Mock up of what I wish the UI looked like

[limiter]

Attached is my mock up of what I wish the SageTV UI looked when you paused or hit info during live tv or recorded tv playback. In my version it is mostly out of the way at the bottom so there is less distraction for the excitement happening on screen.

[Brent]

First a few questions... Why is there a cookie monster on the golf course. And further, why hasn't that giant cookie been eaten yet!?!

I like your idea as well. I think there is a SageMC add-on that can make it look very similar to that - I'll have to check around and report back.

[vikingisson]

oh you mean the cookie monster isn't the mock up you want? It's that thingy at the bottom...

[aflat]

Cookie monster is there because there is a giant cookie, of course.

I would like to see that OSD as well if you could find that somewhere Brent that would be great!

[reggie14]

That looks pretty nice. Here's a couple thoughts. First, aesthetically, I don't like the the boxy time bar, and I think it's too thick. Related to that, I'm not sure what is the best way to show where commercials are marked, which is an add-on, but one quite a few people use.

Also, I think the text is probably going to be too small on smaller TVs. I figure if Sage is going to update their UI, they're probably going to make sure everything is still usable when the screen size gets down to 19 inches (and probably on 4:3 TV too!). So, I think you'd probably want make the description box bigger. If people don't like it taking up 1/4 of the screen then they could turn off the description box, sort of like you can already do in the stock UI.

And third, there's a lack of mouse controls. Again, I think any new default UI is going to have to incorporate mouse controls by design. Maybe this could be accomplished by shrinking the width of the time bar and putting mouse controls on either size. Again, this could be something that could be turned off. Maybe it even would be turned off by default on the extenders.

Nice job though. I'd really like to see Sage update the OSD, since I think that's probably the most out-dated screen in the interface.

[Brent]

Are we talking about the default UI (default STV) or SageMC?

[brewston]

The top half reminded me of Bialio's simple mini guide :

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...do=file&id=242

[Brent]

Originally Posted by brewston

The top half reminded me of Bialio's simple mini guide :

http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...do=file&id=242

That was the one I was thinking of.

[limiter]

aflat is right, Cookie Monster is on the golf course because there is a giant cookie there. To be honest the cookie was a last minute addition.

SageTV default or SageMC, I don't care which one it would be implemented in. I don't care about mouse control and do not care about smaller TVs, but that is just because I designed this to selfishly meet my needs only.

Removing the info box would help with space concerns, but I like having the info so making it available but smaller was important to me.

I like the Simple Mini guide but it does not address the time bar design; that said I did not know about Simple Mini so thanks for pointing that out.

I started mocking up other parts of the interface, but gave up because nothing else really bugged me enough to put the effort in to change it. The only exception might be the recordings page which for me and my family is confusion until you spend time learning it (but maybe we are all just slow).

[bialio]

The SimpleOSD (full replacement, not just miniguide) is probably closer to what you are looking for.

btl.

[mayamaniac]

One rule of thumb is don't put anything against the edge of the screen or else it might get cut off.

I fail to see how this improves on the default OSD in terms of distractions. It's still way too big. Personally, I prefer it if SageTV developers give the option to temporarily turn off ALL OSD items when you don't want to see them, such as when watching a sports game and it covers the score and stats, or watching something with closed caption or subtitles ON. As of now, the OSD pops up everytime you press FF, RW, Play, Pause, etc.

[bialio]

In SageMC you could set the OSD timeout to 1 second and it'd dissapear pretty quick....

[mayamaniac]

You can do that with default STV too, but thats not what I'm talking about. There needs to be a way to turn it ON or completely OFF. I propose putting it in the Options pop up box. For example, add two more buttons with these functions:

Button 1: OSD
Pressing the button cycles through these settings:
- OSD (Timeline ON, Show Info ON)
- OSD (Timeline OFF, Show Info OFF)
- OSD (Timeline ON, Show Info OFF)
- OSD (Timeline OFF, Show Info ON)

Button 2: OSD Positioning
Pressing the button cycles through these settings:
- OSD Positioning (Timeline Bottom, Show Info Top)
- OSD Positioning (Timeline Top, Show Info Bottom)
- OSD Positioning (Timeline Bottom, Show Info Bottom)
- OSD Positioning (Timeline Top, Show Info Top)

Here's a mockup:

[reggie14]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

There needs to be a way to turn it ON or completely OFF. I propose putting it in the Options pop up box.

I agree there's room for improvement, but I disagree with your specific suggestion. I think we could probably reach some kind of rough consensus on what is the proper default behavior. I think we agree that the timebar itself ought to be pretty small. Even SageMC has a pretty obtrusive timebar for what it shows. I think we definitely need to consider mouse controls, but I'm perfectly willing to say that ought to be something that can be hidden (I just don't want them looking like after-thoughts).

I also think most of us would agree that when you do something like fast forwarding or skipping, it make the most sense to show the timebar, but not the show info (which is the behavior of both SageMC and the stock UI). And, at least to me, it seems to make perfect sense to stock the show info when you press the "Info" button (again, this is how it works with both UI's).

I question the benefit of providing a whole lot of customization there. I think some amount makes sense, at least as long as it's easy to do and doesn't clutter up the interface. As it stands, the menu you added those controls to already has way too many options for one screen. But, there are ways to do this sort of thing. Currently it's pretty easy to turn on and off the show description in the stock UI, and it doesn't clutter up any menu screens. SageMC does a nice job of providing lots of options for moving things around, but hiding them from novice users. Maybe an approach like that would work for some things, like specific placement of the timebar. But, I think pretty niche desires should either just be settings in the properties file, or things to do in Studio.

More generally, I get concerned every time we have a discussion on UI stuff because I think we often get rather niche suggestions. It seems like the standard we should be working towards is a UI that is good at everything, not one that is great for everyone (or even great for the most common setup). Customization is great, but integrating too many customization options can very quickly clutter things up and make it difficult to use (or, at least, make it appear difficult to use)

[nyplayer]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

One rule of thumb is don't put anything against the edge of the screen or else it might get cut off.

I fail to see how this improves on the default OSD in terms of distractions. It's still way too big. Personally, I prefer it if SageTV developers give the option to temporarily turn off ALL OSD items when you don't want to see them, such as when watching a sports game and it covers the score and stats, or watching something with closed caption or subtitles ON. As of now, the OSD pops up everytime you press FF, RW, Play, Pause, etc.

There is a STVI for the default that you can turn off the OSD and only show it when you press the info button.

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=33149

[bialio]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

One rule of thumb is don't put anything against the edge of the screen or else it might get cut off.

I fail to see how this improves on the default OSD in terms of distractions. It's still way too big. Personally, I prefer it if SageTV developers give the option to temporarily turn off ALL OSD items when you don't want to see them, such as when watching a sports game and it covers the score and stats, or watching something with closed caption or subtitles ON. As of now, the OSD pops up everytime you press FF, RW, Play, Pause, etc.

Sage is actually pretty smart about the edge of the screen - if the STVi author knows what they are doing they can put something right up to the visible edge without worrying about it getting cut off.

btl.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by reggie14

I agree there's room for improvement, but I disagree with your specific suggestion. I think we could probably reach some kind of rough consensus on what is the proper default behavior. I think we agree that the timebar itself ought to be pretty small.

The whole point is to give the user the power to do what they want because there's no one interface that will please everyone. As for the clutter, they can just add one button to the Options menu called OSD settings. I'm fine with that.

Originally Posted by nyplayer

There is a STVI for the default that you can turn off the OSD and only show it when you press the info button.

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=33149

This won't work. I actually don't want to turn the OSD off permanently, only temporary for certain shows. And the ON/OFF setting gotta be easily accessible such as through the Options menu and not buried in detailed settings or properties file.

Originally Posted by bialio

Sage is actually pretty smart about the edge of the screen - if the STVi author knows what they are doing they can put something right up to the visible edge without worrying about it getting cut off.

btl.

I was more concern about title safe/action safe. Wiki it if you don't know what it is.

[bialio]

I was more concern about title safe/action safe. Wiki it if you don't know what it is.

That's what I'm talking about also. If you build your widgets correctly they will show up in the in the "real" safe area.

That's what the overscan adjustment is for in Sage - it creates the bounding rectangle that UI widgets are contained in (as long as you create the widget correctly).

btl.

[razrsharpe]

Originally Posted by bialio

Sage is actually pretty smart about the edge of the screen - if the STVi author knows what they are doing they can put something right up to the visible edge without worrying about it getting cut off.

btl.

I agree with one major caveat... a lot of TVs (plasmas anyway) have an orbiter function to move the picture relative to the screen to prevent image retention... this in turn changes the overscan. On my TV it seems to move the picture during scene transitions (black screen). I had to disable the orbiter to get consistent overscan, and now i can place elements right up to the visible edge of the screen