Unexpected Panel Flow (1 Viewer)

[CyberSimian]

I have come across a case where the panel flow is not what I would expect. However, as a newcomer, I cannot tell whether this is determined by MP, or whether it is controlled by the skin. Below I describe three slightly different test cases, the first two of which work as I would expect, but the third does not.

Preliminaries
(1) Start "MP Config", go to the "TV settings" panel, and change the settings for "When entering the TV screen" as follows:
(a) Select "Turn on TV".
(b) Deselect "Directly show full-screen TV".
Save the changes and start MP.

(2) There are two panels that might be called the "TV menu". I am going to use that name to mean the panel that has "TV Streams" as the top-most selection in the left side bar.

Case 1
(1) On the "Home" panel, select "TV". [The "TV menu" appears.]
(2) On the "TV menu" panel, select the TV screen. [Live TV is displayed full screen.]
(3) On full-screen TV, press the "Stop" button on the remote control. [The "TV menu" is displayed.]
This case behaves as I would expect.

Case 2
(1) On the "Home" panel, select "TV". [The "TV menu" appears.]
(2) On the "TV menu" panel, select the TV screen. [Live TV is displayed full screen.]
(3) On full-screen TV, press the "Guide" button on the remote control. [The "EPG" panel is displayed.]
(4) On the "EPG" panel, press the "Exit" button on the remote control. [Full-screen TV is displayed.]
(5) On full-screen TV, press the "Stop" button on the remote control. [The "TV menu" is displayed.]
This case also behaves as I would expect.

Case 3
(1) On the "Home" panel, select "TV". [The "TV menu" appears.]
(2) On the "TV menu" panel, select the TV screen. [Live TV is displayed full screen.]
(3) On full-screen TV, press the "Guide" button on the remote control. [The "EPG" panel is displayed.]
(4) On the "EPG" panel, press the "Up" or "Down" button to move the focus to the previous or next channel, and then press the "OK" button on the remote control. [The new channel is displayed full screen.]
(5) On full-screen TV, press the "Stop" button on the remote control. [The "EPG" panel is displayed.] This is unexpected; I would expect the "TV menu" to be displayed.
(6) On the "EPG" panel, press the "Exit" button on the remote control. [The "EPG" panel is displayed for a second time.] Two consecutive displays of the "EPG" panel seem like an error.
(7) On the "EPG" panel, press the "Exit" button for a second time. [The "Home" panel is displayed.] This seems like another error; I would expect the "TV menu" to be displayed before reaching the "Home" panel.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[Dadeo]

I cannot tell whether this is determined by MP

I suspect it might be, but to be sure (since I don't have TV and can't test), try the same behaviour. when accessing Live TV etc. from the Channel Guide rather than EPG (as in case 3) in Default and/or Titan skin.That's always the easiest/best way to determine if it is a skin issue. And you have to use Default or Titan skin when reporting bugs.
@mm1352000 might know off the top of his head.

 

[mm1352000]

I don't know off the top of my head, and it is a bit hard for me to answer because I don't have working TV at the moment (the joys of working on TVE 3.5).

(5) On full-screen TV, press the "Stop" button on the remote control. [The "EPG" panel is displayed.] This is unexpected; I would expect the "TV menu" to be displayed.

In general I think of navigation in MP like a stack (sorry, it's the only analogy I can think of!). When you "enter" a screen, an entry goes on the stack; when you "exit" a screen, you take the top entry off the stack and MP reverts to the [new] top entry (ie. the screen you were in previously). So, if you are in EPG and then select a channel which takes you to full screen TV, exiting full screen TV in any way would take you back to the previous screen... which is the guide.

I can certainly reproduce this with the Default Wide skin. As far as I'm concerned it is absolutely normal. I don't remember a time when MP worked any other way.

(6) On the "EPG" panel, press the "Exit" button on the remote control. [The "EPG" panel is displayed for a second time.] Two consecutive displays of the "EPG" panel seem like an error.

That does seem odd to me. Maybe MP is attempting to go back to TV home (what I'd expect) but encounters an error (ie. log files would be helpful...). Having said that, it could be influenced by the fact that you're using your remote to jump to the guide screen. I don't use a remote with my PC so can't attempt to reproduce.

(7) On the "EPG" panel, press the "Exit" button for a second time. [The "Home" panel is displayed.] This seems like another error; I would expect the "TV menu" to be displayed before reaching the "Home" panel.

I would also expect the TV menu, but as above: maybe there's an error, and no remote => can't attempt to reproduce.

 

[CyberSimian]

In general I think of navigation in MP like a stack (sorry, it's the only analogy I can think of!). When you "enter" a screen, an entry goes on the stack; when you "exit" a screen, you take the top entry off the stack and MP reverts to the [new] top entry (ie. the screen you were in previously). So, if you are in EPG and then select a channel which takes you to full screen TV, exiting full screen TV in any way would take you back to the previous screen... which is the guide.

Yes, I am happy with the stack analogy (that is how I think of it too). And I accept that it is not necessarily an error, since one can argue usability and user expectation either way. (After making the original post, I checked to see what Windows Media Center does, and that does the same thing -- when you select the new channel from the EPG, WMC leaves the EPG on the panel stack.)

However, there are two ways of controlling panel stacks:
(1) When the user selects the next panel, the new panel is added to the stack (the current action).
(2) When the user selects the next panel, that panel replaces the current panel on the stack.

Whether you want (1) or (2) depends on the nature of the panels one is flowing through, and in a complex application (like MP) one would probably use both. When I selected the new channel in the EPG, my expectation had been that the EPG would exit back to full-screen TV, passing back the number of the channel to switch to (so the EPG would not be on the panel stack any more).

Two consecutive displays of the "EPG" panel seem like an error.

That does seem odd to me. Maybe MP is attempting to go back to TV home (what I'd expect) but encounters an error (ie. log files would be helpful...). Having said that, it could be influenced by the fact that you're using your remote to jump to the guide screen.

I will try to reproduce this again tomorrow, but using the DefaultWide skin. I will also try using a keyboard instead of a remote control, and see if that makes a difference. If it occurs on DefaultWide, I will capture the log files. If it does not occur on DefaultWide, it suggests that it is a problem with some aspect of the aMPed skin definition.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

 

[CyberSimian]

That does seem odd to me. Maybe MP is attempting to go back to TV home (what I'd expect) but encounters an error (ie. log files would be helpful...).

I have now repeated test case 3 on the DefaultWide and Titan skins using a keyboard instead of a remote control, and the unexpected panel flow occurs on those skins too (so unlikely to be an aMPed problem). See below for details of the test procedure.

At the point where the EPG is displayed twice in succession, the visible manifestation differs between skins:

(1) With aMPed, pressing the ESC key on the EPG panel causes the top few lines to be blanked and then redisplayed, and the programme info at the bottom to be blanked and then redisplayed (i.e. the information appears to "blink"). The EPG grid and its contents do not change. It seems clear that MP has registered the keypress and responded by redrawing at least some of the panel.

(2) With Titan, only the programme info is blanked and then redrawn. But again, it is clear that MP has registered the keypress and redrawn the panel.

(3) With DefaultWide, there is no visible change to the EPG panel. However, the impression is that the first press of the ESC key was ignored, and only the second press takes effect. One might ascribe this to not pressing the ESC properly the first time, but I think that the behaviour of the Titan and aMPed skins show that MP is registering the keypress, and redrawing the screen, but with DefaultWide not blanking the screen first (so there is no apparent change to the screen).

Test Details
(1) Ensure that you have set the configuration options as described in my first post under "Preliminaries", as those settings affect the panel flow.

(2) There seems to be no keyboard short cut to display the EPG, so I used instead F9 to display a sub-menu, followed by ENTER to select the first entry in the sub-menu (the EPG).

(3) I started MP in debug mode, and arrived at the "Home" panel. I then pressed the following keys in the order shown:

enter, enter, right, right, enter, f9, enter, down(or up), enter, b, esc, esc

The penultimate ESC is the one where the programme info blinks.
The last ESC is the one where the "Home" panel is displayed, instead of the expected "TV Menu" panel.

I have attached the logs.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK