HeavyMetal II - Thread Closed - Goto Latest Post

[BaddaBing]

I'm overhauling my HeavyMetal touch-screen interface. The goal is better use of screen real-estate and improved usability. Here are the first couple of completed screens. Feedback? Suggestions?

[dgemily]

Much appreciate to see some fonts bigger. That is nicer for a standard TV display.

thx,

Dge

[jmb295]

I give it a big thumbs up! The larger fonts and buttons seem like they will work much better with just a remote control. It also looks cleaner to me with a little clutter, very nice.

[marque]

Looks very good.
maby you can add toggle buttons for the que and play album/track commands so you have more space left for other buttons.

[DeanB]

Not directly relating to your re-arrangement...

I love your skin, but i seem to have problems sometimes at the splash screen with it sticking at the plugins bit.

I guess its where it trys to obtain weather data, and cant.

Not sure if its specific to Jowaldo's skin, but his seems to have a timeout button appear which allows you to continue past where it is stuck.

Implementation of this function would be nice.



Dean.

[hjackson]

Baddabing, I have been enjoying your skin since it first came out. For my HTPC I use it with a tablet PC client (1024x768 res). With the "Movie" and "Movieviewer" screens, there seems to be some common themes with ALL the Xlobby skins that I find redundant.
In the "Movies" screen, I see no need for a "Play" button as movies generally are not played directly from this skin. It makes sense to me to do what is intended, press the DVD cover to bring up the Movieviewer screen and use the Play button there. I also see no need for a "Movie Details" button as you can get the "Movie Details" by clicking the DVD cover. I'm also not sure why you would want to go to your Video Player screen directly from the Movie screen. Also for the movies category window, I would recommend a default setting of at least 12 covers in the 4:3 skin and 15 in the 16:9 skin.
In the "Movie Viewer" screen, I find the additional movies category window at the top of the screen redundant. If you want to select another movie, it is simple enough to just go back to the main "Movies" screen. Getting rid of this would also make the "Browse Page" set of functions also unnecessary. The "Search" and "Settings" buttons are also redundant. If used in a client skin, I would recommend what I do, automatically switch from the "Movie Viewer" screen to the "Video Player" screen after you hit the play button. And again, why would you go to the Video Player screen directly from the Movieviewer screen? It's not a rhetorical question really, I just can't imagine the scenario except when you are in client mode, in which case an automatic screen change (as I described above) saves you buttons and is niftier .
Also, can you make the Search screen's keyboard larger? I find that when used in a touchscreen, bigger buttons are better for finger presses.
And last, do we really need the time and date at the bottom of every screen? I think it is a cute feature for the menu page, but what other practical purpose does this really serve?
I have made the above changes to my version of your skin (plus a few others for my own personal needs ) and have found it to be equally functional and less cluttered. The less buttons, the better, and easier to teach others.
Thanks again for this great skin!!

hjackson

[Colby]

Im not meaning to interupt your thread, bing but I am curious what is meant by

...be some common themes with ALL the Xlobby skins that I find redundant...

1. My movie screen has no play button.
2. My skin has no movie details button. (cover takes you there)
3. There is only one movie category in my skin, and its on the movie page.
4. There is not date/time on every page in my skin.

What is so redundant?

[BaddaBing]

Hi All,
Thanks for the feedback. I'll work on keeping the buttons and fonts large to ease readability. I agree that a toggle buttons would be good, but StevenH has not provided that capability in the skin and the 'work-arounds' don't work quite the way I want. If we ever get a toggle option I will be the first to use it.

What does everyone think of the suggestion to remove the date/time window from all but the main menu? I can see where the date field could easily be dropped as it would provide a lot more room on the screen. Do people want the time kept somewhere on the screen?

The suggestions regarding the movie buttons make sense too, after thinking about it I realize I never use those two buttons on the main movie screen. And I'll see what I can do to make the search keyboard buttons larger as well.

-Dean: Hanging at the plugins at loadup is caused by the old (original)weather plugin. HeavyMetal uses the new xoapweather plug-in. Delete the old weather plug-in directory from the xlobby plug in directories and the problem will go away.

[hjackson]

DeanB said "...but his seems to have a timeout button appear which allows you to continue past where it is stuck."

Does anyone know if this timeout button only works to bypass a stuck weather plugin or if it can be used for other sections where the splash screen might get stuck?

hjackson

[BaddaBing]

hjackson,
I just went through Jowaldo's skin. No such button. Nothing in Jowaldo's thread regarding his skin mention anything about a load skiping button either. I did a search on DeanB's posts. It appears that he had problems configuring the XoapWeather weather plug-in and may have mis-read Jowaldo post. I'll see if I can get hold of Joel on IM just to double check.

-EDIT - Just spoke with Joel - no such button

[marque]

As you can see in this topic and in my skin it is possible to make toggle buttons:

http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... c&start=15

and if you want you can even make an toggle button to show or hide the date/time

The only con is that you need girder to help executing the toggle commands because xlobby dont support states

[BaddaBing]

I agree that a toggle buttons would be good, but StevenH has not provided that capability in the skin and the 'work-arounds' don't work quite the way I want. If we ever get a toggle option I will be the first to use it.

Thanks but using third party applications to provide what should be basic functionality is an example of "not working quite the way I want". I posted the first itieration of this skin almost a year ago and one thing I have learned is that people are looking for simplicity. If you have the technical know-how to create a girder/xlobby interface then you don't need someone to create a skin - you can do it your self. I think xlobby is a cool tool. My setup at home has hooks into JAVA macros, x10, USBUIRT, Girder and serial interfaces. But it also has a bitch of a learning curve. Especially if you are not a programmer. Most users that are looking for a simple pre-configure interface and its these users that I want to help otherwise I would have abandoned this forum long ago

[DeanB]

Baddabing

There's something different on the splash..

I've been using your skin for about a week - on Monday started PC up and got stuck at loading plugin on Splash screen.

Restarted machine, same again, removed xlobby.xml to get back to default skin, changed to Jowaldo's skin and at the loading plugin during the Splash screen a warning box, "Connection timeout" appeared with an ok button, clicked this and then moved on.

Went back to your skin, and got stuck the same at plugin. It was stuck here for at least 10mins with no warning dialog box.

Had no problem with Weather plugin after Joel explained for me.


Dean

[BaddaBing]

Have you tried deleting the old weather plugin as I suggested? None of the major skins (Jowaldo, Colby, Visual, Qtips, AirPost or Metal) use the old weather plugin anymore. Also curious is that fact that it worked for a week before a problem occured. It would appear that something has been corrupted either in your Xlobby install or in the skin. Usually a fresh install addresses these kinds of problems. FYI, the connection timeout dialog box is an explorer message not a message from the skin.

[BaddaBing]

Based on the responses I received here is how the skin looks with:
-Larger Buttons & Fonts
-Removed Date Display
-Moved Time display to upper left window
-Larger Key buttons in Search windows
-Fewer buttons in Movie Windows
Better? Worse? Feeback?