Should XBMC's "Advanced Feature Settings" be hidden from the GUI as they are today?
#1
Question 
We were discussing this issue in the following trac:

http://www.xbmc.org/trac/ticket/5969

I added a feature which allows users to execute actions while system was idle. It turned that it was too advanced of a feature and it should not to be availiable to the normal user as a GUI option

We usually place advanced settings in the advancedsettings.xml file.

What do you all think ? Should these Advanced Options being shown on the GUI ?
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#2
I think if XBMC is going to become more widespread (which I hope it does) then an 'Advanced Settings' menu would be a good idea as it's more user friendly than creating and editing your own advancedsettings.xml.
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#3
GUI for advanced settings would be great, but IMO the biggest thing that would help facilitate mid-level use, would be a gui for remote control programming.

Instead of trying to re-program remotes for existing maps or messing with keymappings manually, it should be made trivial (from a user perspective) to assign functions to remote keys directly from within xbmc.

ie like how pretty much any modern game allows you to remap keyboard (select event/command, then press the key or remote button you want assigned to it) directly from the options.
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#4
I think that the advanced settings should be accessible from the gui. However, I think that it should be up to the "master user" to lock the settings so that less experienced users don't mess up these advanced settings. People need to make different users accounts for the wife and kids and lock all the important stuff up. Just my 2 pence. Cheers.
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#5
There are far too many entries to list them in an advanced screen.

Ideally, i'd like to see an advanced configuration editor, like with firefox or thunderbird (about:config). Everything could be accessed here, and it could read from/write to the existing xml. Could be accessed from xbmc itself with a keyboard, via the web interface, or by editing the xml directly. A dinky config editor could even be written to allow access in xbmc w/o keyboard if it became popular enough.

See here: http://kb.mozillazine.org/About%3Aconfig

TheUni
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#6
Hitcher Wrote:I think if XBMC is going to become more widespread (which I hope it does) then an 'Advanced Settings' menu would be a good idea as it's more user friendly than creating and editing your own advancedsettings.xml.

I would like to see this. It would also limit the number of issues where someone has place invalid values for certain parameters.
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#7
The more you take away from having to edit files manually, the more user friendly Smile

There is always room for a warning message and a reset button lol
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#8
advancedsettings.xml will NEVER be editable from within XBMC.

Separate app, I have no problem with (but I won't write it). The reason is simple: Advancedsettings is for advanced users! We don't want people touching it, and you shouldn't have to! I don't touch it unless I absolutely have to, which is usually when I'm testing something in it.

If something HAS to be altered by a user, then it should be in the GUI. Anything else should not be available, as I can guarantee that many users WILL play with them and then freak out when stuff goes wrong.

We have way too many GUI-settable items already - hopefully a whole bunch can be scraped for the next release.

Cheers,
Jonathan
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#9
jmarshall what about things like to enable remote to work with onscreen keyboard shouldn't that not be in advanced settings but in the GUI settings?
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#10
Ideally, the setting should not be needed - XBMC should function. I suspect, however, that this is impossible to achieve in general, at least in the short term, for things such as SMS based input into edit controls.

Any option that can justify itself as being in the UI obviously will be there. I will be conducting a review of all gui and advanced settings prior to the release of 9.04.

Cheers,
Jonathan
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.


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#11
Anything that suggests a 'one size fits all' state, then xbmc will be poorer for it.

One of the greatest things about xbmc is it's flexibility.

Flexibility comes from options.

While I can agree that a careful balance should be maintained, if one is to err, it should be on the side of flexibility.
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#12
Someone could rather easily write a script to config as.xml. That would give you the appearance of it being built in, yet the average user would never see it since they likely wouldn't install it.
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#13
Is it just me or do other people think its all the options that make xbmc so great?

The fact that you can alter many different settings straight from inside xbmc itself means that you can customise it to your individual needs and see the result instantly.
I dont want to have to edit an xml file from my computer to do it, i dont want to touch the computer. Sure, i know what i am doing, but i want instant interaction.

Take mobile phones as an example. How many options do we have on those these days? More and more with every new generation.

The average joey doesnt know what they all do, but they are there for the people that do. At least you have the option, and you can change it in an easy fashion.

Sure some people will mess up, thats just what people do though.
Maybe a global setting for a Basic or Advanced user would cover that, with the default obviously set to Basic.
Or how about protecting that "section" with a pin number?

There are quite a few ways other than the above to have these options available to the GUI but hidden from the fiddling kids Wink

I do like althekiller's suggestion of a script to give the impression of them being built in, but then wouldnt it need a re-write with every new setting addition?

Just my 2cents, not out to cause any arguments or anything so dont bite my head off lol Big Grin
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#14
Well, since they're going to re-evaluate the options that are available in the GUI before the next point release, I'll wait for that time. I look forward to it because there are probably a lot of options I'm not aware of but could take advantage of.
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#15
We need to really define what an advanced user for XBMC is ?

Is it someone who can build from SVN ? Is it someone who knows their way around the OS ?

Windows is a much easier OS than Linux, so does that mean anyone who is able to configure and run Linux is an advanced user for XBMC ?
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