Ideas for reducing clicks

I thought I’ll jot down a few ideas/thoughts on how the Tablo Roku app can be improved for playback and managing recordings with the least amount of clicks since I’d rather get carpal tunnel from using my computer and not from watching TV :smile:

  1. Clicking the roku remote “play” button will play the episode which I need to watch next. For example, let’s say I have a show with episode 1, 2 and 3 recorded. Clicking play (without going into the show) will play episode 1. If I have already watched episode 1 it will play episode 2. If I have watched part of episode 2 it will resume episode 2.

  2. Clicking the * button will provide a context menu with options such as delete, show info, episode list, play last episode, play first episode, mark as watched/unwatched etc.

  3. Clicking OK on a show takes you to the episode list by default since I am assuming very few of us want to read the show info (unless it’s a new show I am watching for the first time). If I really want to see the show info I can click the up arrow and see it.

  4. While watching a show the * will provide a context menu to delete, play next episode and a single option of “delete and play next episode”

  5. A Watch from beginning and Resume buttons so they don’t go to a dialog after clicking “Watch…”

  6. Under settings allow the user to select if they want to see the delete confirmation dialog box

  7. When I reach the end of a show a “delete confirmation” dialog box appears asking if I want to delete the show. This can also be a “show delete confirmation when I finish watching an episode” checkbox under settings so folks who don’t want this can turn it off. I guess the challenge here would be on how Tablo can detect the end of the show since most recording will have 5 or more minutes after the end.

  8. My roku remote has A and B buttons which I never use. Any possibility to be able to assign custom functions via settings to these Roku buttons? Not quite sure what would be make sense here.

That’s all I could think of for now. In general less clicks and if at all possible allow the user to control the behavior in settings since quite a few of these can come down to personal preference and how you use Tablo.

1 Like

When selecting a live channel or a recorded show, you can just hit the play button and it starts playing right away.

Yep, I do use that option. For points 1 - 3 above, I was referring to the recordings screen that shows the list of all shows as the starting point. This way I can start watching a show without having to click the show, then down arrow to get rid of the show info screen and then the play button.

You make some really good points. Another thing I’d like to be able to do is to see the description of a show WHILE I am already watching it. Kind of like when you hit “info” on a Comcast or FiOS remote. As time goes by I’m starting to wonder why development is so slow on Tablo. There are many things that should just BE a part of it already.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I’ve shared this with the Roku team.