CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal | Version 1.2 (2011-08-05) (2 Viewers)

[parachute]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

Aloha,

... concerning the gestures ...

I use XBMC Commander for remote controlling XBMC beside of couchpotatoe for MP.
The gestures used in XBMC commander are very comfortable.

For example (mixed your suggestions, xbmc commander and my "wishlist"):
1 finger swipe up to navigate up
1 finger swipe right to navigate right
1 finger swipe down to navigate down
1 finger swipe left to navigate left
-> 1 single tap for ok (very comfortable)
-> 1 double tap for back (esc)
-> 1 single tap while playing a movie for onscreen menu -> tap again for hiting the pause button wich has the focus
2 finger turning to decrease or increase volume
2 finger pinch to enter or exit fullscreen (maybe I will add ascpect ration changes here)
2 finger tap for play/pause when in fullscreen mode
2 finger double tap for stop when in fullscreen mode

... for all gestures with 2 fingers i'll have to use two hands or maybe my hands are just to small to hold the iphone and get those fingers right simultaneously on that screen

Regards
Parachute

 

[Shukuyen]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

Thanks for your comment parachute!
You are right, a one-finger-tap for ok and one-finger-double-tap for back would be way better, I also need my second hand for those I have implemented at the moment. The problem with this is, that you will tap on a button on the remote by accident or that you maybe want to tap a button but the gesture is recognized. To accept 1 finger gestures we would need a dedicated "gesture view" that is seperated from the remote view and I don't really want to do that at the moment.

Maybe there is some other solution, because especially ok and back are really important gestures ...

 

[mbuzina]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

Hi Shukuyen

I think the "gesture" view would be better than mixing in too many buttons with gestures. The gesture window could have a row of buttons at the top & the bottom (as you would not use this area to perform gestures anyway) and have "Now Playing" information in the center which would be the touch target for the gestures (at least for the single tap ones). If you do that, you could implement a swipe left & right on each button row as well, which could either bring you to the other view(s) and/or do Page Up & Down (which I would like in large lists). A 3rd screen could be the number keys (along with letter indicators to do SMS style input).

Additionally one Q: Should the now playing screen show music information? It does not for me.

 

[parachute]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

I agree mbuzina,

a button-row would be a good alternative for those special buttons like "escape".
In addition, to not accidenticaly push the wrong buttons while tapping on just one screen for gestures mixed with buttons
all over the screen, a second screen could be nice and usable.

"Mobile Mouse" has a good way to switch functions, when shaking the iphone (up/down for example).
Shaking the iphone up and down results in displaying the keyboard or not. Perhaps this is usable for switching to "gesture-mode" without looking at the display (gesture screen with special buttons, like mbuzina said for example).

Kind regards
Parachute

 

[lolos70]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

It look's great what parchute propose!!

 

[Teej]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

Hi, I'm just wondering if OneLegend ever resolved his problem ? I bought the app but it seems to only see the server if the server is rebooted. I use the android app as well and it has no problem connecting /disconnecting from the server but does this use the bonjour service also?

 

[Shukuyen]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

Hi Shukuyen

I think the "gesture" view would be better than mixing in too many buttons with gestures. The gesture window could have a row of buttons at the top & the bottom (as you would not use this area to perform gestures anyway) and have "Now Playing" information in the center which would be the touch target for the gestures (at least for the single tap ones). If you do that, you could implement a swipe left & right on each button row as well, which could either bring you to the other view(s) and/or do Page Up & Down (which I would like in large lists). A 3rd screen could be the number keys (along with letter indicators to do SMS style input).

Additionally one Q: Should the now playing screen show music information? It does not for me.

Having a seperate gesture screen seems to be what most of you want. I will have to see how this is best implemented. Maybe I will release version 1.1 with gestures as I described them in my post but will do it "right" later on, to not delay the update any further.

Music isn't supported for nowPlaying in the WifiRemote plugin yet. Will see what I can do there, it shouldn't be too hard to get it in. See Issue 6 - wifiremote - Now Playing info for default components - A MediaPortal plugin to send and receive remote commands via TCP/IP - Google Project Hosting for updates

Hi, I'm just wondering if OneLegend ever resolved his problem ? I bought the app but it seems to only see the server if the server is rebooted. I use the android app as well and it has no problem connecting /disconnecting from the server but does this use the bonjour service also?

There seems to be a problem that sometimes prevents the WifiRemote plugin to work after standby/resume. Please check your MediaPortal.log file if there are any WifiRemote related NullPointerExceptions in there. I am waiting for some more information/feedback on this and hope we can fix it soon.
Additionally the next CouchPotato version will allow you to manually add servers, this way you don't need Bonjour if it doesn't work or makes problems.

 

[onelegend]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

The bonjour service not working after resume I'll get onto testing for you. Been a bit hectic lately.

I have resolved it temp by enabling restart mp on resume- which implies that bonjour is running ok and the problem lies in mp/wifi remote/ couch potato not connecting properly on resume.


Will try and get logs posted asap

Quick update,

I have set mp to not restart on resume and have suspended the machine 5+ times in a row and its worked fine everytime.

I did update wifi remote to 0.2? a couple of days ago which fixed the wake on lan problem i was having - maybe this fixed the resume issue???



I have spotted another minor glitch though - setting the media pc to suspend in couch potato.
The machine turns off, couch potato stays on the remote page. I can press buttons on the remote and nothing happens and no wake on lan kicks in. Going back to the servers page it states the machine is still online - pressing back into server, couchpotato detects it is now offline and states "tap screen to wake", which functions as it should!

Will carry on testing!

 

[Shukuyen]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

I did update wifi remote to 0.2? a couple of days ago which fixed the wake on lan problem i was having - maybe this fixed the resume issue???

There is still one issue in WifiRemote where the plugin crashes after shutting down the tcp server in preparation of suspend. I hope we can find a fix for this and get it in v0.3.

I have spotted another minor glitch though - setting the media pc to suspend in couch potato.
The machine turns off, couch potato stays on the remote page. I can press buttons on the remote and nothing happens and no wake on lan kicks in. Going back to the servers page it states the machine is still online - pressing back into server, couchpotato detects it is now offline and states "tap screen to wake", which functions as it should!

Will carry on testing!

Thanks for the info, it seems as if the bonjour service browser isn't restarted on disconnect how it should be. I will look into it and hopefully have a fix ready for the next CouchPotato version

 

[Shukuyen]

Re: CouchPotato - an iPhone remote app for MediaPortal (preview)

I am getting some crash reports in the last days where the app crashed after a button on an alert message was tapped. Did anyone of you experience that crash? If so, could you please send me a PM what you were exactly doing when the app crashed? Sadly the information contained in the report isn't enough to fix that ...

Thanks!