The web interface needs a rewrite
Added by Tony Houghton about 8 years ago
Are there any plans to rewrite the web interface? Its list of faults is too long and vague for a conventional bug report, it really needs a major rewrite. Most of the faults come from its UI framework. Presumably it's some sot of off-the-shelf library which was chosen before it was easy to find a decent one. It's badly designed, has many bugs on top of the design, it's non-responsive (to the point it's almost completely unusable on a tablet let alone a phone), ugly, outdated etc. Could it be replaced with something like Bootstrap perhaps?
Replies (5)
RE: The web interface needs a rewrite - Added by Mark Clarkstone about 8 years ago
Tony Houghton wrote:
Are there any plans to rewrite the web interface? Its list of faults is too long and vague for a conventional bug report, it really needs a major rewrite. Most of the faults come from its UI framework. Presumably it's some sot of off-the-shelf library which was chosen before it was easy to find a decent one. It's badly designed, has many bugs on top of the design, it's non-responsive (to the point it's almost completely unusable on a tablet let alone a phone), ugly, outdated etc. Could it be replaced with something like Bootstrap perhaps?
It is planned, but like a lot of things, it's in a long list of other things, you're more than welcome to help though :).
RE: The web interface needs a rewrite - Added by Jonathan Thomson about 8 years ago
You're not mincing your words there are you Tony?!
RE: The web interface needs a rewrite - Added by Anthony Thomas about 8 years ago
There's some apps available if you want to schedule recordings, check EPG etc on phone/tablet.
I find the web UI easy to use on a computer, definitely has its issue but with the limited number of people actively contributing it won't improve quickly. As someone who isn't contributing I'm not going to complain!
RE: The web interface needs a rewrite - Added by Tony Houghton about 8 years ago
Yeah, I've got a tendency to be blunt I'm afraid. I'm not sure how much help I can be. I am a programmer and even wrote my own channel scanner so I could add LCNs to VDR and MythTV (I originally had more ambitious plans) without having to assign each number manually, but I don't have experience of web app development focused on the server, or tvheadend's code base.
I used to use VDR for years, but it didn't support remote clients well, and never had a credible playback client unless your DVB card had its own playback hardware. I've also tried MythTV, but I think tvheadend has a better core design. Putting all the setup in a web interface is a great idea, and if you think I've been hard on it, you should see what I think of mythtv-setup!
I have to say tvheadend's developers have done a great job of figuring out how Freesat manages LCNs, but they have missed a trick. Freesat's BAT is duplicated on every transport stream, so you only need to connect to one to get the entire list of channels. My scanner takes seconds instead of minutes.
RE: The web interface needs a rewrite - Added by Dave Pickles about 8 years ago
I'm another refugee from VDR taking a look at this project. It's good to see that many features which needed patches, plugins or manual intervention in VDR 'just work' in TVH.
I have to agree though that the web interface is daunting, and I wouldn't want to use it for day-to-day management. I'm currently hacking together a simple replacement for 'vdradmin' which might be useful for other ex-VDR users.