Remote Friendly - explanation please.

[AirPost]

I've read a lot in here and other forums as well talking about how a skin should be remote friendly but what does "remote friendly" really mean?

Is it making less visual buttons since those or most of the buttons are already mapped to a specific button in a remote? Hence, using the real estate that was occupied by those redundant buttons for data ie. album/dvd covers, playlists, etc... instead?

Is it making the navigation in the skin easier by just using up/down or left/right and enter keys on the remote? Having all the buttons accessible by just using, again, the navigation arrows in the remote?

Or is it both?

[dalanik]

I've read a lot in here and other forums as well talking about how a skin should be remote friendly but what does "remote friendly" really mean?

Well, IMHO, it doesn't have to mean that it has less features or buttons, it depends more on button arrangement and logical navigation, that you can tell where left goes to, and where up goes to, etc. If you have button on the lefthandside of the screen, a list on top and button on gight side, it makes sense that left button takes you to the button on the right, not to the list on top of both buttons, which sometime happens with default XLobby behaviour, simply because the list's X coordinate is less than right button's X coordinate... (hope I'm making sense)

Also, probably the best idea for remotes is to use UP/DN/LEFT/RIGHT/OK keys for navigation.

I'm designing the skin which should be remote friendly, and I'm sooo stuck... I included every possible feature, and when I was almost finished, decided that was way too complex for remote usage. I mean - I could probably use it efficiently, but not everyone's computer professional using PC's since '81 I.e. I'd want my wife to use XLobby on HTPC sometimes as well... so yes - you shouldn't have TOO MUCH buttons, because you can always use some functionality on SOME pages, and not have EVERYTHING on a single page (the mistake I did when I designed my skin)...

If you imagine the ease with which a TV with a menu is navigated (and nowdays most TVs have some menu system bulitin), that's what a remote-friendly skin should be like....

Just my 2 czech crowns worth...

Dalibor

[cavitycr33p]

To me, remote friendly would mean a less advanced version of a skin. Less buttons. I only use play, next, previous, ffwd, rwd, stop. I never sort my movies by catagory, if I wanted to do that I would put them in seperate modules or something. I just want a skin with the basic features, don't need all the sorting options, visualations options, etc.

[oneman]

Yes, Airpost... Those are the main reasons...

For me, remote friendly means non-computer user friendly...

I need "enter" and "left click" to be the same and to have fine control over
navigation...

My play, FF, RW, ect are all on my remote so there is no need for them on
screen...

[cavitycr33p]

I wanna see your new skin remote friendly, cause it's tha shiznit

[AirPost]

Thanks for all the input.

using PC's since '81

Dalibor, that means that your age is, ummm, 20's ?