Netherlands
I've been working with MP for a few months now. Especially since RC4 it's running nice and stable. I'm therefore now concentrating on finetuning the smaller details. There are a number of items that I think would be useful modifications and additions to MP. (Currently I'm adding these things myself in the code, but everytime a new official version is released I need to redo all my programming in the latest files)
for skinning / VFD display:
Conditional display of skin elements: Many conditions seem partially or not at all implemented, eg #player.isrecording always returns false ?
New conditional codes:
- #player.IsTV
- #player.IsMusic
- #player.IsVideo
- etc.
useful for displaying apropriate controls.
#DVD.CurrentChapter (there's no way to display the current chapter in my VFD/LCD display)
#DVD.TotalNumberOfChapters
#selecteditem, #selecteditem2 and #highlightedbutton are too limited and not consistent. There should be a single code that accurately contains the current selected text, regardless whether it's a list, a dialog, a button, etc. Furhtermore I want to be able to display more context-aware details if available, e.g. if the selected item is a song then I would like to display album, year, artist, etc. So something like #selecteditem.artist, #selecteditem.title.
Conditions that test the currently selected item:
- #selecteditem.IsSong
- #selecteditem.IsAlbum
Why are the size and position of the teletext screen in fullscreen teletext (myfsteletext.xml) ignored? I'd like the teletext to be displayed only on the right half of my wide-screen tv, but the code will always use 80% of the available screen.
Unlimited hierarchical grouping of controls. Allow controls of any type to be added as children to other controls. They can inherit there parent's position and visibility conditions.
Conditional navigation: make the target of onleft, onright, etc. subject to condition. Eg:
<onright condition="#player.IsTV">99</onright>
<onright condition="#player.IsRadio">8</onright>
Or better yet: Allow conditions in every skin element:
<posX condition="#player.HasVideo">500</posX>
<posX condition="#player.!HasVideo">700</posX>
Skinning / MP UI:
The selected item in lists is often unintuitive. Eg in Blue3-TVHome when you move the selection from the 2nd item of the left list to the videoscreen on the right, and then go back to the list I would expect the 2nd item to be highlighted instead of the default (1st) being selected. The default item should only be used the first time a window opens. The rest of the time (until MP is closed) it should remember the selected item per window/controlgroup.
MP UI:
I find the UI of the gridviews not intuitive. If you press the right arrow while the selection is at the end of the first line I would expect it to continue at the first item of the 2nd line. It will now usually open the action menu, which is usually located on the left side of the screen. Some code must be added to appropriate GUIxxx.cs to do this.
This is especially important when trying to navigate MP without TV, but only use the 2-line VFD display.
TV
Start loading and caching teletext pages immediately after tuning to a channel, don't wait for the user to actually open teletext.
Keep separate teletext cache for each channel, so switching back and forth through channels will not reset teletext cache.
for skinning / VFD display:
Conditional display of skin elements: Many conditions seem partially or not at all implemented, eg #player.isrecording always returns false ?
New conditional codes:
- #player.IsTV
- #player.IsMusic
- #player.IsVideo
- etc.
useful for displaying apropriate controls.
#DVD.CurrentChapter (there's no way to display the current chapter in my VFD/LCD display)
#DVD.TotalNumberOfChapters
#selecteditem, #selecteditem2 and #highlightedbutton are too limited and not consistent. There should be a single code that accurately contains the current selected text, regardless whether it's a list, a dialog, a button, etc. Furhtermore I want to be able to display more context-aware details if available, e.g. if the selected item is a song then I would like to display album, year, artist, etc. So something like #selecteditem.artist, #selecteditem.title.
Conditions that test the currently selected item:
- #selecteditem.IsSong
- #selecteditem.IsAlbum
Why are the size and position of the teletext screen in fullscreen teletext (myfsteletext.xml) ignored? I'd like the teletext to be displayed only on the right half of my wide-screen tv, but the code will always use 80% of the available screen.
Unlimited hierarchical grouping of controls. Allow controls of any type to be added as children to other controls. They can inherit there parent's position and visibility conditions.
Conditional navigation: make the target of onleft, onright, etc. subject to condition. Eg:
<onright condition="#player.IsTV">99</onright>
<onright condition="#player.IsRadio">8</onright>
Or better yet: Allow conditions in every skin element:
<posX condition="#player.HasVideo">500</posX>
<posX condition="#player.!HasVideo">700</posX>
Skinning / MP UI:
The selected item in lists is often unintuitive. Eg in Blue3-TVHome when you move the selection from the 2nd item of the left list to the videoscreen on the right, and then go back to the list I would expect the 2nd item to be highlighted instead of the default (1st) being selected. The default item should only be used the first time a window opens. The rest of the time (until MP is closed) it should remember the selected item per window/controlgroup.
MP UI:
I find the UI of the gridviews not intuitive. If you press the right arrow while the selection is at the end of the first line I would expect it to continue at the first item of the 2nd line. It will now usually open the action menu, which is usually located on the left side of the screen. Some code must be added to appropriate GUIxxx.cs to do this.
This is especially important when trying to navigate MP without TV, but only use the 2-line VFD display.
TV
Start loading and caching teletext pages immediately after tuning to a channel, don't wait for the user to actually open teletext.
Keep separate teletext cache for each channel, so switching back and forth through channels will not reset teletext cache.
