How about a movie directory. You can list all your movies on your pronto/marantz so you can have the list right in front of you

Once again, couldn't the phone directory be used for this? I've thought about adding my 130+ dvd titles to this directory, then one day, when I have enough to buy the 200 changer, I would have the movies ready to go, just add the aliases...

All you would have to do is change the caption at the top of each of the 26 pages to read "Movie List - X". Just a thought.

Cary: Another interesting option would be the towers of hanoi game. Keeping the disks down to 4 or five would result in a feasible component. To avoid double panels to select piece and destination, 6 buttons a->b, a->c, ..... a<-c could do. Allows movements would jump, disallowed would beep...

Whew, I just get the tic-tac-toe game done, and now all these ideas just keep coming! COol!

Everyone will have to wait until George and I test the tic-tac-toe. You play the remote, and there is one way to win, all others result in the Pronto winning or a draw. It is 40 screens, and about 51K. Will update when we are done debugging.

That's the problem with Tic-Tac-Toe; if you know what you're doing there's no way to lose.

How about something simple like a trivia game?

What about one of those touchscreen games you play at a bar, where they flash two similar pictures, and you have to find the differences. You wouldn't have enough space to show the pictures simultaneously, but it might not be too bad. Then after you use your cocktail recipes panel and knock back a few glasses, you might actually be drunk enough to have fun.

You could also use the keyboard design I've seen floating around to make a "match the tune" sort of game. Have the pronto beep out a tone, then you have to match the tone. When you match it, you progress to 2 notes, the first being the same, 2nd being a new one.

While we're on the topic of new ideas, I read in a post a requested feature in upcoming firmware versions is to be able to toggle a hard button function. Like having your right button "play" on the first press, and "stop" on the next - alternating with every press. Couldn't you just use 2 devices to do this?? You could set up both devices with identical panels except for the hard button, then just use jumps between them. If you alias all the IRs, and use the same images it wouldn't even use up that much more memory, would it?? Just a thought.

Tic-tac-pronto beta rocks!
a bit of fine tuning and should be ready to hit the shelves this week
Cary says it's a joint effort but credit m u c h more effort to his side.

I would love to see a DVD movie directory, I have about 260 titles and have them all stored in dvdtracker. Is there any CSV to panel converter out there ? Did anyone write something like IRpanels but only for Text ???... You could use the same tool to generate a phone directory from a CSV file (exported from outlook or other organizer)..

Erick

If you're willing to install perl and the CCF compiler, and wait until next weekend, I can probably do a CSV -> panel converter. That's how I do all my discrete code searching, perl programs that generate CSFs containing 25 buttons per panel, 11 panels per device, and as many devices as specified, then compile the CSF into a CCF.

In fact, that's how I planned on generating my help panels. (Still working on my CCF, just had the Pronto just over a week).

Here is a long shot: Write a meta-prontoedit.This would be an application that would load a csf file, show the panels like prontoedit does and perform many wish list operations like multiple object manipulation, copy over different instances, copy commands only from a button to another etc.
Then it would save in csf format to build the ccf.
Too much work in it, it would have to be a workgroup project but this is how linux was built.

I have started on something like that, but have not gotten very far, too busy with house and remote, etc. But this was my thought as well, support reading in mulitple ccfs without merging, which does away with the gallery, and all the other things we have wished for. It is indeed a bit much for one person who is not working on it full-time.

Eric S,

Time is no problem, I am merely suggesting things I would like to see. I think converting a CSV to panels could prove very useful. Whether it be phone numbers, a TV program listing or DVD movies.

Anybody agree ?

Erick

So, just what features would people find useful in something like that?

I'm thinking allowing importing CSV files, one or two columns, and allow the user to specify a few things:

1) Choose text frames or buttons.
2) If buttons, specify the button graphic.
3) if frames, specify the size of the frames and the BG color.
4) In either case, the font size and text color.
5) Maybe the spacing of the frames/buttons?
6) The device name to put everything under.

Am I missing anything obvious? I'm thinking that there should be a way to translate a column in the input file into the action code. Just dropping it in would be easiest, but it would be better if there were some way of, for instance, taking a CD list with two columns, one a name of the CD, and the other, the position in the jukebox, and turning that into a series of IR codes to queue that disk.

In order to do what you want on the aliasing, why not have the generator generate a numeric keypad as well, with 10 buttons. Just put a delay in these buttons, then create your aliases for each cd to these buttons.

The user can then go in and assign the 10 numbers later, and everything would work! Just an idea.

I have taken up Daniel's suggestion and created a 14 Q. trivia board. I will upload it today. Let me know.