While developing a new 'Text Search' Timer Type, it became apparent that that there is a conflict with this and the other Recording types, as most of them already include a freetext 'Title Search' function.
janbar correctly pointed out that there is no need to have the same feature available in two places, however it appears we currently have different opinions about how best to accomplish this.
Currently, if I understand the code correctly, these types use:
- EPG data first (channel/timeslot from EPG), ignoring the freetext search field any user Channel selection or start/end time via the Timer Settings GUI.
- If the EPG data can't be found (the rule was created via the 'Add Timer...' selection, or the addon can't find any matching EPG records in the current guide data to tie up with the rule), they fall back to a Title Search based on the freetext search field in the Timer Settings GUI.
- If the EPG search string is empty, they fall back to using the selected channel/start/end time populated using the 'Timer Settings' GUI.
This
is a logical progression (EPG data is selected first when creating a recording, Search string appears near the top under Timer 'Title' and the Channel/Start/End time options are below that), but I don't think it is particularly intuitive. Also mythbackend will be sent different rule data for the same 'Timer Settings' dialog display depending on the state of the EPG at the time the user created or last modified the rule via Kodi
.
While this worked well when there was no way to view or manage rules via Kodi (before PVR API 1.9.7) I think that now we can do much better.
The way forward?
Rather than provide the full 'mythfrontend' control, I believe Kodi ought to focus on covering the basics well.
'Unhandled' rule types should allow 'tweaks' only (e.g. Recording Group/Priority/Lifetime) which is what janbar's current development code does
.
As Janbar and I seem to have slightly different opinions, it seems a good idea to ask other users what they would like Kodi to do with mythtv recording rules (keep it clean please
).
I'll set the ball rolling by describing my opinion:
Personally (in the UK using a combination of Radio Times XMLTV for primary channels and EIT for secondaries), I've never needed to use a Title Search, the 'series' filter or specify a start time when I set up a 'Record All' or 'Record One' rule via mythweb which is what 90% of my recordings are.
I just select an EPG entry, click 'Find and record one showing of this title', or 'Record at any time on any channel', and adjust the Recording Group. Then I press 'update record settings'. Occasionally I also change Autoexpire/number of recordings to keep/Record new and expire old'.
This is what I think the basic Kodi interface should provide. By default it should create a rule which looks exactly the same as a mythweb created rule in the backend database (unless there are really good reasons not to).
Very occasionally when I can't find the title I want to record in the mythweb EPG (it's not being shown in the next two weeks), or I want to record all films with a similar title (e.g. *Resident Evil*), or featuring a particular actor (*Angelia Jolie*), I use a separate Title or Keyword Search rule.
I don't do daily, or weekly recordings, but I can see that they might be useful for recording news or similar. My guess is a similar logical progression: Find EPG entry, select 'daily/weekly', adjust recording group and number of recordings to keep, then press 'save'.
For those recording sporting events without using the over-the air EPG grabber (which I assume will be updated by the broadcaster when the match goes into extra time): Use a 'Just This' recording rule with 'start earlier' and 'finish later', set a recording group, then press 'save'.
The other use case I can see is 'tweaking' rules. Say you are running out of disk space don't want the soaps in HD - change the rule from 'Any Channel' to a specific non-HD version (mythbackend automatically prefers HD channels). Mythweb can't do this easily, but while playing with the pvr.mythtv development code, it is possible, works well and I believe would be very useful.
Say your 'Any Channel' rule is recording re-runs of ancient episodes on 'Yesterday' as well as this year's new ones on BBC1 HD. You could specify 'BBC1 HD' or if you prefer the old ones 'Yesterday'.
Other than that, any options presented on the Kodi 'Timer Settings' window ought to do what the user expects;
even if that means a rule won't record anything. The user can quickly review what the change will do by selecting 'save' then viewing the upcoming recordings for the rule.
If something is wrong, they can either over-ride a specific upcoming showing (as the current development code does), or better, go back to the Timer Settings dialog and tweak the duplicate match method, the start and end times, or select a specific channel.
I believe this approach gives the mythbackend scheduler maximum flexibility to do what it is good at while keeping the kodi interface relatively simple. If you want still more power use mythweb, or mythfrontend and accept you need something more expensive than an RPi as your frontend
@janbar: could you describe the types of recordings you schedule at the moment and how? It might help me understand better where you're coming from.