Sage V7: inefficient use of screen space?

[tchapin]

So after playing around w/ the default v7 interface, it seems to be to have a lot of wasted space. The artwork that's included is super high quality and it's really nice, but I don't know if I see the point.

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Recordings
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I don't have a tuner on my test machine, so I can't test this yet. I recall seeing a post on how to make a fake tuner a month or so ago, but I can't find those instructions at the moment.

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Menus
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For example, the home screen shows the menu along the left 1/5 of the screen and a changing image across the rest. Why not use that space to the right to show useful information? If I explore the menu options, it looks really really strange and empty. Why did the other options disappear? Why do the menu panes appear to get progressively larger?



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Music
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In general, there just isn't that much information presented on most of the screens. As an example, on the music by artist screen, only 7 artists fit on the screen at once. The total number of songs for the artist is displayed twice once at the listing and then again on the top right. Additionally, the artist name is repeated for each album as it's listed down the right side of the screen. I like having the album art displayed for each album, but it might be better to attach it to the album list on the right side, rather than list them out for each artist in the main list. I'm also not sure that the number of songs is needed for each album in this list.



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Online
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An idea for that screen would be to list out each artist by name in the list but then display the album information dynamically on the right hand side. As you scroll down the list, the album covers would display there vertically. You can select them by navigating the cursor, like you do with the album list right now.

I know that the PlayOn plugin is a plugin, but my guess is that it is displaying the options as dictated by SageTV. Why are the options presented in such large boxes? Why not just a list so that you can fit more items on the screen? V6 had a similar way of displaying the options, but at least 15 of the squares fit on the screen at a time. In v7, it appears to be able to display only 6 at a time.



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Videos
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The videos section is just confusing to me to use. I guess I don't have good metadata for my videos, so I default to navigating by folders. It's weird because the presentation of the items is similar to that of music. However, it is displayed in a similar fashion but behaves differently. And why does a highlight rotate among the titles of the individual videos? To my mind, videos and music should probably be displayed and behave in the same way. You're talking about collections of items in both cases. A list of items (artists / video folders) along the left with the contents (albums / videos or video subfolders) to be displayed on the right that can be navigated among and selected.



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Photos
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Photos I don't have a problem with. It can't get much simpler than that.

Thoughts?

[Brent]

The obvious question/response is: How would you do it differently?



One thing you can count on here. If you don't love what is there, say what you prefer with lots of detail and your chances of seeing what you like either from SageTV or from 3rd party devs is higher than the norm. No guarantees or anything (unless you're a dev yourself) but there's at least a chance someone with the skills might agree with you.

[fac13]

Here's an example then...

I've been wondering why on the Video screen the uppper right quarter of the screen (approximately) is unused. For an example look at the last of tchapin's photos, above the word Daria.

Is this space reserved for some sort of metadata, only I've got metadata for many of my videos and this space is still blank?

Starting the text half way down the screen means that long descriptions which would otherwise fit, don't.

I just know somebody's going to point out some obvious reason I've missed, because this seems so illogical ...

[gplasky]

Every one of those screens (except the Main Menu) has an option to change the number of columns and the numbers of rows. If you have the metadata you could actually configure a "poor man's" version of either a movie or video wall. I never browse by folder so I don't even deal with that interface.

If I may suggest-if you are going to critique the interface you may want to make it fully functional so that you do have actual recordings with metadata, dvd rips with metadata. Refer to the manual or threads so that you are fully aware of the options and configurations available in the plain vanilla default. In addition some of the available plugins also address your criticisms.

All info and feedback is good. But being fully informed and aware of options results in better feedback.


Gerry

[tchapin]

Hi Brent,

I did make some suggestions about how I thought it could be better organized, at least for the content screens. I could try mocking up some screens if there is interest or discussion.

As for the menus, the sliding translucent panels just look and behave strangely to me. I'd prefer a more standard type of menu system.

I tried Boxee again yesterday and their left of the screen slideout menu is interesting. I'm not sure that I'd want something like that though. I'd have to play around with it more.

[CyRex]

I know where you are coming from fac13. I think the music library is the one that bothers me the most. I mean, in most cases the artist/album name doesn't even fit on the screen without using ellipsis, which really shouldn't be necessary on a 42" screen.

-Dan

[fac13]

At least on the Music screens the text is displayed starting at the top of the screen; I'd still like to understand why on the Video screens metadata text display starts almost halfway down.

gplasky, if your reply was to my post then I'll repond to the points you made, but as it appears to have been in reponse to the OP I'll not do so for now.

[bialio]

It starts halfway down because that's where the Video Preview goes - if you are watching TV while browsing the Video library, and have video in menus enabled, you'll see the active video in that spot.

On the recordings screen you tend to see more content there than videos - and if you install and configure Fanart you'll see it show up there.

btl.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by tchapin

I could try mocking up some screens if there is interest or discussion.

Before putting too much effort into non-functional mockups, maybe you should consider opening up Studio and creating an STVI that actually implements some of these suggestions. You don't need a lot of programming experience to be able to rearrange menu items or move existing UI elements around on screen.

I don't mean this to come off as a "if you don't like it, then build your own" type of response. But since you're clearly committed to spending a fair amount of time and thought on a detailed critique of the UI, it doesn't seem like that big of a leap to try to put your ideas into functional form so that people could actually test-drive them. (And it might also help you appreciate some of the practical constraints of UI design.)

Just a thought.

[fac13]

Originally Posted by bialio

It starts halfway down because that's where the Video Preview goes - if you are watching TV while browsing the Video library, and have video in menus enabled, you'll see the active video in that spot.

Thank you, that explains it; I have Preview as background.

This is another case of the Music and Videos screens behaving differently; Music text starts at the top of the screen if Preview is "Background" and in the middle if "Window" (logically), but Video text always starts at the middle.

I can't imagine this particular difference is intended; I'll submit a Bug Report.

[tchapin]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

And it might also help you appreciate some of the practical constraints of UI design.)

Hi Greg,

I have been considering trying out Studio. I run a headless server though and so far am not interested in forking over for a second license. It's too bad that Studio can't run in a network fashion.

Additionally, I am a professional interaction designer, although not a graphic designer. While I've specialized in speech recognition for the past 10 years, I do have experience in GUI design. I am not a programmer, although I work closely with them. So, I do have a great appreciation for constraints.

Todd

[tchapin]

Originally Posted by bialio

It starts halfway down because that's where the Video Preview goes - if you are watching TV while browsing the Video library, and have video in menus enabled, you'll see the active video in that spot.

That's interesting. If that's the case, in order for the text location to not look weird, I'd be tempted to put the video preview in the bottom right corner of the screen. However, is the video preview in a consistent location across all screens? There could be an impact there.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by tchapin

I have been considering trying out Studio. I run a headless server though and so far am not interested in forking over for a second license. It's too bad that Studio can't run in a network fashion.

Studio runs on SageTV Client, and in fact I'd recommend that as a safer approach than experimenting directly on your production server. You could try that free for 21 days before deciding whether to fork over for a client license.

It's also possible, but somewhat awkward, to use Studio with Placeshifter. The Studio window comes up on the server, so you'd need an RDP session (or the equivalent) to do your edits in Studio while viewing the results in the Placeshifter window. (I haven't actually tried this myself, though, since I have a valid Client license on my dev machine.)

[bialio]

Unless they've relaxed things recently, you have to have a licensed version of SageTV Client in order to launch Studio. So you can't really try 'free' - if that's still the case.....

btl.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by bialio

Unless they've relaxed things recently, you have to have a licensed version of SageTV Client in order to launch Studio. So you can't really try 'free' - if that's still the case.....

Yes, you're right; I forgot about that.

[fac13]

Originally Posted by bialio

It starts halfway down because that's where the Video Preview goes - if you are watching TV while browsing the Video library, and have video in menus enabled, you'll see the active video in that spot.

Apparently that's not the reason. I raised a bug based on the fact that text still starts halfway down if you have Preview mode set to Background, whereas on the equivalent Music screen it starts at the top in that circumstance.

The response I got was "That's because on the Video menus it'll show a thumbnail if it's available instead".

This leaves me more confused, because I've got thumbnails, they don't display, and the text still starts halfway down the screen. My thumbnails are simply the video file name with .jpg instead of .mpg or whatever. They show fine on the left hand side of the screen.

What would I need to do to get a thumbnail displayed where Sage support say there should be one, assuming their response was correct?

[darcilicious]

When I'm in Current Recordings for example, I get a thumbnail/preview image in the upper right corner that is a frame from that recording. Right below that, I get the recording/show info.

However, I don't get the same thumbnail/preview image when viewing Videos by Title. Instead, the thumbnail/preview is on the left, in the list. In order to get a better preview/thumbnails, I set the display to be 3 by 3... Is this what you're seeing / talking about?

If so, send SageTV screen shots -- that would show them what you/we are seeing at least.

[bialio]

I have never seen any kind of thumbnail/preview in the video area other than in the grid/list on the left side of the screen.

In the default UI at least.

With the Phoenix / BMT combo I see the fanart there.

btl.

[fac13]

Originally Posted by bialio

I have never seen any kind of thumbnail/preview in the video area other than in the grid/list on the left side of the screen.

In the default UI at least.

With the Phoenix / BMT combo I see the fanart there.

btl.

I think that and the reply to my bug suggest they've deliberately left empty space in the default UI for use by people developing plug-ins.

I don't think that's a particularly good idea, but it's not a big deal.

[xred]

Throwing my .02 on the pile here, but the menu system should work something like the "blade" UI system from the XB0X 360 / XBMC. Specifically the functionality where the menu title goes from being horizontal to vertical once selected. So in the above main menu screenshot once you selected "recordings" the parent TV menu would become a narrow column beside the TV column. Once the recording sub menu is selected the "recordings" menu would go vertical e.g.

From:
RECORDINGS
To:
R
E
C
O
R
D
I
N
G
S