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[greynolds]

Over on The Green Button forum, JimH asked me to bump or post what's missing in Theater View for recording functionality, so here' s a thread dedicated to the topic.  In addition to recording functionality, it probably makes sense to include any other TV functionality that can be handled in Standard View that's missing from Theater View.  Not sure how open you are to suggestions on the implementation, but perhaps that can be covered here as well.

I'll start by listing some of the items that are missing when editing a subscription:

1) There's no way to select / deselect channels.  You can accept the current list of selected channels or select all channels.
2) There's no way to edit the Rules, including no way to make use of the and/or functionality that Yaobing recently added.  Admittedly, this one will be tough to design a Theater View UI for, but I think it's worth striving for.
3) There's no way to edit the Rule name.
4) There's no way to change the anchor time when the subscription time mode is a setting other than "All Showings".
5) There's no way to edit the "apply these tags" settings.

Additionally, I'm not a fan of how the Theater View mode UI is designed for accessing these features, as it just doesn't feel user friendly to me.  Here's how I would propose to re-work it:

- When the user selects the Configure a Subscription option in Theater View, present them with a list of the settings that can be edited, along with what the current values are (truncated as needed) and visual controls to navigate to and click on to change the settings (fields that can be navigated to will be placed within square brackets):

Code: [Select]

Edit Subscription for: [NHL Hockey Boston Bruins]

Channels                                                   [7-1 WHDH-HD, 576 NESNHD, 578...]
Use exact name match                                       [Yes]
Search all fields by name                                  [No]
Subscription time mode                                     [All Showings]
Record reruns                                              [No]
Do not record programs that have been recorded in the past [No]
Start recording early by                                   [-] 2 Minutes [+]
End recording late by                                      [-] 90 Minutes [+]
Priority                                                   [-] Medium [+]
Cleanup mode                                               [-] Delete after 10 days [+]
[Edit Rules]

[Save Changes]
[Cancel Changes]

- The Up arrow and Down arrows should move to the next or previous item in the list and Right and Left arrows should move left/right to controls within the currently selected row.
- Pressing OK on the remote (or enter on the keyboard) on the subscription name allows the user to type in a new name with the keyboard and/or provides a popup keyboard for editing the name
- Pressing OK on the remote (or enter on the keyboard) on the channel list would popup a window with all the channels and provide the user with a way to scroll through and select/deselect the channels they want.  Once the user is done, this popup window would have a Done option to select that closes the popup window and returns to this list.
- Selecting OK on the remote (or enter on the keyboard) on the Yes/No fields would toggle between the 2 options.
- Selecting OK on the remote (or enter on the keyboard) on the Subscription time mode field would toggle between the 4 options (- and + options could be used here instead)
- Selecting OK on the remote (or enter on the keyboard) on the [-] or

• fields would decrease / increase the value associated with it.

- [Save Changes] saves the settings as they currently are
- [Cancel Changes] aborts any changes that have been made
- I'd try to come up with a shorter label for "Do not record programs that have been recorded in the past"
- If "Do not record programs that have been recorded in the past" is set to Yes, then the 4 fields that can be chosen should show up below it, each having a Yes/No option or a checkbox that shows X when selected and nothing when not selected.  If set to No, those 4 fields disappear from the list.
- Selecting OK on the remote (or enter on the keyboard) on [Edit Rules] would bring up a popup window for editing the recording rules.  I'll be adding a post below that gives my thoughts on how this popup window should work.

I believe this would give the user easier access to edit just what they want and would be more intuitive to use.

I hope it's easy enough to visualize how my proposed changes would look in Theater View.  If not, perhaps I can mock something up that's a bit more visual.

[JimH]

Thanks for posting.  I was hoping there would be a few easy changes, but it looks like a heavy modification of the new TV Recording Rules.  We'll take a look, but it probably won't be soon.

[greynolds]

Thanks for posting.  I was hoping there would be a few easy changes, but it looks like a heavy modification of the new TV Recording Rules.  We'll take a look, but it probably won't be soon.

If you take a phased approach to this, I think there are a few easy changes in addition to a larger scale re-working of the user interface.  I don't believe I'm proposing any changes at all to the new TV Recording Rules that you guys recently made.  I'm just requesting that you add access to those rules within Theater View.  I've got some additional suggestions / ideas that I'll post in a bit, but need to go out to run a few errands before the grocery stores get too crazy...

[Yaobing]

Doing settings and recording rules in Theater view is difficult.  We will make an effort on it.

[greynolds]

Doing settings and recording rules in Theater view is difficult.  We will make an effort on it.

I realize this isn't easy, but much of this is really needed if you guys want to be a true replacement for WMC.

[greynolds]

Another item, which may already be possible, but it isn't already in my Theater View and I'm not sure how to get it...

Is it currently possible to add a "Recording Rules" view to Theater View that has the same editing features that the current "Upcoming Recordings" view has?  The current "Upcoming Recordings" view I have uses a Custom rule of [=TVInfo(Record)]=[1] and limits the database to "Television Guide".  This allows one see the list of and edit settings for things that are in the upcoming recordings list, but no way to edit rules that don't have any matches in the current guide data.  The ability to edit all of the "Recording Rules" the user has defined would definitely be needed to replace WMC without forcing them to leave Theater View.

[greynolds]

Here are my thoughts on the popup window for selecting channels:

Code: [Select]

Select Channels

[ ] All channels
[X] 7-1 WHDH-HD
[X] 576 NESNHD
[X] 578 NESN+
[X] 590 NBCSP
[ ] 2-1 WGBH-HD
[ ] 4-1 WBZ-HD
[ ] 5-1 WCVB

[Save]
[Cancel]
This is very similar to the list you get in standard view.  The user would use up/down to navigate through the channels.  The OK button on the remote or the enter key on the keyboard would toggle selections.  If the Save or Cancel button is selected, OK / Enter executes that option.  Give the user a shortcut to get to Save/Cancel by using the left and/or right arrows keys so they don't have to scroll all the way through the channel list to finish when they're done.

It would be really cool (and this might be an enhancement of sorts to the new recording rules, rather than a change to the channel list) to add options of "HD Preferred" and "SD Preferred" so the user can express a preference to record a show in HD or SD, based on the presence of the HD flag in the guide data (realizing that the flag isn't always set properly).  When there are matches on multiple channels, just go with the lower channel number.

[greynolds]

Here are my thoughts on the user interface for editing the recording rules:

Code: [Select]

Edit Rules for: [NHL Hockey Boston Bruins]

[Add New Rule]

Note: () denotes an OR operation, [] denotes an AND operation.

[(] [Name        ] [Contains     ] [NHL Hockey     ] [ ] [Delete] [Move Down]
[ ] [Series      ] [Contains     ] [NHL Hockey     ] [)] [Delete] [Move Up] [Move Down]
[(] [Description ] [Contains     ] [Boston at      ] [ ] [Delete] [Move Up] [Move Down]
[ ] [Description ] [Contains     ] [at Boston      ] [)] [Delete] [Move Up]

[Save]
[Cancel]
- The Up/Down arrow keys move up and down in the list of rules and to the rule name field, Add New Rule button, and Save/Cancel buttons.
- The Left/Right arrow keys move between controls within the current row.
- The OK button on the remote or enter key on the keyboard opens a popup keyboard for editing a field when appropriate OR toggles between the valid options for that field OR executes the selected command (such as Deleting a rule).  If it makes more sense, use of - and + buttons on either side of the item to toggle through the options or a dropdown (or popup) menu to select from the available options would be fine.

By the way, I had no idea that one could click to the left/right of rules to add () or [] to do OR and AND operations was possible when setting up rules for views in standard view until you guys made the rule enhancements to the TV recording rules recently.  It might make sense to add some sort of indication where the user can click rather than the way it is now as that's a really powerful feature that a lot of people may not be aware of.

[greynolds]

I believe what I've described in the above posts covers pretty much everything that's needed to handle management of TV recordings in Theater View.  I suspect I may have missed a few items and will update the posts if I notice something and hope that others will add their comments.

I believe many of us appreciate the effort that's being put into enhancing the TV functionality.  What you guys have done recently is a HUGE step in the right direction.  If you can get the funding needed for Copy Once support and make some (or hopefully all) of the refinements I've described above, I think you'll have a great replacement for WMC that should satisfy just about anybody.