The Media Center Sandbox

I know we've already got a long thread on the idea of increasing the number of custom Start Menu strips here. I'd like to broaden the topic just a tad. If you wouldn't mind, take a few minutes to post your thoughts on...

1. Likes?
2. Dislikes?
3. How would you make them work for the consumer?

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Charlie Owen (Microsoft)

Are we talking about increasing the number of strips here, or are we just throwing out ideas in general?

Anyway, I like the fact we can create these custom strips (as does my users), however the system as is, is rather flawed. If a user installs three applications, all using their own strips, one of these strips will removed and the user will need to make a decision on which one (s)he'd like to keep available.

How about allowing an infinite (or ridicilously large) amount of these strips to be created, but the end-user will explicitly have to raise the number of concurrently displayed strips? I.e., there would be an option "Number of custom strips" under Settings / General / Program Library Options.

That way, the average user will not end up with 50 custom strips on the main menu after trying out a few add-ins, but the poweruser could.

Also, it would be great to be able to create and/or change your 'own' custom strip programatically, at runtime. That way I could have a 'strip' setting where the user could select which options they would like available.

This should also include the possibility of setting the default tile. For example, if a strip contains five tiles, the user should be able to select tile #2 as the default selected tile upon entering the strip.

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Ideas in general, including your thoughts on the number of strips (although that's been covered pretty well).

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Charlie Owen (Microsoft)

Simple Answers:

Like: Layout, smoothness.

Dislike: Can't register an app to have the wide images that you see in MS Start menu entries, can't make changes at run time, too few strips, (possibly) too few items per strip, no user notification when a strip gets 'bumped' off.

Detailed Answers:

Mostly, I'd be re-iterating my previous ideas about strips.

I'm writing Addinistrator at the moment, so I'll offer all of the ideas I've had about it.

In a perfect world, I think that there should be an unlimited number of Start menu strips, but that work be done on CONSOLODATING those strips, to prevent the start menu being cluttered. And users should have control of those strips within Media Center.

Grouping

For example, I'd like the users to be able to 'groups' of addins (with addins coming with their own default groups, based on the category they are installed in - ie. Pictures, TV, Movies, Games etc.). You could then have a single strip (or more than 1) devoted to a single Group. For example, you could have a 'Games' strip that shows the programs installed in that category.

They should be sorted by FREQUENCY OF USE, rather than by the date of installation

 

Consolidation

As the strips become crowded, I think the Start menu strips should 'collapse'. So let's say a user has a Media Center Flash Jukebox, EMUCenter and another game addin (such as GameEx) installed into the 'Games' group. And while they don't currently, let's assume that these applications all have their own strips and have MULTIPLE start menu items on each of their strips.

You could effectively 'collapse' these applications by putting all of their seperate options in a sub-menu (like a 'More With This' menu), so the only three items that would actually appear in the Start menu would be 'EMUCenter', 'GameEx' and 'Media Center Flash Jukebox'...all of the detail would be able to be 'drilled down' to when you choose the application.

This would IDEALLY be done as an overlay over the start menu, but to make things easier on the dev team, a completely seperate sub-menu would also be fine.

 

Context

Additionally, I think applications should have the ability to edit their own (and ONLY their own) Start menu strip. This way, if a user does have a Start menu strip devoted to a single application (for example, Yougle, Big Screen Headlines or EMUCenter), their favourite or most used SUB ITEMS from that addin (eg. YouTube for Yougle, your favourite RSS feed in Headlines, the last played game in EMUCenter etc.) could be made available as an entry in the start menu strip.

 

Customisation

When an application with a new Start menu entry is registered and Media Center is started (or notified) then a dialog should appear asking me if I want to add it to my Start menu. It should ideally have three options, 'Yes', 'No' and 'More' (or something similar) to allow me to either add it automatically, refuse to add it, or go straight to the interface that allows me to group my addins and choose which Start menu strips appear.

 

Look and Feel

With the square images that you can register with Media Center, it's impossible to make our Start menu entries look as good as the wide-aspect images used by Microsoft in their start menu entries. Custom start menu entries should be able to display wide images.

 

Start Menus, Ordering & Default Focus

OK, the third one is stolen from emigratings good idea. I think that from the registration XML file, it should be possible to...

   Create a Start Menu Strip (optional - the registry option isn't too bad, but still can cause 32/64 bit installer issues)

   Specify the ORDER of the items in the Start Menu strip (VERY important!)

   Specify which item should get the default focus

 

ALL of these functions are the sort of requests I've had from users, so I know they have a real, legitimate use and that users do want them - or they are from me, because of workarounds and problems I've had.

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100 downloads a day for Yougle Vista - goin' allright!

Check out http://www.thedigitallifestyle.com/cs/Blogs/developer/default.aspx and http://www.push-a-button.com.au/products/mce

LIKES

- Look and feel are amazing

DISLIKES

Current Groups
- The grouping of some objects is counter intuitive (Pictures & Videos?)

- TV, Movies & Videos should be grouped together

- I hate the multiple explore icons all over the place.

Music
- How do you search for a music file inside the music library without having to go back to the main menu? You shouldn't have to go back there.

Customization - User
- If I want 14 start menu items let me have 14 start menu items

- Allow users to pick and choose what strips are shown on the start menu

- Allow users to specify strip order - For example: TV, Sports, Music, Pics, etc. instead of the current (Pics, Music, Tv....)

- Favorites; Allow users to create their own strips with their own apps, think of Quick Launch for the taskbar and extend it to MCE. I could image putting Live TV, and a few 3rd Party applications in one custom strip which would serve about 90% of my use cases.

 

Customization - Developer
- Allow developers to choose Icon order within strips and specify a default Icon (could be the 3rd item or the 1st, etc.)

- 3rd Party Icons look ugly because they are squeezed into a box, we should be able to make full use of Icon real estate aswell not just 1st party Icons.

- I'm gonna throw this out there: How about doing more with custom strips? Right now a custom strip is simply a glorified link imagine a scenario where developers can put real usable information in a custom strip. Think of a weather application, if I go to its custom strip it would be cool if todays forecast is right there on the left and the actual strip items are on the right.

Time for a really bad ASCII drawing - MCE Start Menu with Usable Data :
=================================
. . . TV
. . . MUSIC

_ _ _ WEATHER _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

70F . . . .|More| . . |About|
Cloudy. . .|Info| . . |. . .|
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

. . . VIDEOS
. . . TASKS
=================================

Online Media
- Some of this stuff is really terrible and doesn't jive with the mcml interface at all, also many of these apps take forever to load and once they finish loading they don't work. The MCE team should be way more fussy about who gets to be on the Online Spotlight.

- Is there an easier way to access third party apps? MCE 2005 remembers the last 3 used applications and presents them right there on the main screen instead of us having to dig in further.

Games
There should be a games strip; There are 7 games installed by default but I need to go to Online Media -> Program Library to find them or access them each time.

 

 

 

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blog.manghera.com

Hi,

Well don't mean to sound skeptical - but hope this isn't just a 'we are listening' campaign - but 'we arent really doing anything' (as it's all locked down anyhow till Mediacenter 2020)...

I think the current menu strips are 'pretty good' (a really nice navigation paradigm/visual experience)- except they try to make invalid assumptions on the scenarios/usages of consumers (and don't offer many good options).

Hence there has to be that 'full customization' aspect as well for it to really work well - but done sensibly - so some places are still consistent and can be supported with 'go to this menu and click this button to do this' type documents (not completely freeform). When the consumers need to make resource hacks etc (on .MUI files etc)- which get blown away with updates etc - this is a bad outcome (and consumers don't understand this and may even be scared off applying updates etc as a result).

I think the current customization options are really way too limited for extensibility (as mentioned above) - such as limiting the 'add to start menu' to 1 icon only etc (or limiting strips to 5 icons and static only data). The example above of having live content/context coming through to the main menu is spot on (ie. weather info being display on the start page without hacks) - and I think the 'now playing' feature thats there now is a great idea and example of 'why' this is needed (when content is playing) - and should be extended to allow full 3rd party extensibility.

My personal 'beefs' with the start menu (for using the tv related functionality) - is that it takes too many clicks/navigation to get to the upcoming/scheduled shows - something that I need to check regularly to ensure we don't miss something due to EPG changes etc (something which was available I think in one click on MCE2005) - and also some of the strange groupings used (ie. the videos being segregated from the dvd library etc).

I know this layout might work in better if we were in the 'USA' - but down here it doesn't quite work. (ie Movies on TV, IPTV etc is not available - so videos should be on the same strip - and a direct link to scheduled shows should be on this strip too).

Niall

 

My thoughts:

- ability to add more than 2 strips (like everyone else!)

- ability to update without leaving Media Center and specifically dynamically update the tiles (the same goes for extensibility app icons in Program Library - I want to change the icon regularly but it gets cached permanently by Media Center)

- wide tiles rather than the square ones for us - it was possible to do wide tiles in the betas, but it was taken out in RTM!

- ability for the user to choose which tile gets bumped - I have an app I want on the TV + Movies strip, but as soon as I install a third party HD-DVD player, it takes the spot which I don't want to happen.

- consistency of positioning on the strips - I have an app that has 3 items on a custom strip and the items keep changing places!

Cheers,
Andrew

Hi Charlie,

I agree with pretty much everything people are saying here,

Here are a list of my suggestions

1. Don't give me broken options out of the box - broken in australia: intenet tv, radio
2. Allow me to customize my strips, I dont want sport at all, sorry
3. I have no idea why I need a "play all" option for pictures and music in the front screen, move these options out
4. Get rid of more tv, more music, more pictures have one place where you go to look at third party stuff.
5. On that topic, give us some love please, we write cool plugins that look so much nicer than the third party stuff you link to in "online media" -> explore, how about a launch pad that allows me to install "apporved" third party apps, that takes care of upgrade etc...
6. The tasks strip is too clutered, what is an "extender" what is "sync" what is "media only" ?  They are advanced tasks that belong deeper in the navigation structure. they are never used on a daily basis
7. Videos + Pictures grouping makes no sense, at all. Pictures and videos should be seperate.
8. Allow my to disable everything (even a registry hack would be nice) I want to get rid of Browse Videos, cause I prefer to use my videos browser than the "browse videos" option in mce. I want to get rid of music, cause I just use a Sonos and I never managed to get the music option to work for my music library.
9. I find the online media strip the way it stands, useless

Cheers
Sam

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- Sam
samsaffron.com

I just wanted to pipe in again, and say I love sambo99's #5. Ok, so this doesn't have anything to do with strips as such, but "Windows Marketplace" available from within VMC - great idea!

Also, whilst I'm posting again. I agree with everyone else, Pictures and Videos do not belong together. Pictures and Home Videos maybe, at a stretch, but let's face it, the majority of users have 'questionable' material in their Video Gallery (by questionable I mean downloaded, recorded or ripped content). If there is one thing that keeps popping up on just about every media center related forum, it is this - why are my videos next to my photos and not next to my DVDs or recorded television.

I do not want the Sports strip either (and have removed it via the registry), so please make this optional somehow.

Another thing I have been asked often is if it would at all be possible to re-map the remote control buttons to other tasks. Such as, they want to start myTV when pressing the Recorded TV button. At the moment I'm advicing  them it's not a supported scenario, but can be achieved by replacing the IR drivers. Having this as an option would be gold.

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1. Infinite strips.
2. Customisable Strips - If I don't want to use stuff, I don't want to (nor should I have to) navigate through it. There is a 3rd party app that allows me to modify the two custom strips but having it available through a native UI would be perfect.
3. Sports is a non-issue for me as when you install as Australia it doesn't appear.
4. And as with most, Pictures and Videos don't go together. However, third part apps have reduced my need to use that strip to nil so being able to remove it would fix my problem there.