tricked into believing that the show being recorded is the one currently selected.

The program being recorded probably doesn't need the highlight at all, the REC icon is sufficient (though it clashes with the new theme - different issue). The current selection could use a stronger highlight.

In the same screen:
- selection doesn't wrap around anymore
- alphabetical sorting should be on the first significant word (this has been mentioned elsewhere already)

[cncb]

Originally Posted by David G

It seems they just don't understand UI design at all, and won't hire someone who does.

You know what I find hilarious? People who pretend to believe (or worse, really do believe), that one must be immune from criticism in order to criticize. Anyhow, last I checked, I'm the one paying Sage's product, not the other way around.

I think you can offer criticism to Sage in a respectful manner but I guess your $40 means you don't have to, huh?

[joe123]

Originally Posted by David G

I must echo another poster and say that Sage has completely missed the boat on the UI redesign.

I have not tried v7 yet, but I've seen screen shots and I totally agree with you 100%.

SageTV could have hired Nielm many years ago since Nielm created so many nice features for this product, but as you stated, Sage missed the boad there too and now again.

[David G]

Originally Posted by cncb

I think you can offer criticism to Sage in a respectful manner but I guess your $40 means you don't have to, huh?

Show me where I have been disrespectful. Stating that Sage doesn't understand UI design is not disrespectful. Stating that they won't hire a professional to fix their UI is a fact. Have they? No, because they think it doesn't need fixing, which is part of the problem.

(And for the record, closer to $1000, but hey who's counting.)

[joe123]

Originally Posted by David G

Show me where I have been disrespectful. Stating that Sage doesn't understand UI design is not disrespectful.

I personally do not think you have been disrespectful and there is nothing to apologize for.

My observation from posting here for many years is that people here are very sensitive to any criticism of the product. Good product, but very sensitive people who could benefit a lot from taking criticism correctly and improving a good product to a great product.

But I don't see that happening any time soon.