[vlc-devel] [PATCH 2/2] hotkeys: When no audio is active, inform user timestamp is based on video.

[Zoran Turalija]

On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 04:58:14PM +0200, Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote:
> On 16 Apr, Zoran Turalija wrote :
> > In ACTIONID_SUBSYNC_MARKAUDIO, if there is no audio track, or if
> > audio track has been disabled, correctly inform user that timestamp
> > has been bookmarked based on video track rather then audio track.
> 
> No, this is ridiculous.
> This is OSD, not your debugging dialog...

Nonsense. You should review patch better. There is nothing ridiculous in it.
Nor it has anything on a debug level, either.

FYI, OSD has purpose to inform user of its action and a state after that
action has being carried out. It can be divided in four categories:

1) Action succeeded (omittable) and current state after the action is shown
   eg. action:  change channel
       info:    success, channel 3
       reality: 3
2) Action failed (omittable, not always) and reason (mandatory)
   eg. action:  play mp3 file that is not audio file at all
       info:    fail, file has been detected as excel file, not audio file
       reality: unrecognized format
3) Action rejected (omittable, not always) and reason (mandatory)
   eg. action:  change brightness while playing audio file
       info:    not possible, can't change brightnes of audio file
       reality: no video
4) Action applied (omittable) and info about a fact that applied action was not
   really what user may have asked for
   eg. action:  bookmark audio timestamp when no active audio
       info:    success, no active audio, sync will be performed with video
       reality: bookmarked video timestamp

Of course, this is fourth case.

In all OSD messages, program can not ridicule user action nor point out
stupidity of user action. Messages must be informative, non intrusive and
subtle. Go ahead, and read reality infos.

Especially in this case, when normal OSD info would be:

    bookmarked audio timestamp

and in case that this patch addresses, when there is no active audio:

    bookmarked video timestamp

Informative, non intrusive and subtle.

Far from debug message level eg. user changes dvb channel, broadcaster is
sending weird transport stream mpeg encapsulation, vlc detects weird stream,
decodes it using workaround but never sends anything about it to OSD, 'cause
user action was: change channel, not: start decoding weird stream. In that
case, one can send debug message: "At broadcast level: Idiot detected...".

I have seen that many of you do simplify things (very good), but sometimes you
forget to "Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler." (not good).

In this case, OSD message is informative, correct and intended for user, not
developer. Majority of users won't even acknowledge this message (in couple of
seconds), but pedantic ones will, and it will provoke smile on their face.

Again: informative, non intrusive and subtle.

Example when OSD is being misused in VLC:

When playback of new video starts, video filename is shown in OSD totally
uncalled for, in intrusive fashion and without being subtle to "inform" user
of video file being played. And, by the way, in majority of use cases that is
complete duplication of info because, VLC being casual media player (not STB
alike) has GUI, and in window title bar there is filename shown like for
eternity.

I won't lose any sleep about this patch not making it into mainline VLC, but
also I won't let it go without reason or with as weak logic as that you used to
reject it.

Nothing personal against you or any of developers. To the contrary, I respect
all your work on this project.

-- 
Kind regards,
Zoran Turalija