Suggestion: EPG123 should "highlight" new channel in lineups

[DSperber]

Just installed 1.2.2. No problems. Everything's working fine.

I hardly ever run EPG123 except at times like this when a new version is released, but pretty much every time I do this and get a chance to review my cablecard and OTA lineups and then push the "save and execute" button I run into this same annoying situation: inevitably there has been some SD lineup change for either or both of my lineups, with either new channels entering one or both of the lineups (quite common) or old channels perhaps disappearing (rare, but it happens occasionally).

When any of the above situations occurs pushing the "save and execute" button prompts me to confirm before proceeding that I am aware that the total number of channels has changed, say from 86 to 91 (as just happened today). Well, as is typical, today I hadn't actually made any manual changes in my checked channels (since I am only interested in seeing Guide info for channels I might potentially actually possibly tune to rather than the many many hundreds of channels actually offered by my cable provider and OTA here in LA) but would certainly like to see which channels were apparently "newly added" (in which case they are pre-checked as "active" by default) in order to decide whether or not to leave them checked or to un-check them.

So now I have to go back and slowly run through the two channel lineup tabs one page at a time, looking at the checked channels to see if I recognize them and were they previously checked because I had previously selected them. Or, were they in fact newly added and simply pre-checked by default, which I probably can infer by looking at their channel call signs and long names, but which certainly would appreciate if they were in some way highlighted as "newly added".

I can propose either a brand new column of check boxes, say for "newly added since the last save" and have pre-checks appear there to highlight them. Or, perhaps forget adding a new column of check boxes but simply specially colorize the entire row for that newly added channel number so that it visibly stands out easily. Or, perhaps change an icon or button or otherwise highlight perhaps just the channel number or call sign, again just so that it visibly is instantly recognizable as a newly added channel (e.g. one of the obviously 5 new channels somewhere which make up the increase for me from 86 to 91).

It also might be nice to have some "total" somewhere when selecting a given lineup tab telling me that *you have 3 new channels in this lineup", or "you have 2 new channels in this lineup", etc., so that I would know when I see them and probably un-check them that I'm now done or that I have more to look for. Just convenient for me to have that little bit of additional info as well as seeing the new channels highlighted in some way in the actual pages of lineup channels as I page through.

Might also be very nice to have an "active lineup" option button to "hide all old channels" (in order to show ONLY the newly added channels), so that for example I wouldn't have to page through 15 pages of cable channels just to see the 3 newly added channels. I could "hide" all the previously active channels to reveal only those 3 new channels, so that I could easily un-check all three right away with no paging whatsoever in order to locate them individually.

Obviously, EPG123 knew that previously my total number of selected channels previously saved was 86, and now it will be 91. Why not also let me see those specific new 5 in some easy and convenient way, so that I can manage just those 5 new ones separately which is a very typical need for a user I would imagine. I know it ALWAYS occurs for me every few months.

As it turns out, I had three new cable channels added on my cablecard lineup, and two new OTA channels added on my OTA lineup. No deletions. And I eventually found and un-checked all five of these new channels, in the two lineup tabs I reviewed. But it took some effort, and slow paging and reading of each checked line, etc., and I had to keep track of how many pre-checked channels I was un-checking, in order to be sure that I'd finally found all 5 in total of the new channels (wherever they were) that made up my alerted increase from 86 to 91.


Just a suggestion for what I feel would be a nice improvement in the user interface for this particular function which seems to always happen for me whenver a new EPG123 release comes out (say every few months), which inevitably reflects at least a few cable or OTA channels that have come to life in the past few months since the last time I ran EPG123.

[garyan2]

It is certainly doable, but could also be unneeded. Based on your description, I believe you have the "Automatically download new stations in lineups" selected. If you have this selected, anytime EPG123 recognizes a new station during an update, that station's guide listings will be downloaded and added to the MXF file. If you also have the "Automatically match stations to channels" selected, then on import, if the merged channel exists, that channel will automatically be assigned the listings and the channel enabled to be visible in the guide. This kind of setup is for those that simply set everything up and download ALL stations... any stations that are added/removed from the lineup will be transparent and the guide will simply grow and shrink as needed without any user intervention.

Note also that if you have "Automatically download new station in lineups" selected, when you open the configuration GUI, those new stations will automatically be selected because that is what you wanted to do above.

I believe what you want to do is deselect that option. This way, the new stations will not be automatically downloaded, will not be automatically selected in the GUI, and your station count will not change (unless a station was removed). With the option not selected, there will be entries in your trace.log file that records those new stations similar to "**** Lineup XXXXXXX-XX-X (Cox Digital Cable (Tucson)) has added station KXYZ (KXYZ-DT). ****". Also, I just realized this is logged as a Warning, so the status logo will show a '!' and a look into the log file will show the above.

Anyway, I will probably go ahead and have the GUI highlight any new stations. I probably will not, however, add any filtering to those listviews.

[DSperber]

Well, I guess there are always positive and negative (by that I mean the opposite of whatever is "positive") ways to accomplish anything.

I would not want to just automatically opt to get Guide data for a channel that I had not manually selected for availability, both in WMC "edit channels" and its equivalent for those same channels in EPG123. So say in let's just say in the month between the previous opening EPG123 and this latest one just today there were these five new channels added by either Spectrum or OTA at some time during this past month to the 86 channels I'd previously confirmed (by "save and execute") when ending the previous usage of the program.

I would assume EPG123 is then only going to be retrieving data for those previously marked 86 channels throughout this month and indefinitely going forward, until I again modify that set of checked channels. I had assumed that while the updated channel list may be retrieved and displayed whenever EPG123 is run during the past month with somewhere between 0 and 5 channels added each time I might have run the program over the past month (and eventually by today now revealing the new total of these 5 newly added channels default pre-checked), that unless I actually "save and execute" with any of those new channels actually still checked that the list of channels for which data is retrieved by EPG123 would simply still remain 86 indefinitely.

Now I may have unwittingly (or consciously, probably) checked the option to "automatically download new stations in lineups", because I really do want to be kept advised of all additional channels added periodically by either Spectrum or OTA. As it turns out I probably have ZERO interest in any new digital OTA channels which are almost certainly just sub-channels being sold and which have nothing to do with the major networks' primary sub-channel (e.g. 4.1 for NBCDT) which is all I myself will ever be interested in for OTA. Others may have a different attitude, but for me I only care about the main major networks' sub-channels here in LA (2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 7.1, 9.1, 11.1). But it might well be possible that Spectrum might actually start carrying a new cable channel which I might have interest in (other than some new game channel or foreign channel or shopping network, etc.). So I really would like to see whatever's been added recently.

In other words, I have no problem with actually seeing these new channels, meaning I really DO want this EPG123 option checked. In fact this is a good thing to provide. To be honest I don't really want to be hunting through any LOG. I'd rather that the program's normal ordinary GUI provide the functionality I seek.

I am simply asking for some nifty way to HIGHLIGHT these newly added channels (which are not part of my previously checked and saved lineup sets) to make it easier for me to notice them, and make my decision easily and quickly whether to un-check them or leave them checked, before SAVE. So any way to make the newly added channels (i.e. any and all which are not in the previously saved set) visibly stand out in the list, this has got to be an improvement over the way it is now which is simply to present them intermixed with all other previously checked channels and expect me to find them myself.

And I think that if you don't want to "filter" the total list to show only the new ones, then at least presenting a count at the top showing how many new ones are present would be adding a bit more value to the enhancement. I would then know that if I've located the 3 new cable channels, or the 2 new OTA channels, then that's all I need to review. I think that would be quite helpful during this updated channel list review process.

[garyan2]

Sorry, no. I'm not going to invest any calories into giving more than highlighting the new stations since last save. If you look at the capture below, it will be very easy to see which stations those are even if you scroll through the list quickly; row is highlighted in pink. This gives you what you need to efficiently get the job done.

[DSperber]

A pink row highlighting any new channel would be perfectly terrific. No need to go further.

Thank you.