New MythTV Interface Preview
One of the biggest new features of the next version of MythTV (version .22) will be its new user interface. This new interface will offer many new features to MythTV, including animation, better interactivity, and faster and easier development for themers and developers alike. MythTV is an open-source DVR that was created by Isaac Richards back in 2002 because of his frustration with his low quality cable box. Since then MythTV has progressed into a full featured DVR/media player. It has users all over the world and a huge number of developers working to make the software even better.
Now, lets get back to what you came here to see. Currently, the interface is fairly static, theme designers can change the look of the screens and move around the preexisting elements, but are very limited in what other changes they can make. It is possible to add new elements to the interface but these can’t be dependent on information in the database. The image above simply shows a curved list in the new UI, it’s not overly exciting, but it wasn’t possible before either. The first pictures below show the existing Watch Recordings screen and how it looks after being recreated in the new interface. As you can see the green dots, to indicate a current recording, were added to this layout. These wouldn’t have been possible with the old system. Continue reading to see some more drastic changes.
Below is an image that contains some of the bigger changes that could show up in the Watch Recordings screen in the new version. The pieces of elements can now be moved and rearranged (the groups have been moved to the top and horizontally). Before a list could’ve been shown vertically or in a Grid, they were predefined in the program and all the theme designer could do was change the placement and size, now they have much more freedom.
Another new feature is animation, it’s kind of hard to display this in pictures, but you can imagine what possibilities this provides. Transitions between screens (which is technically in there already, at least for menu transitions), transitions between elements (such as smoothly sliding between elements), or status messages that have motion, which is what is being shown in the gallery below.
Of course, this isn’t just about the Watch Recordings screen (though that’s the screen I use the most), the rest of MythTV including the plugins benefit from this new UI. On the right is the Netflix Browser plugin showing a possible stylized list. It shows how the selected element can be changed to display different information than the other elements.
Below are a few images of MythTV’s photo plugin, MythGallery. The image on the left is similar to the current version, but it’s showing how an information window could be popped up over the other elements on the screen. The image on the right shows the same data but in a much nicer looking layout (this is the same screen, only the theme has changed). You can imagine how the new animation effects will look on this screen. The images could slide in from the right and out on the left and the new highlighted picture will slide forward. You can also see the reflections on the images taking further advantage of the OpenGL effects added in the last version of the software.
On a more technical side MythUI (the new User Interface library that provides these new features) allows for inheritance and many other advantages for MythTV Developers. According to the MythTV Wiki:
“Mythui aims to make theme creation easier by introducing the concept of inheritance. The basic style of widgets can be defined once and then copied from each other or from global definitions. This reduces the amount of copying and pasting required and means that theme-wide changes can be made by editing just a couple of lines.”
“MythUI brings a lot of code simplifications, migration of plugins to mythui has so far eliminated thousands of lines of code. It seeks to remove layout and behaviour responsibility from the programmer, handing it to the themer instead. There are fewer widgets to understand and there will be greater consistency across screens.”
These are just a few examples of what’s possible with the new User Interface. Personally, I can’t wait for this new version to be released.
Because of the new user interface the next version of MythTV (.22) looks like it will not only be prettier but even more functional than it currently is. If you’d like to know more about MythTV check out the website, the wiki, and more importantly the incredibly active users mailing list. There are even a few books about MythTV: Practical MythTV
And for those of you who are too lazy to build a MythTV box, we recommend a TiVo.
Nice to see that MythTV is getting a facelift.
One of the big failings of opensource software is in the UI arena. It’s been my experience as a developer that open source fails to attract good UI designers and artists. Is it because graphic designers are taught to never give anything away? I don’t know … but whatever the reason, open source sorely lacks good design.
I’d like to see:
* the music player interface redesigned. It’s unusable.
* the home and end keys work in lists.
* the same keys have the same functions by default in the video player and
the recorded tv player.
>>One of the big failings of opensource software is in the UI arena. It’s been my experience as a developer that open source fails to attract good UI designers and artists. Is it because graphic designers are taught to never give anything away? I don’t know … but whatever the reason, open source sorely lacks good design.<<
I agree about the poor state of usability in the OSS arena. As a UI designer, in my experience the problem is that the engineers build what they want to build, then expect someone to decorate it, which is a total misunderstanding of the role of usability.
I’ve seen a lot of “Designers” and their jobs or their “attitude”. There was a serious amount of medium to complete visual failure. Talking about usability in nearly all of the jobs i’ve seen, it was less usable after a “designer” had it in his hands.
What proved to be working for usability improvements was to give it to user who had never touched the product before and closely watch how they use it and ask them direct questions, and them implement that an maybe do that process some more times.
And this process was almost always done by the engineers.
I’m still waiting to find the one designer who delivers work that actually has a reason to pay for and is not a pain to work with. I’m sure there must be some of them.
I’ve been using mythtv for over two years and have been EXTREMELY happy with it. I don’t use the DVR portion as I only watch archive shows, movies, manage music and photos. It’s perfect though… I don’t know what you want as far as UI but it gets the job done and does it well. Even the older themes were fine. If you want something super cool, donate to the project and support it. Tell your friends about it and get a community around it. Otherwise you’re better off with a DivX Connected device
Cool GUI interface. but you should really check out http://www.freetube.us.tc, it blew me away.
My modest wish list:
* the music player interface redesigned. It’s unusable. I second that.
* The ‘Play after this’ function in movie setup is hard to configure. It’s made for CD2 after CD1, but having kids is much more usable to setup that all ‘Shaun the sheap’ (5 mins each) are played continously. Configuring those 40 episodes from a list of hundreds or thousands of files are a nightmare!
* The web interface could be better and more intuitive. Basic functions simply doesn’t work.
* Ability to insert and play a CD without setting up playlists!
* Full implementation of close captions and text-tv
* Better UI
My modest wish list:
* the music player interface redesigned. It’s unusable. I second that.
* The ‘Play after this’ function in movie setup is hard to configure. It’s made for CD2 after CD1, but having kids is much more usable to setup that all ‘Shaun the sheap’ (5 mins each) are played continously. Configuring those 40 episodes from a list of hundreds or thousands of files are a nightmare!
* The web interface could be better and more intuitive. Basic functions simply doesn’t work.
* Ability to insert and play a CD without setting up playlists!
* Full implementation of close captions and text-tv
* Picture-in-picture between movie and TV (currently only between two TV channels)
* Better UI
No Cablecard support means no support for FIOS Digital Cable… No use for me.
That said, It beats the socks off of Front Row and eyeTV. I’d say it looks better that Windows Media Center and Sage
OMG. Myth TVtotally ROCKS!!
Jess
http://www.privacy.cz.tc
@Blork:
I’ve seen a lot of engineers and developers with ‘attitude’ as well. If you take yours along for the usability testing, that will of course make them see the light. Do the same with your designers.
Oh, and designers aren’t just designers any more than there is just one kind of engineer. A usability designer and and a graphic designer are very differnt beasts. If you hire graphic designer with no usability expertise for your interface, then yes, he/she needs to be put under someone else who is responsible for usability, and who has complete veto on everything. But the same goes for if you put anyone else without usability experience to work on your interface.
I have used mythtv first time in march 2008 and it is really useful
loved my mythbox until I upgraded to verizon fios. I know there are work arounds but can’t seem to get It to work.
Still looks like ass… Ditch the glowy rounded buttons.. Needs a better font… and padding, people PADDING!
@mike
Not only do they fail to attract designers, they turn them away. I am a UI designer and I really wanted to contribute to the Audacity project. I even did the design work, and they said ‘no thanks’. The interface is still horrid looking.
Why does the UI suck on most open source products? While I’m sure the MythTV application itself is very capable, but it’s terribly ugly. Nothing beats Vista’s Media Centre interface.
I know great designers and engineers, but while they have long hours at paying jobs it will be hard to get them to do additional work.
UI is okay-ish, but some things make no sense:
1. The video list has captions and then text in the icon area that overflows.
2. Needing a video manager import to play existing videos.
3. Needing a playlist to play a CD.
4. Defaulting to icon view.
The ultimate HTPC S/W is Media Portal – if we can make it work like that then we’re home! (That includes resuming watching videos where you left off, and colour-coding watched items.)
I wonder if mythtv can leverage the plex gui code…
http://www.tinkeringwithin.com/2008/07/17/plex-osxbmc-with-aeon-skin-demo/
Cheers,
Rajesh Duggal
Mikey: Really? Nothing beats Vista’s Media Centre?
You’ve clearly never used XBMC then (http://xbmc.org/). It’s open source and the most attractive (and usable) app I’ve ever come across.
“insert and play a CD without setting up playlists”
Errr, what about the “Automatically play CDs” setting? It has been there for years.
I have used mythtv first time in march 2008 and it is really useful
@ FluffyPanda
I second that.
Fix the UI! Nice to see that MythTV is getting a change.
I agree that the music player interface is unusable. Well, nearly so, anyway – I’ve started to get it to work, but it’s still too awkward and counterintuitive. It’s _way_ too much work to find my way to the distant menu entry that indexes MP3s, and although I once found the playlist editor, I haven’t been able to find it since. These functions should be accessible directly from the main music player screen. Also, I’d like to be able to select tracks by file name, not just ID3 tags. Also also, indexing files on a remote machine via NFS fails because the files are read-only – why should MythTV care, if it’s building the index locally?
One thing that does work well is that I can stuff in a disc full of AVI or MPEG files, and it comes up on the screen immediately. I’d love to be able to enter this mode to access files in local or NFS directories too.
I agree with the comments that user interfaces on open source software are generally not up to scratch. My wife can’t use my MythTV box. Microsoft has nothing to fear as long as you need to be a computer geek to make Linux packages work.
great i wont have to use xbmc
Wow finaly an update, last update was March 08, i used MythTv from the beginning on an old 700 mhz, great for pvr but way to complicated to set up with channel and xml files and i think the music player interface is no good. ive moved to Media portal now, its great too bad its only for windows, but i thinik its the best pvr out there now.
[...] of all there has been a story written on MythUI – the new OpenGL based interface which will be the default user interface for MythTV [...]
Hmm. Some people on here need to check the options more
Although I’ll third the music UI.
1. The music UI can be modified to show all your music in a tree – makes it much more useable
2. Playlist editor is got to by pressing 3 I think (maybe 2, maybe 4). The older themes show the keys down the bottom, the newer ones assume you know them. But it still sucks
3. There is an option to resume playing of videos where you left off
On the music UI, my dream is to have the music tree (as you can get by changing the options), and be able to just surf through it and press enter on any track I want to add to the currently playing list. Whilst it is still playing. So then at a party people could just come along and add things to the playlist. I also want some way to pick the next track without forcing the current track to stop playing – so I can queue up a few tracks without having to edit playlists or the like.
Probably some good user docs wouldn’t go amiss. If I contribute time to myth I tend to contribute testing or coding (although I only have about 3 fixes that I have contributed, I guess that it still something). But for those who don’t test or fix, the user docs are up on one of the wikis, and easy to contribute too.
One thing sorely missing from this discussion is the *potential* that the new UI brings. The screen shots here are just an example of what some developers (I don’t think any UI designers have had their hands on this yet) have done to port over the old look of themes to the new UI and include some new functionality.
The UI is completely rewritten in a way that put much more control in the hands of the theme developers. You will see much better themes now that the underlying code supports them. I agree XBMC has a VERY nice UI and I’m hoping someone will take their cue and design a theme for MythTV that is equally nice – now that it’s possible.
Nice upgrade from 1970 to 1980. But… I didn’t migrate from NTSC to a 1920×1080p projector just to have the user interface take up my entire display. The thinking behind all PVR user interfaces is the reason I loathe MacroShaft Media Center. If someone is sitting in a dark room with popcorn and a cheap IR remote, fine. But…
Where is the ability to detach the UI display from the video display if I want to manage the projector video from a window on my wifi PC, or my iPhone display? Is ANYONE doing anything with next generation detached user interfaces? Am I missing something? HELP!!!
In serveral forums has actually recommended not the use the “Automatically play CDs” setting due to errors.
Why can’t you play CD’s just like DVD’s? Insert CD, select menu option: “Play CD” … it isn’t there!
My Music List points at a NSF share, but instead of displaying the folder contents like (mostly, but for some folders it works):
ABBA – Gold/01 Super Trouper
ABBA – Gold/02 Head over heals
it shows:
/export/audio/[sharename...]/ABBA – Gold/
/export/audio/[sharename...]/ABBA – Gold/
/export/audio/[sharename...]/ABBA – Gold/
which is total unsuable (did I mention it is only on some folders; not consistent) as I even can’t see which song is playing due to the way too long path name.
/Claus
I added this to digg
Well said, finally a good report on this stuff
Hey, is there a section just for latest news
These links show the new capabilities of MythUI
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythUI_Demo_Theme
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Theme_Terra
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Anonymous Feb 4th, 2009 at 8:30 am
it shows:
/export/audio/[sharename...]/ABBA – Gold/
/export/audio/[sharename...]/ABBA – Gold/
/export/audio/[sharename...]/ABBA – Gold/
which is total unsuable (did I mention it is only on some folders; not consistent)
——————–
I had a similar problem. To fix it I used a mp3 tag editor to compare the tag formats on tracks that were usable to the formats of the tracks that were usable. Turns out mythmusic is consistent but my tag formats were not.