Hello Folks,

Just got this idea while I was showering this morning… How about adding more hard buttons to the Pronto by creating a small piece of plastic that would snap at the bottom of the Pronto LCD screen and be about half an inch height. That piece of plastic would contain, let's say 4-5 hard buttons, and the back of the buttons would make contact on the LCD screen when pressed (sort of a stylus tip). You would have to design the CCF in a way that a small amount of the LCD bottom area is dedicated for those hard buttons (hard button making contact on the LCD screen).
The bottom of the LCD screen would be a perfect place since not much of us are using the arrow to scroll through the device pages and/or the Mode button.

What do you think?

Martin :-)

Not a bad idea, any plans on fixing it there, or making it for that matter?

Could you use any kind of standard components, buttons?

Martin I'm worried about you why are you thinking about buttons and pronto's in the shower, and c'mon be honest it was a bubblebath wasnt it ? lol
Nice idea but I'm not willing to give up any screen space. also I would think you would end up with dents or wear marks in the plastic case (snap on/off) and the plastic film on the screen (from being pressed in the same spots all the time.

I agree with this, that hard button thing will take a big chunk of that screen. If you do build such a thing, it would be more useful if the buttons are not Physically over the screen

You have just basically reinvented hard button remotes that have a small LCD screen. The whole reason for me at least getting a Pronto was the LCD screen.

How about this.

You build a variety of 'full-screen stick on plastic hard-buttons'. Rather than having a varety of different 'panels' created using Pronto Edit, simply swap over the 'full-screen stick on plastic hard-buttons'.

This way you will have the control of the hard button remotes with the flexibilty of the Pronto, and as well as all this you can colour in the plastic buttons for a full-colour version at a cost a lot less than the Pronto.

Any injection molding specialists out there ?

Christopher: I had an electronic game that worked that way (there was one for basketball, hockey and soccer if I remember correctly). But if you do that don't you end up with the problem you wanted to solve by going with a universal remote. Instead of "what remote do I need" you will be asked "what plastic do hickey do I need" and "where is it, I cannot find it")

P.S. Someone over a year ago had the idea of taking a sheet of plastic (something a bit thicker then screen protectors) and making little bumps on it, then you use the bumps to locate the soft buttons. I don't remember if he ever wrote back with the results of his experiment (don't even know if he did it). But definitely easier to try then any of your two ideas, and much less intrusive