Usability Suggestions

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klaberte

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Usability Suggestions

#1

Post by klaberte » Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:17 am

Perhaps these could go under "Bug Reports" or "Feature Requests", but I thought there could be a thread for improving user experience (UX). If others think this should be merged, by all means!

klaberte

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#2

Post by klaberte » Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:24 am

I would suggest moving the logo downloads and .\logos directory to be put on a separate page. For those that are coming to epg123, I suspect their main concern is replacing MS' (Rovi) EPG mess. The logo stuff is not critical to this. If people have not already sought out ways of adding logos to their WMC guides, they probably do not need to mess with the logos here.

Don't get me wrong. It is nice that you built it into the epg123 tool. But its prominent position, right in the middle of other EPG features may encourage newbies (like me) to say, "Oh cool! Let me click on these things!" and end up with something they may not want.

If you do put these on a separate page, perhaps removing all the logos would be a nice option to add to the GUI.

klaberte

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#3

Post by klaberte » Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:27 am

I would have the "Automatically import guide..." and the Automatch choices at the top of the configuration. I would also default to having them checked when the program first opens. Running with those two options clicked will give most newbies a happy result.

klaberte

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#4

Post by klaberte » Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:29 am

Schedules Direct Account: I would add some text, or a button that launches a help page, very clearly placed on the top of the GUI. I didn't realize (on my first opening of the program) that the first thing to do was to get a Schedules Direct account. For those who don't always RTFM, these little things can get newbies pointed in the right direction.

glugglug

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#5

Post by glugglug » Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:31 pm

With a 21 day guide on FIOS, the cache directory has over 90K files.
It takes much longer to read from the cache than it does to populate it on the initial run because of disk seeks to all these files (when building the cache, writes get buffered).
It would run a lot quicker as one big file, or maybe put all the cache file data in a SQLLite db?

I've run it manually a few times now when I come across scheduled recordings on channels I either don't get or are in Spanish, maybe have an option to just enable/disable channels from auto-add in the config without rebuilding the MXF?

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#6

Post by glugglug » Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:35 pm

The HDOvveride option in the config is reversed from the more useful setting.

I've seen several channels that are SD, but they flag any show on them as HD if it ever aired in HD on some other channel.
Just used the WMC HDTV Category filter in the guide to find a new example: 363 on FIOS (zip 11566) is SD (850 is the HD version of the same channel), but the guide lists most shows as HD on both. An SDOverride would be useful for channels like this. Same with channel 225.

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#7

Post by glugglug » Sun Jul 10, 2016 1:42 pm

Thought of a use for the HDOverride as-is:
If you are recording old 90's reruns that never aired in HD, the HD version of the channel will still be at a higher bitrate. Setting "HD preferred" in the recording preferences will then auto-select this if the HDOverride is used.

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garyan2

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#8

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jul 10, 2016 4:52 pm

glugglug wrote:With a 21 day guide on FIOS, the cache directory has over 90K files.
It takes much longer to read from the cache than it does to populate it on the initial run because of disk seeks to all these files (when building the cache, writes get buffered).
It would run a lot quicker as one big file, or maybe put all the cache file data in a SQLLite db?

I've run it manually a few times now when I come across scheduled recordings on channels I either don't get or are in Spanish, maybe have an option to just enable/disable channels from auto-add in the config without rebuilding the MXF?
Agree it would be much quicker (and require much less disk space) if I create 1 big database file for the cache. It hasn't been a priority since the usage of epg123 is ideally during the middle of the night (execution time is not realized by the user). Also the prevalence of SSD drives seriously reduces that time.

The epg123client tool is not aware of intent. It only knows what is in the current mergedlineup and what is in the WMIS lineup created by epg123 in the objectstore. The tool will only disable a mergedchannel once the station is removed from the WMIS lineup. With the current architecture, there is no simple way to do as requested ... easier for the user to deselect in the epg123 GUI and disable in WMC. The station will be completely removed on next update.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

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garyan2

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#9

Post by garyan2 » Sun Jul 10, 2016 5:01 pm

glugglug wrote:The HDOvveride option in the config is reversed from the more useful setting.

I've seen several channels that are SD, but they flag any show on them as HD if it ever aired in HD on some other channel.
Just used the WMC HDTV Category filter in the guide to find a new example: 363 on FIOS (zip 11566) is SD (850 is the HD version of the same channel), but the guide lists most shows as HD on both. An SDOverride would be useful for channels like this. Same with channel 225.
Some other users would disagree ... their providers don't designate any channels HD since it could be either based on equipment leased. The same channel number will be SD on SD receivers or HD on HD receivers.

I haven't heard of your scenario, but I could easily add a SD override as well, with the HD override flag taking precedence. Looking at your scenario, I would categorize this as a problem with the data provided by Gracenote and it should be corrected there. I try to avoid having epg123 compensate/adapt to incorrect data rather than fixing the actual problem.
- Gary
Keeping WMC alive beyond January 2020. https://garyan2.github.io

glugglug

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#10

Post by glugglug » Sun Jul 10, 2016 6:24 pm

garyan2 wrote:
glugglug wrote:With a 21 day guide on FIOS, the cache directory has over 90K files.
It takes much longer to read from the cache than it does to populate it on the initial run because of disk seeks to all these files (when building the cache, writes get buffered).
It would run a lot quicker as one big file, or maybe put all the cache file data in a SQLLite db?
Agree it would be much quicker (and require much less disk space) if I create 1 big database file for the cache. It hasn't been a priority since the usage of epg123 is ideally during the middle of the night (execution time is not realized by the user). Also the prevalence of SSD drives seriously reduces that time.
Found a way to achieve a similar effect without moving it to SSD: Install EPG123 on its own dynamically sized .VHD file, with 512 byte clusters. Random access to that virtual drive will make the system cache the VHD itself in 256KB chunks.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5291/how ... windows-7/

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