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View Full Version : several feature requests



kine
August 4th, 2008, 03:13 PM
I have some feature requests/suggestions. There's a bunch of them, so i thought i should stick them in one thread:

1. Radio buttons in the default interface are confusing. The solid white circle could be taken both as being empty and as being filled. I would suggest something more obvious, like making the unfilled radio button more dim, or making the check mark more obvious (like, a literal check-mark symbol maybe).

2. It would be nice if there was an auto-log-in option. I don't share my computer with anyone else, so clicking my user name every single time i bring up boxee is kind of redundant.

3. Unicode support would be neat. The names of my hard drives are rendered as boxboxboxboxboxbox and boxboxbox, which isn't very informative. I know that the language issue is a known one, so maybe this is already in the works.

4. The 'Settings' buttons in the Pictures and Video sections don't do anything when clicked. If they have no function, they should be disabled.

5. In the same vein as # 2, it would be nice if boxee auto-opened sources when there is only one. For example, if your only Pictures source is 'Local Pictures', boxee should automatically take you to Local Pictures when you click on the Pictures button in the main menu. You shouldn't have to pick Pictures and then Local Pictures.

6. The Escape button doesn't work consistently. It appears that it's supposed to have the same function as the Menu button on the Apple Remote (which is basically 'go back' in most cases), and it does sometimes, but not always. For example, pressing Escape when navigating through your sources often takes you back to the main menu rather than going up one folder level as with the Menu button.

7. Volume control is very poor. In VLC if i want to watch videos at a high volume, i can put the system volume at about 50% and use VLC's volume control to do the rest. If i want to achieve the same volume in boxee, i have to turn both the boxee volume and the system volume to the absolute MAX. Even then it's still not as loud as VLC. It's clear that the system could go much much louder if boxee would only allow it.

8. The appropriate filters should be auto-selected when viewing sources. For example, when viewing Music, the 'Audio Files' filter should be enabled by default. Unless i explicitly ask for it, i should not see JPEGs, NFOs, and SFVs when i'm browsing my music. These filters should be persistent across sessions. (See here (http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?p=559#post559) and here (http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=123).)

9. boxee should yield control over the Apple Remote to other applications. (See here (http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=176) and here (http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=63).)

10. There's no ability to edit the paths of sources once they're created. If you want to change your 'Local Movies' source from /Users/kine/Movies to /Users/kine/Movies2, you have to delete the first source and make a whole new one with the corrected path. I don't see why boxee couldn't allow you to modify the path directly.

idan
August 5th, 2008, 09:25 AM
hey kine,

first i would like to say that i really appreciate you taking the time to suggest all these ideas, thats very helpful.

and by the order of apperance:
1. i agree that the radio buttons are problematic and we are planning to change it.

2. we will implement an autologin option soon. i know i really need it...

3. what platform are you running boxee on? i think this should work for mac and might be fixed for next linux version.

4. right, needs to be implmented.

5. agree.

6. the idea is that when using the keyboard, esc would take you back to the home screen and the backspace would take you one step back. if it doesnt always work like that its a bug. do you think its wrong to have such and implementaion?

7. i asked our experts, they dont really know but we will look at it cause it surely is lower.

8. mm... i agree in general. though there might be some cases where you want to see other files in the same folder as you are browsing in folder mode instead of library mode.

9. will look at it.

10. point take, we will change it.

thanks,
idan

kine
August 5th, 2008, 04:28 PM
I really appreciate you guys' openness to suggestions, it's refreshing. :p

Re # 3, i'm running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.4. My boot drive's name for example is リコウケイター (that's Japanese Katakana, if it doesn't show up correctly for you), but boxee just displays it as empty boxes. Everything still works, i can still navigate the drive and everything, it just doesn't render the name correctly.

Re # 6, i hadn't realised that you could use the Backspace! I guess knowing the intended behaviour now i will have to go back and do some further testing to see if the Escape button is working the way you describe. Will do this when i get home later tonight and get back to you.

As far as whether i think it should be like that, i guess i'm torn. On the Mac in particular we're trained to tie the Backspace key directly to the 'delete' function -- delete text, delete files, delete pictures, &c. So in that sense i guess it is kind of un-intuitive. On the other hand, i can't think of anything more logical to replace it. :/

Re # 8, agreed, but with my suggestion you would still have the ability to do that if you wanted.

kine
August 6th, 2008, 07:34 PM
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

I've tested the Escape and Backspace functions, and it turns out that they are actually not consistant.

In Video, Music, and Pictures, the Escape key works as you described (it returns you straight to the main screen). The Backspace key takes you one step back, until you get to the list of source folders ('Local Pictures' and so on). If you press Backspace there, you should be taken back to the main menu, but instead nothing happens at all.

In Settings, the Escape key works as the Backspace key should. It doesn't take you directly back to the main screen; instead it takes you back one level at a time. The Backspace key works the same as mentioned above (back one level at a time, until you get to the main Settings screen, at which point you have to press Escape or you can go no further).


Also, attached is a screen-shot of the way boxee displays Japanese text in file paths. It's displayed the same way in the 'Add New Source' browser thing.

marcel
August 7th, 2008, 09:13 AM
Hi kine

You are correct that there is some inconsistency regarding the backspace and escape keys and have reported this as a bug and we will try and fix this in future versions.

Regarding the Japanese text in the file path ,boxee does support unicode but as i can see from your image we need to look into this a little bit more.

thanks for the great reports