More > JRiver Media Center 18 for Windows
Wish List: New MC User from XBMC & iTunes
InflatableMouse:
A bit of respect and understanding goes a long way folks ... let's keep it civilized OK?
rick.ca:
--- Quote from: spiggytopes on August 29, 2012, 02:31:37 am ---This explains everything and, to me, highlights an attitude problem.
--- End quote ---
I was only suggesting no MC user could possibly be confused by the existence of expressions in a configuration. If they were, they would have reverted to iTunes long before attempting to configure Theatre View.
--- Quote ---I have spent many hours here over the last months asking questions and TRYING to pick things up as I go.
--- End quote ---
And I'm suggesting a better designed Theatre View configuration UI would have made those hours less frustrating and more productive. Why are you against that? What, exactly, do you want? You've indicated support for 'wizards', yet no one has described how a wizard would guide someone through a Theatre View configuration. I don't think anything of substance could be accomplished that way. It certainly couldn't be any where near as flexible and effective as what I've suggested. Nothing could be simpler than choosing among alternative stock menus and disabling those not needed. And if you chose to make modifications, the UI would be pretty much self-explanatory.
Just to be clear, I previously indicated exactly where I believe well designed wizards could be used to good effect. It seems to me correct configuration choices in those areas will ensure at least the stock views in Theatre View work as intended. The result would be Theatre View working 'out of the box' as well as any other software.
Bizarroterl:
Here's what (IMO) a wizard should do:
Set up sources for Movies, TV Shows, Pictures, and Music, allowing multiple sources for each media type.
Set up the home screen and give the user some options on how it looks.
Go through each media type and give the user some options on how each submenu will look. IE Do you want Newly Added, Title, Genre,etc submenus, and how do you want each to appear. These options would vary based on the type of media.
The user is warned if there are any issues, IE the user defines a location for Music but no music is found there.
The different media submenu/views options should have enough variety so that the majority of users can get a result that is close to what they want. IE in a TV Show submenu/view one option would be ShowName/Season/Episode#.
The purpose (IMO) of a wizard should not be a replacement for all the possible controls, but a tool that will make it easy for a new user to get their system up and running quickly. There's a reason a lot of software systems use wizards, and that is because they work.
As to the itunes comment. There are really 3 types of people when it comes to HTPCs. The vast majority will never have a HTPC and don't have the skills or inclination to ever implement one. They can use itunes. Then there are the tech types that understand the concepts of expressions and have the knowledge and skills to hack through MC to get a working setup. The last group are those with a little understanding or limited time to implement MC but are technical enough to want/understand the advantages of a HTPC. That is the group a wizard will help and those are the people that will buy MC instead of giving up.
rick.ca:
--- Quote ---There are really 3 types of people when it comes to HTPCs.
--- End quote ---
Fine, let's look at it your way. There are iDiots, geeks and normal users. Normal users are those intelligent, pragmatic people who consider the need to configure anything without being spoon-fed 'hacking'. If media is identified correctly (which, as I've acknowledged, may be better ensured using a wizard rather than automatic guessing), the default Theatre View will work. That, surely, is the best solution for most of these users—who don't want to waste time configuring things. For the rest (geek wannabes?), are they really going to be better served by a wizard than the configuration UI I've suggested? Given that the stock configuration works (and the configuration could offer any number of working alternative menus easily activated/deactivated according to preference), how is the wizard designer to guess what it is the user might what that's not already available? Even if successful, everyone is going to need to use the configuration UI eventually. Shouldn't it be easy to understand and use?
It seems to me the real issue here is that busy (and perhaps impatient) users are running into a barrier that causes them to dismiss the whole thing as hopelessly complex. I'm suggesting that barrier be removed—by making the configuration more transparent, flexible and easier to use. No one looking at such a tree-like representation of a tree-structured menu can fail to understand what it represents. It will be easy to isolate any menu of interest and view all it's applicable settings. Being able to see those settings for other menus at the same time may be all a user needs to understand what needs to be changed. More importantly, it would dismiss the false notion things are hopelessly complex. They are, in fact, rather straightforward, logical and consistent.
An issue caused by sheltering users from how things work cannot be solved by continuing to do so. If an automatic set up and stock views work, that's great. But it often won't, and everyone will eventually need to configure things directly anyway. What's needed is a better configuration UI.
BTW, another advantage of such a UI: Someone having trouble could post a screenshot of the menu's configuration. In many cases, experienced users would readily see the problem and could offer solutions. As it is now, many don't even know where to find the relevant settings, and experienced users have to guess what the cause of the problem might be. Even happy endings leave intact the notion the thing cannot be configured by mere mortals.
MrHaugen:
Rick, you're writing like such a thing as a wizard and a better view management can not co-exist. That is not the case. I cheer for your suggestion of simplifying the view manager! To make it better. It really needs that so normal users can use it better. By the way... Such concrete suggestions that you made here would be better served for a specific thread on that topic I think. I would be happy to brainstorm and find a better solution.
I think that a Wizard would help that part of the users that base their first impression solely on the defaults. This is probably a big group of users. They see that Theater View view differs to much from their favorite Media Center, and they drop it. They miss the bling, they miss the lack of Watched/not Watched indicators, they miss Seasons from the Series view and so on. Small things, but still things that can be enough for them to drop it. I've seen this several times my self. They will probably not even start looking at the View Manager, even if it was dead simple.
If Theater View had a wizard for initial configuration of what views to add, what skins to use (with a preview), what themes to use (with a preview), possible location selectors for different media so carnac does not miss so much, items to add or remove from the rollers, I think that there would be a HUGE bump in user satisfactory with the modified "defaults" and there would be less problems with carnac misses.
All media centers might not have such a wizard, but you can still easily change such things with the remote in most application. It's a few clicks away, and the options are more limited so it's easy to find for novice users. We need to go to standard view and into a quite overwhelming (for new users) options interface. And that makes MC17/18 very different from other Media Centers. A wizard could be our way of helping the users with normal settings without having to go through a bunch of options.
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