I work with UI screens all day for software, and really like working with the Pronto. I would like to know of any neat ideas people have for new/different components they would like to see on the Pronto, but are unsure on how to create these. This is how the calendar, music & piano, DTV guide, and phone directory came about. I would like to help out with these ideas, so if you have some serious ones, please email me or add them here. Let the ideas fly!

Plus, we would have a jump on some neat ideas when the color/RF Pronto comes out.

I've been thinking for a while on programming board or other finite state games on the Pronto, like these mathcing pairs memory games or tic-tac-toe. The toll one has to pay for the total absence of computational capabilities is to build dozens or hundrends or ... of screen, covering each possible state the game could be in. The number of panels needed grows exponentially, but a memory game of matching 8 pairs should be feasible, but a memory eater.
One could also make a tic-tac-toe game on a 3x3 board, board rotations allowed to cut down panels.
I started programming the pair matching game but got really bored halfway. It however is enough to both demonstrate functionality on the emulator and guide to completion. I sent it to Cary, to see if its worth the effort to complete.

If I figured this correctly, tic-tac-toe would need
45 screens, if you always started as X.

E(x) where x=1,9 = 45 (I think this is the right equation for this game)


This would not be too hard and probably not take up too much memory. I will give it a shot and see how it goes... Good idea! I originally thought along the same idea, but with Minesweeper, but that would be intense for 1 iteration of the game, and you would have to download a random configuration each time for it to be fun.

Actually, I take back my initial observation. It sounds easy at first, but then as you get into it, you find my initial equation is wrong. I am sure this is a question that comes up in a discrete math class, I just cannot remember what it is. 45 would be close if I could rotate the board and only use 1 panel for 4 rotations, but I cannot do that without some form of flag-programming. I will still try it. It would be cool if it could be finished.

Without rotation too many panels are needed. What I had in mind about rotation is whenever the game reaches a state (rotationally) identical to one allready programed, to switch to that, informing the player that the board has just been rotated.
Have you seen the memory game?

I think that what we've got needs some work (not asking you to do it, though). For example, every 3D button set I've found for the Pronto places the light to the left and above the button, in the normal Win9X manner. However, if you look at the shadowed buttons already on the Pronto, the shadows are down and to the left, placing the light above and right, not left.

Also, I'm unsatisfied with the navigation systems I've tried. I realize that there are tradeoffs, but who knows, maybe someone out there has a better way of doing it. The perfect navigation system would display all the options, all reachable with a single tap, and not take up any screen realestate.

I've tried a couple of different setups so far.

First was three buttons at the top, each for a different panel, and smaller "scroll" buttons to the left and the right to get to panels other than those three. This had the problem that you had to remember the order of the panels.

Then I tried something similar, but with a single button that would rotate through sets of three buttons. I didn't like this because it didn't show all the options, and while that's fine for me, it didn't work well if I just handed someone the remote and said "Try it."

I'm currently playing with something similar to the tabbed folders, where there are, in this case, 7 buttons at the top of the panel, one for each panel, they always stay in the same place, and the font gets bigger for the active panel (maybe inverting the text would work better). It seems to be working O.K. (I had tried other peoples tabs, but found I fat-fingered the tabs too often).

How well do the simulated menus work? I assume someone has tried them.

I'm generally not worried about navigating between devices, because my "devices" are activity-oriented, so you should have all the functionality you need within the current device. The current list of devices are TV, TV/Stereo, VCR/TV, VCR/TV/Stereo, DVD/TV, CD, Tuner, and Tape. It doens't display well on the Pronto, so I'm going to have to figure out how to shorten them.

For navigation purposes, how about something like setting up one navigational panel, giving you one button access to any device/screen, then put this screen as the first home screen. You just click on the home icon, no matter where you are. It is not one button access, but instead two button access to jump anywhere.

I, at one time, actually created a Table-Of-Contents screen that had buttons that jumped to any device/macro sub-screen. I could get to this TOC by hitting the home button, no matter where I was in the device tree or macro tree. Since then, I have added too many devices and macros and could not fit enough buttons on my TOC, without adding TOC pages.

Personally, I think Pronto UI design is very limited right now simply due to the lack of screen space. What we need Philips to do is open up 100% of the screen to user customization. I know I had all sorts of ideas on how to design the Pronto, before actually trying them and realizing I simply didn't have the room (and it looked poor with the rest of the UI up there).

P.S. Eric -- my buttons & frame elements have the highlights coming from the top right, as does the Pronto.

Totally agree with that, Daniel, especially given the fact that the upper area is useless to someone that just picked up the remote anyway.

Actually, I wasn't including yours in the 3D buttons, I had noticed that yours were lighted consistently. I'm going for a simpler look than those, and haven't decided on the 3D buttons (grey with a white top & right border, dark grey bottom & left), or the ones that match the existing icons that look flat, with a shadow cast below and to the left.

I submitted a recipe book, since we have not had anything quite like this. Now, it is not what you think, simple recipes for brownies, cookies, etc. This recipe book has 9 recipes for famous stuff like Chi Chis Salsa, gummi bears, kahlua (amen!), orange julius...

I added a page to this ccf describing where you can download the same program I used for these recipes free, right from my home page. There are many others in this program like Red Lobster biscuits, famous soups, Hooter's Wings, etc.

Now you have a reason to take your remote with you into the kitchen!

What about some coctail recipes to take us back to the living room?

How about seeing if there is a way to program the parameters of the backlight.

My pronto's light is only activated by pressing the button. The documentation in the manual says that it can be set to activate whenever the screen is activated, but it doesn't work on mine that way...

You might have one of the versions of Pronto that does not have a working light sensor. If this is so, I believe you go to the setup and set the light sensor bar to either of the far ends, like an on/off. Have you tried that?

I have just uploaded a ccf with a set of timers that announce full hours with a number of beeps, 4 beeps for 4.00 or 16.00 etc. All beeps are aliased to a single button, so they can be customized to your preferences. You might want to turn small hours off, or add half hour announcements.

The golf tee puzzle could be an interesting series of screens to design for this as well. The daunting task would be the duplicate screens needed where the user could press the tee to move, then press where it goes, in the cases where a tee could go in more than one direction. Would be wild!