- October 7, 2007
- 24
- 0
- Home Country
-
United Kingdom
I've been keeping an eye on MP for a while now (as you can tell by my 1 1/2 between joining and actually making my first post). I recently got XP-MCE so I could install MP 1 as Win-2K wasn't supported.
Anyway the installation is great. Smooth as silk and easy to do. Beyond that is heartache and frustration.
Firstly: BlueTwo is getting old. You need variation in color. The blue background is just like MCE. You are trying to differentiate yourselves from MCE. If there is no difference, why change? Xface is very nice.
Second: The Config program is non-intuitive. I repeatedly click ok to confirm my choices to have it close on me. Add a confirmation, or an apply button. Also don't use modal dialogs for internet related tasks. Very bad design. iTunes does this and is the worlds worst software.
Third: Documentation. I understand this is open source, but if you've spent several weeks working on a plugin please spend a little bit more time on the documentation. Take the MP-TV plugin. Very poor documentation, and the additional images for it has even less information - where do they go exactly? A cursory look through the forums shows I'm not the only one.
Fourth: The OSD isn't particularly user friendly if you don't have a remote (I am guessing it is remote friendly). Definitely not very K&M friendly.
Fifth: Why not have the config within MP? With the MPI on it's way shouldn't you be able to select plugins from within MP and have it applied - would make skin choosing very nice.
Specifics:
Xface: Very nice skin, but when I scroll up and down on the home screen I can see the plugin image in the dead centre of the screen behind the moving images. Very disconcerting. A search on the forum doesn't reveal a fix or am I the only one with the problem.
MediaStream: Looked very nice, but you have to do what with the seat?
Anyway the installation is great. Smooth as silk and easy to do. Beyond that is heartache and frustration.
Firstly: BlueTwo is getting old. You need variation in color. The blue background is just like MCE. You are trying to differentiate yourselves from MCE. If there is no difference, why change? Xface is very nice.
Second: The Config program is non-intuitive. I repeatedly click ok to confirm my choices to have it close on me. Add a confirmation, or an apply button. Also don't use modal dialogs for internet related tasks. Very bad design. iTunes does this and is the worlds worst software.
Third: Documentation. I understand this is open source, but if you've spent several weeks working on a plugin please spend a little bit more time on the documentation. Take the MP-TV plugin. Very poor documentation, and the additional images for it has even less information - where do they go exactly? A cursory look through the forums shows I'm not the only one.
Fourth: The OSD isn't particularly user friendly if you don't have a remote (I am guessing it is remote friendly). Definitely not very K&M friendly.
Fifth: Why not have the config within MP? With the MPI on it's way shouldn't you be able to select plugins from within MP and have it applied - would make skin choosing very nice.
Specifics:
Xface: Very nice skin, but when I scroll up and down on the home screen I can see the plugin image in the dead centre of the screen behind the moving images. Very disconcerting. A search on the forum doesn't reveal a fix or am I the only one with the problem.
MediaStream: Looked very nice, but you have to do what with the seat?