Browser Based Setup

Page to document the design and implementation of Browser Based Setup

Requirements

• Replace Existing mythtv-setup
• All backend setup to be done via a web browser connection to the backend.
• Enumerate and autodetect tuners/available inputs to the best of our ability.
• Enumerate and present only existing network interfaces.
• Simplify setup of slave backends with sanity checking of IP address setup
• Do not permit a misconfigured backend. Add enough sanity checking that the resulting product is functional, even if not perfectly configured.
• Present only relevant options/modulations/frequency tables to the hardware and locale in the scanner
• Validate all input, require that each step is successfully completed/configured before moving on to the next.
• If advanced options are to be presented at all, they should be kept in an advanced pane-- dev nodes, etc. should be invisible to the average user since they are unnecessary to anyone not overriding the information
• Track reassignment of dev nodes on system restart if possible-- store a "fingerprint" of tuner information to track changes (serial number when available, PCI ID when not, vendor/name/etc. when all else fails)

Design

Sanity Checking

General

• IP Addresses to be selected from a simple dropdown. If address is non-loopback, add a "Make this backend the master" button/checkbox.
• Simplify slave backend setup with a simple checkbox or by detecting existing backends and offering a simple option to add this backend to the existing setup.

Capture Card Setup

• Hide DiSEqC options for incapable devices.

Video Sources

• Support the XMLTV configuration API. The API allows this config to be done in the browser (or other UI). This is preferable to redirecting the user to a shell for interactive configuration of xmltv e.g. channel selection.

Channel Scanner/Input Connections

• If we have only one video source, we don't need to even ask the user to manually map the card to source. This step can be skipped.
• Display names can be arrived at automatically by taking the video source name and appending an incremented number, e.g. Freeview 1, Freeview 2.

Channel Editor/Icon Download

• Do not allow frequencies/mplexid/etc. to be edited outside of the functional range of the device.
• Allow filtering by a range of criteria including service providers (DVB). This would take some of the pain out of hiding the unwanted channels (shopping/adult channels) from satellite lineups with hundreds of channels. See Kaffeine for an example.

Storage Group Setup

• Do not permit assignment of directories to a storage group if the backend user does not have permissions to read and write to them.