2014-01-19, 12:32
Hi,
I am using XBMC on a Raspberry Pi, and it works very well considering the limited hardware. Because it has limited capabilities though (especially I/O speed), some actions take a long time while the XBMC GUI hangs completely. It seems, at least for me, the main problem is installing addons. Downloading is done in the background, but the GUI seems to hang completely while the addon is actually installing (or configuring?). This includes updating addons, which happens after the initial install.
Now, as a computer scientist and geek in general, I am used to waiting and I know when the GUI hangs I just have to be patient a bit. But I installed an XBMC media center at a lot of my friends' home, and they don't seem to share that patience. Because there is no visual feedback to indicate that XBMC is busy and therefore the GUI is unresponsive, they keep tapping buttons and get frustrated because XBMC "hangs". This is especially true at the first run after installation, when XBMC seems to be doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes. Mind that at that point, they get their first impression of XBMC. They think it sucks. Of course, after a while they realise that this was only the first time and XBMC starts to grow on them. After a couple of months, almost none of them could imagine how experiencing media would be without it.
I think this is a serious issue now that XBMC is mature and used by a lot of non-technical people. Two things would eliminate this problem:
1. As much as possible should be done on a background thread, to keep the GUI responsive. I have no knowledge about XBMC's source code, so I am not sure what can be done here.
2. The GUI should indicate when something is going on in the background, so the user knows to expect an unresponsive GUI while XBMC is busy. This could be a skin issue, but maybe more indications/notifications should be added for the skins to react on? The indicator can be subtle, but as it is now the user has no idea what is going on.
Any thoughts on this?
Greetings,
JeDi
I am using XBMC on a Raspberry Pi, and it works very well considering the limited hardware. Because it has limited capabilities though (especially I/O speed), some actions take a long time while the XBMC GUI hangs completely. It seems, at least for me, the main problem is installing addons. Downloading is done in the background, but the GUI seems to hang completely while the addon is actually installing (or configuring?). This includes updating addons, which happens after the initial install.
Now, as a computer scientist and geek in general, I am used to waiting and I know when the GUI hangs I just have to be patient a bit. But I installed an XBMC media center at a lot of my friends' home, and they don't seem to share that patience. Because there is no visual feedback to indicate that XBMC is busy and therefore the GUI is unresponsive, they keep tapping buttons and get frustrated because XBMC "hangs". This is especially true at the first run after installation, when XBMC seems to be doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes. Mind that at that point, they get their first impression of XBMC. They think it sucks. Of course, after a while they realise that this was only the first time and XBMC starts to grow on them. After a couple of months, almost none of them could imagine how experiencing media would be without it.
I think this is a serious issue now that XBMC is mature and used by a lot of non-technical people. Two things would eliminate this problem:
1. As much as possible should be done on a background thread, to keep the GUI responsive. I have no knowledge about XBMC's source code, so I am not sure what can be done here.
2. The GUI should indicate when something is going on in the background, so the user knows to expect an unresponsive GUI while XBMC is busy. This could be a skin issue, but maybe more indications/notifications should be added for the skins to react on? The indicator can be subtle, but as it is now the user has no idea what is going on.
Any thoughts on this?
Greetings,
JeDi
