Hide play cd menu option if no cd or dvd is in drive

[Joshua Scotton]

We need to hide the Play CD Menu option if there's nothing in the CD/DVD drive

[Jamie Bennett (jamiebennett)]

Agreed, this should be implemented but also reworded to support not just CD's but DVD's too.

[Lauri Taimila (lauri-deactivatedaccount)]

There should be no "Play CD" or "Play DVD" menuitem. My suggestion is that we have "Play disc" when there is CD or DVD in the drive.

[Matt Layman (mblayman)]

I'm not sure that it is a good idea to show and hide a "Play Disc" option unless we can do it very smoothly and in a way that can highlight the fact that the option has appeared. I think that there is something worthwhile in spatial memory and if we start hiding main menu options when they are not accessible we might face a problem of discoverability.

Would users know where to play a cd or dvd from if we hide it from view? For example, new user Johnny wants to listen to a CD. By default, this theoretical Entertainer hides the CD menu option and Johnny doesn't notice it when it appears (because it may be scrolled off of the main menu screen). Johnny looks in the music section, but can't find his CD and gets frustrated and gives up. This may seem like a silly example, but I think it's plausible, especially if we have a plug-in system in the future that would allow for more items to show up on the main menu.

My question is this: is it better to hide features that aren't being used or show them so users know that they are available? I wouldn't use the feeds section as a user so should I be able to hide that option to streamline my user experience?

I'm not sure I have a good answer to my own questions, but I think I would lean towards having a consistent set of core features that are always present so that the user is continuously aware that the feature exists.

Josh, I don't think your bug is bad, and maybe it should be implemented. I'm just trying to stimulate some discussion about this subject.

[Joshua Scotton (joshuascotton)]

What if we had a Play disc option that defaults to being shown all the time, but can be switched to hiding when no disc is in through manually editing the config? This would be similar to the eject cd option (which is only shown if the config is manually edited).

[Matt Layman (mblayman)]

I view the first sentence of our launchpad description ("Entertainer aims to be a simple and easy-to-use media center solution for Gnome and XFce desktop environments.") as our goal or mission statement. Targeting GNOME users, to me, means selecting a sane set of defaults. Additionally, we make the explicit claim that we aim to create a *simple* and easy-to-use media center.

We could start adding ui settings to the preferences dialog, but before you know it, the dialog may seem like the compiz community settings manager (which is a mess in case you haven't seen what I'm talking about). I think adding a new preference is a way of avoiding the issue and forcing the user to make a decision about the interface when the decision should be made by the development team. I would rather reach a consensus, and choose one method (always present) or the other (hide when no disc). Is this a reasonable goal?

[Joshua Scotton (joshuascotton)]

Point taken, my preference would be a 'play disc' option and I think you're right about not hiding it.

[Michael Dundee (dundee-michael)]

I think simplicity and adaptivity can both be achieved. In my opinion there
should be three levels of simplicity>

1) Sane defaults. Basically a set of defaults that feel so natural that most
users wouldn't even think of changing them. This includes theme, navigation
style etc.

2) Limited choice. In the settings dialogs some limited choice is given.
Here again we try to keep the sanity. I.e. the user can choose between a few
sane choices in a few well chosen areas (such as what theme to use and what
plugins to run etc. )

3) Advanced choice. Hidden under an "Advanced" option or in a completely
different dialog wel let the advanced user loose on the settings. Maybe even
on the stylesheets that control the layout etc. The most important part is
that the user is never confronted with this third level unless he/she
explicitly seek it out. It should be an added bonus rather then a way for us
to force the user to take a decision.

Preferably the user should be able to install => start => enjoy media. One
way of doing that is to automagically add the standard media folders of
whatever distribution upon install. This wayt the user will start up
entertainer and find their media allready indexed and ready to go.

Now about the Play disc menu. In my opinion it doesnt much matter if its
there or not at all times. if its there and there is no disk in the drive it
will cause some momentary irritation. But not enough to actually matter. If
its not there it will pop up upon inserting a disk. Wether thats confusing
or not is a non issue as the disk shoud notify the user, or possibly
autostart upon insertion. The home page menu is short enough that no entry
will get burried.

On the subject of plugins I have to say I think plugins should be relegated
to whatever submenu they fit in. They shouldnt be on the homepage. There
might be a need to add a "Plugins" or "Other" menu item on the home page in
order to accomodate some of the odder plugins.

Well those are my thoughts on the subject anyway. Oh and also this. Users
like control. Thats why they chose linux after all. If they wanted to be
told what to like they would ahve stayed with Windows/Mac. So if we take too
many decisions away from the users they will turn to some other MC. There
are quite a few of them around now a days.

/Michael
On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 10:35 PM, Matt Layman <email address hidden>
wrote:

> I view the first sentence of our launchpad description ("Entertainer
> aims to be a simple and easy-to-use media center solution for Gnome and
> XFce desktop environments.") as our goal or mission statement. Targeting
> GNOME users, to me, means selecting a sane set of defaults.
> Additionally, we make the explicit claim that we aim to create a
> *simple* and easy-to-use media center.
>
> We could start adding ui settings to the preferences dialog, but before
> you know it, the dialog may seem like the compiz community settings
> manager (which is a mess in case you haven't seen what I'm talking
> about). I think adding a new preference is a way of avoiding the issue
> and forcing the user to make a decision about the interface when the
> decision should be made by the development team. I wou...

[Matt Layman (mblayman)]

Michael, I think you're idea of Advanced configuration options would be appropriate for certain things (like setting the port number that the backend uses to talk to the frontend). There are some levels of configuration that users want control over and we should give it to them when necessary, however, I don't think it would be good for this ui behavior.

I also like your idea automatically setting up media folders. Maybe you should write a wishlist bug.

As for plug-ins, I agree that we should try to incorporate into the existing sections where we can, but certain things (e.g. a comic book reader) would be best served by having their own category. Of course, all of this is hearsay right now because none of the development work as been done to think about how to implement a plug-in system.

I think any further discussion of plug-ins and automatic set up should be moved to the mailing list because they are outside the scope of this bug.