Author Topic: Parental Controls please?  (Read 4607 times)

blacklotus

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Parental Controls please?
« on: September 27, 2007, 01:24:58 pm »
the LinuxMCE just blows me away with the features and flexibility available but I have one HUGE request (ok, maybe 2) ;)

i have would be the ability to perhaps assign either certain directories or use mpaa R and up ratings to restrict certain content unless a code is entered. while i want my children to have access to most content, i can't allow them to access EVERYTHING. i had a very crude way of doing it in media portal using windows user share acceess, but it would be nice to see it implemented properly in LinuxMCE, plus no way to easily change samba user in the interface, right?  i am not as concerned with locking access to tv shows as i am home when these types of shows are on, but the movies need to be regulated.

of course this feature should be optional so only those that want to impose restrictions can.

perhaps it could be set so that after being unlocked, it would remain in that state until either powered off or inactive (no media playing or activity) for 20 min.
surely i'm not the only parent who has this concern? or am I?  :-\

i also would like to stress how much i agree with an earlier post about tv shows and episodic content. it would be nice if we could have another separate section (TV shows?) for these vids and  also maybe specify a naming convention to differentiate and organize shows ie "name of show SxxExx - episode title'

although not entirely necessary I think it should simply have one icon/picture for the entire series, then once that's selected we could drill down to the season and episode. also, is there any web resource to get tv episode info and descriptions off the web? imdb only has one entry for each series

That would be a huge help to those of us who like to keep shows for later watching or sharing with friends.

i'm in no way demeaning the quality of software here, just putting in my $.02
thanks for reading my long post

Hagen

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Re: Parental Controls please?
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2007, 01:32:59 pm »
surely i'm not the only parent who has this concern? or am I?  :-\
Surely not, and it has been mentioned that the implementation of pin codes to switch users (or atleast some users) is being worked on.
That way the "parental units" can store stuff on their users that the children doesn't have access to.
Not excactly what you asked for, but can be used for much the same purposes.
That way you can put the movies you want to prevent the young from seing under "user1/data/video" and actually have it protected by a pin code. You can also block access to the storage itself with username and password on the folders and when you tell LMCE to use a share.
That way the ever smarter youngsters can't rearrange stuff on the storage from windows/Kubuntu either.

i also would like to stress how much i agree with an earlier post about tv shows and episodic content.
I guess we agree then  ;)
But as Zaerk said in that thread you can sort by filename, and that does pretty much what you want if you organize your storage as you mentioned (folders for series name -> Season and then put the associated files there)
« Last Edit: September 27, 2007, 01:40:18 pm by Hagen »

blacklotus

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Re: Parental Controls please?
« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2007, 06:32:09 am »
Surely not, and it has been mentioned that the implementation of pin codes to switch users (or atleast some users) is being worked on.
That way the "parental units" can store stuff on their users that the children doesn't have access to.
Not excactly what you asked for, but can be used for much the same purposes.
That way you can put the movies you want to prevent the young from seing under "user1/data/video" and actually have it protected by a pin code. You can also block access to the storage itself with username and password on the folders and when you tell LMCE to use a share.
That way the ever smarter youngsters can't rearrange stuff on the storage from windows/Kubuntu either.

Thanks for letting me know about that, that would work just fine for me. Before posting, i searched all of this forum for "parent" or "restrict" or "lock" and didn't find this info so i appreciate this :D

I guess we agree then  ;)
But as Zaerk said in that thread you can sort by filename, and that does pretty much what you want if you organize your storage as you mentioned (folders for series name -> Season and then put the associated files there)

While that would work, I'm sure most of us would rather have a separate section for tv shows that we can sort by folder just like was suggested AND retain the movies section so we see big icons and movie posters. Also it would be nice to be able to search these individually and have the genres sorted separately as well. I'm sure if you're in the mood for a movie, you don't care about bringing up all these archived tv shows every time you browse/search.

Hagen

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Re: Parental Controls please?
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2007, 09:48:17 am »
I think (just my opinion) that TV shows should be in their own folder in the UI, and that TV shows should default be listed by filename.
The movies can be in a big list, as they are separate and a folder for each kind of defeats the point of few clicks (as you may get when sorting by filename)

Zaerc

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Re: Parental Controls please?
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2007, 11:46:12 am »
I vaguely recall reading something about setting pincodes so you need to enter a code to switch to a certain user on an orbiter. 

Personally if I had this problem I would just put my porn on an external disc and only turn that on for special occasions.  By the time kids figure that one out they're probably old enough to watch it. ;)
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