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Original thread:
Post 3 made on Monday October 11, 2004 at 23:48
flipper2000
Lurking Member
Joined:
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October 2004
6
Don,

I guess my thinking on one and two are somewhat interelated. My thinking was using xml/xsl to define the screens in native mode. People could use whatever editor they wanted to create transparent gifs since there are a slew of editors and people tend to like what they are used to using. Also there could be a library of buttons provided by you or whoever.

They then could use some sort of wyswyg editor provided by you to assemble the gifs and assign functions to them. The editor could be written with xml/xsl/dhtml and be web based. This would allow a couple of things. First more then two states could be assigned to a button for instance I was going to mention something like the mute button when pressed simply remains the same image when it may be more user friendly to change the image from say a speaker to a speaker with an x through it. Or say a sound field is selected it could state which sound field is currently selected. Users could also assign event handlers to button pressing. So the multiple press issue could be address by executing the command onKeyDown and stop onKeyUp say. You could probably implement stuff like sliders too.

Since xml/xsl is supported on pretty much any OS you're app (at least the GUI) would be portable automatically to most any platform.

I would also guess that this would extend some other potential markets (them pesky business men expecting profits for work sssseesssh) and possibilities like accessing your home interface like x-10 via the web. Also I thought that using something like xml to define the data would allow updates directly via the web. Additionally you could build in a tv listing feature that would combine a tv listing / search / notification type application that could jump to a program from the interface.

I was also thinking given your company seems to do more hardware stuff (granted mostly mac related) that some custom ir or wi fi emiters from set top boxes like sci atl and various dtv / dvr boxes (I seem to think most linux based systems) would allow a two way interface to your application which would allow some very cool stuff like looking up in the imdb information about the movie I am currently watching. I can't tell you the number of times I have gotten up in a movie to look something up there because I my girlfriend or I said "Is'nt that so and so" or "What other movies was he/she in". Now if my set top told me the station I was watching and/or movie title etc the ppc could connect to imdb and return all that without me getting up and going to the pc etc... You can imagine the possibilities here.

Clearly I don't know your application and it's ability to interface with xml but thought I remember you mentioning something about not currently supporting palm os but planning on supporting it in future (I'm guessing the big issue here is the IR interface not the GUI) but assume that your real forte is IR technology (of which I have zero experience so may be way off base here). Given that assumption I was guessing that a move to xml/xsl would more or less eliminate any gui changes based on platform and isolate the changes to the IR interface only. I do remember someone showing a diagram of the singals that are sent and thought that this could probably be easily described in xml.

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Wow can't believe I had that much to say about it. Reflects my admiration for your application I guess. Did I mention that I thought it was pretty dang cool? I would also like to mention that part of the reason I even downloaded your application to try out is due to your posts on this site. You are clearly very user concious and available to them in a way I haven't seen any other developer. Based on that and the very limited but exceptional use of your program thus far I have mentioned it to a number of other people I thought may have interest in your product. My suggestions are not knocks on your application in any way. They are just due to my mind racing with ideas about it.

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My questions regarding the ccf files were due to my lack of a remote for my reciever. The remote is rather complicated (and one of the big reasons to use an application like yours) and I didn't have it to learn the codes from. My thinking (perhaps flawed) was that I wanted to use someone elses ccf file containing codes for my reciever and then blend that into native mode where I would have created my own macros etc given I have all other remotes needed. I realize that I could get Tonto or probaly convince someone to give me pronto edit and use straight ccf mode but was more engaged in your native mode. Additionaly my thinking was that if someone had created a good macro in ccf I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel if I simply assigned that to a function in native mode. Finally I haven't found anywhere that anyone shares the learned functions for your application. I would have expected a section on this site dedicated to that.

Regardless this falls under the brain fart category because while I don't have that remote I have a sony reciever remote that has the basic functionality that I require to operate my system and completely forgot it since I moved it to another room that I rarely go in.

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I have no complaints and certainly understand the priority of the money makers. I might be willing to build such a thing (a sharing site) but not willing to host it etc. I have already started making a new skin and as you can see by this post (the day I downloaded the trial) I haven't had this app long.

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The several steps at a time (alternative to hold and repeat) is not really what I had in mind for sure. I thought of that too but thought it was not a real good solution and had hoped for something else.

Again thanks for your input Don and I really appreciate it.


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