GUIs That Don't Look Like GUIs?

Muttley asks: "There are plenty of projects out there to provide Free Software replacements for products like like TiVo, ReplayTV or AudioRequest. However the one thing that these replacements don't have, AFAIK, is a TV-based interface which doesn't look anything like the standard GUIs we all are familiar with (see the screenshots). Are there any projects out there that would make it very simple to do this sort of interface? It wouldn't need to handle multiple windows open at the same time just some simple widgets for doing simple interfaces but it would have to look pretty with lots of eye candy (alpha blended text and so on). Talisman goes part of the way but it's for Windows. How does Tivo do it and are they going to release the technology as Free Software? Or is there some way of doing it with existing window managers and widget Sets?"

Comments

Which Input Device?

[SEWilco]

Your User Interface will be affected by what devices the user can use for input. Mouse, Keyboard, Numeric Pad, Gamepad, Touchscreen, IR remote control, fully wired body suit, posing-as-letter-P-for-camera?

Some devices can emulate others, such as a touchscreen emulating a one-button mouse. Some can't easily emulate others, such as using a numeric pad to create email (I'm not stating whether a numeric pad is worse than a mouse clicking on an image of a keyboard).

If you're using a mouse or touchscreen, you can use a click-on-icons design. If you're using a keyed device, menus are the common choice.

You have to start with your input device, then use your imagination within that limitation.

Assorted User Interface Info

[SEWilco]

• A Summary of Principles for User-Interface Design.
• Graphical User Interfaces gallery.
• Human Computer Interfaces (graphics oriented)
• Towards the Anti-Mac (note the comments -- is the Adventure Shell non-GUI or only moving the images into your head?)

gtkextra could probably do it..

[Jose]

GTKextra looks like a nice widget set, in particular gtksheet should be able to make a nice table-like interface for showing a grid of tv listings..Of course it would mean running X and gtk, and some wm...(lots of overhead)

What tivo clones are available? I haven't seen any mentioned on freshmeat..
There are some components available..tvguide and xmltv to grab listings, mp1e to compress it to an mpeg1 movie file, and maybe mpeg2-movie to compress it a bit more after you are finished recording the show. [xtheatre, xmovie, mtv] will play the movie, lirc to provide the driver for your remote control..but there is nothing tying them all together.
I will be attempting to do so, but getting around to writting the code is somewhat difficult right now...has anyone actually started doing it?