An interface more compatible with remotes

hedgepigdaniel · 2013-02-26 02:05

I've had an HTPC for close to 5 years now and until recently I've always used WMC on it. Despite the pain of setting up codecs and addons and dodgy hacks to make it do all the things Microsoft deemed unecessary, it has always provided the cleanest and most seamless experience after some work. I've recently become increasingly frustrated with its many deficiencies though. Among other problems, it can't change the refresh rate of the screen without using an external player, and I've found that XBMC has a whole lot of great features it lacks, like automatic lyrics fetching, the ability set up free automatic commercial skipping with comskip, the ability to record more than one stream from the same transponder (using mediaportal backend), and others. I've been stunned at the progress that has been made in the open source HTPC scene since I last investigated it. I also love the fact that XBMC is open source and I'm seriously impressed by the quality of the community that surrounds it. There's one feature missing, series recording, which I expect to be relatively easy to implement, so I won't dwell on it. However, even if that were added, I still wouldn't use XBMC as my exclusive HTPC software because my family won't accept it, and here's why:

The remote doesn't work properly.

In WMC, the entire interface is easily navigable with a small number of buttons one would find on any media center remote. The menu/green button always takes you back to the main menu straight away. The info button displays information about media and any context based options that are hidden by default (like subtitles, aspect, potentially options to display lyrics, change codec/video options etc). When browsing through a list such as artists, you can use the number keys on the remote to jump to a certain letter (or even the beginning of a word). There are no parts of the interface that cannot be operated as easily with a remote as they can be with a keyboard, and nothing is ever many button presses away.

XBMC's remote support feels to me like an afterthought. There is no remote button which takes you back to the main menu by default. I haven't found a way to display lyrics using the remote. The record button doesn't work by default. The context menu is not accessible from the remote by default. There is no way to skip to a certain letter in a list with the remote (since doing that requires shift + letter by default and removing the shift would conflict with other commands). This means to listen to an artists beginning with K I have to scroll through half of my entire artists list rather than just pressing the 5(jkl) button twice. When I use XBMC I regularly feel the need to take out the keyboard and mouse when I want to sit on my couch and enjoy the show.

I think solving this problem requires a minor rework of the interface. All secondary controls should be put in one type of menu or overlay which can be brought up with a key one would find on most remotes. Having distinct actions for information and a context menu means that most Media Center remotes cannot be used seamlessly since they don't have two appropriate buttons. The contents of the context menu could be put on a tab accessible with the arrow keys when the information overlay (activated with the info key), as with WMC. All actions and controls that are added should always be accessible from a simple and defined structure of menus that can be operated with standard remote buttons. Lyrics should be able to be activated from somewhere in the info overlay. There shouldn't need to be a separate button to use it, let alone a mouse.

So there is my opinion, I'd love to hear what anyone thinks about it. The reason I've expressed it it that I am frustratingly close to using XBMC as my HTPC software and I really want to use it and say goodbye to all the dodgy hacks I have to use to make WMC work properly, and only a few problems are holding me back. Besides this, I'd love to have series recording and better support for manipulating the current playlists (and deciding whether to add only a song or an entire album to it), but remote support is the killer.

I might add that I think there's going to be a massive crowd of people like me turning away from WMC in the near future, since Microsoft has obviously lost interest in it. WMC has barely changed since XPMCE, and with Win8 version is exactly like the win7 version, except that its almost impossible to buy and YOU CAN"T RUN IT AT STARTUP.

giftie · 2013-02-26 02:53

(2013-02-26 02:05)hedgepigdaniel Wrote: I've had an HTPC for close to 5 years now and until recently I've always used WMC on it. Despite the pain of setting up codecs and addons and dodgy hacks to make it do all the things Microsoft deemed unecessary, it has always provided the cleanest and most seamless experience after some work. I've recently become increasingly frustrated with its many deficiencies though. Among other problems, it can't change the refresh rate of the screen without using an external player, and I've found that XBMC has a whole lot of great features it lacks, like automatic lyrics fetching, the ability set up free automatic commercial skipping with comskip, the ability to record more than one stream from the same transponder (using mediaportal backend), and others. I've been stunned at the progress that has been made in the open source HTPC scene since I last investigated it. I also love the fact that XBMC is open source and I'm seriously impressed by the quality of the community that surrounds it. There's one feature missing, series recording, which I expect to be relatively easy to implement, so I won't dwell on it. However, even if that were added, I still wouldn't use XBMC as my exclusive HTPC software because my family won't accept it, and here's why:

The remote doesn't work properly.

What OS are you using for XBMC? Which remote and remote receiver do you use?

I ask since you don't say(though it sounds like Windows 8).

Though I am not 100% familiar with the remote communication in Windows, but on my Linux machine, using the HP Remote and Receiver, the remote does everything you want it to. The Windows button, takes you home, when playing a media, the DVD Menu brings up the OSD Menu(allowing audio streams selection, lyrics, subtitles, etc.) While in the Libraries, the number keys work in the SMS text mode( 2(abc), 3(def), etc).

There is a good wiki article regarding Windows http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Usi...in_Windows

hedgepigdaniel · 2013-02-26 13:48

(2013-02-26 02:53)giftie Wrote: What OS are you using for XBMC? Which remote and remote receiver do you use?

I ask since you don't say(though it sounds like Windows 8).

Though I am not 100% familiar with the remote communication in Windows, but on my Linux machine, using the HP Remote and Receiver, the remote does everything you want it to. The Windows button, takes you home, when playing a media, the DVD Menu brings up the OSD Menu(allowing audio streams selection, lyrics, subtitles, etc.) While in the Libraries, the number keys work in the SMS text mode( 2(abc), 3(def), etc).

There is a good wiki article regarding Windows http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Usi...in_Windows

Hi, thanks for your reply.

I'm using windows 7 and a logitech harmony universal remote (which doesn't have a separate DVD menu key, perhaps that explains some of my problem) using the standard microsoft MCE remote drivers.

I did have a look at that wiki article, but I don't see that it can help me to make SMS style input work (since its not a static key mapping). I'll have a read elsewhere since it seems it's meant to work.

I tend to think that the MCE style interface of only ever having one menu that can be brought up besides anything that is already on the screen is cleaner and more intuitive than having two or more menus one might bring up, even if it sometimes involves one more button press.

hedgepigdaniel · 2013-02-26 15:07

I have made my keyboard.xml file look like this:

Code:

<keymap>

    <VirtualKeyboard>

        <keyboard>

            <zero>Number0</zero>

            <one>Number1</one>

            <two>Number2</two>

            <three>Number3</three>

            <four>Number4</four>

            <five>Number5</five>

            <six>Number6</six>

            <seven>Number7</seven>

            <eight>Number8</eight>

            <nine>Number9</nine>

        </keyboard>

    </VirtualKeyboard>

    <global>

        <keyboard>

            <r mod="ctrl">PlayerControl(record)</r>

            <zero>JumpSMS0</zero>

            <one>JumpSMS1</one>

            <two>JumpSMS2</two>

            <three>JumpSMS3</three>

            <four>JumpSMS4</four>

            <five>JumpSMS5</five>

            <six>JumpSMS6</six>

            <seven>JumpSMS7</seven>

            <eight>JumpSMS8</eight>

            <nine>JumpSMS9</nine>

        </keyboard>

    </global>

</keymap>

This has improved things to an extent.

pressing the number keys now does jump to a point in a list, e.g. pressing the 5 key twice goes to j. It still isn't as useful as the WMC version though since the filter can only be one character. In WMC I can press 7 four times to get S. S will appear on the screen and the list will jump to S. However, I can then also press 8 once, and ST will appear on the screen and the list will jump to ST. I'm not sure how hard this would be to implement in XBMC but it makes it much easier to go through a long lists of artists for example. If I have time I'll try and work out a patch if its not too hard.

SMS input works, with the caveat that it also works from the number keys on the keyboard.

The record button works and provides a notification when recording has started. However, pressing it again cancels the recording silently, which is a bit of a trap.

**Montellese** · 2013-02-26 16:34

XBMC supports multiple characters in the jump logic but they have to be pressed in very close succession otherwise the next character will be considered a completely new jump. I don't know the timeout value by heart but it could probably be tweaked.

hedgepigdaniel · 2013-02-27 01:09

(2013-02-26 16:34)Montellese Wrote: XBMC supports multiple characters in the jump logic but they have to be pressed in very close succession otherwise the next character will be considered a completely new jump. I don't know the timeout value by heart but it could probably be tweaked.

Interesting - any idea where I might find such a value in the code, and/or where I should start looking in the code to make it display the characters being jumped to (since it would be slightly confusing if the timeout was large and a user pressed a second key expecting to go to a new letter)?

**Montellese** · 2013-02-27 10:38

The timeout is specified at https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master...ner.h#L221 but I just realized that it only applies to OnJumpLetter and not to OnJumpSMS so maybe my previous statement was not 100% correct. The SMS jump code is at https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master....cpp#L573.

The displaying of the character to be jumped to is most likely skin dependent which means there may be skins which don't display it at all.