LCD support (3 Viewers)

[lugiber]

Woohoo! Couldn't ask for a better christmas gift. Let me know if you need testers.

/Peter

 

[Anonymous]

Cool!
Can't wait to test it out!

 

[Anonymous]

Now that there's a chance that we'll see something on our LCDs, it's time to think about menus.

First the easy one:
A menu on a 1-line-LCD will look like this:

> My Weather

After pressing the down key twice it will look like this:

> My Music

No discussion about this! ;-)

Now the 3-and-more-lines-LCDs:
A menu on a 4-line-LCD will look like this:

  My TV
  My Videos
> My Weather
  My Plugins

After pressing the down key twice it could look like this (old cellphone style):

  My Videos
  My Weather
  My Plugins
> My Music

Or it could look like this (MediaPortal style)

  My Weather
  My Plugins
> My Music
  My Pictures

:arrow: What do you guys prefer? And why?

And now the 2-line-LCDs:

> My Weather
  My Plugins

will become

  My Plugins
> My Music

:arrow: I find it pretty hard to tell which line is selected on a two-line-LCD. An alternative could be to work like having a 1-line-LCD - but it isn't the perfect solution either. Do you have better ideas? Or is the example above okay?

And now the toughest part:
The picture list in Filmstrip view looks like this (The file pic1 is marked):

 ..    >pic1<   pic2

On a 2-line-LCD the list would look like this:

> pic1
  pic2

After pressing the right(!) key once, the list would be this:

  pic1
> pic2

:arrow: I don't see a possibility to map Icon view and Filmstrip view to a LCD while keeping the key usage logical. Do you?

Thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Already got menus on lcdc

 

[Anonymous]

Already got menus on lcdc

The last time I checked (1 minute ago), my MessageSpy-plugin didn't find any useful messages.

But if you do... Hey, this is great news! So if this is/was already possible - where's the LCD plugin? :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Already got menus on lcdc

The last time I checked (1 minute ago), my MessageSpy-plugin didn't find any useful messages.

But if you do... Hey, this is great news! So if this is/was already possible - where's the LCD plugin? :wink:

Sorry, I meant we have a menu's plugin for LCDC, not from MediaPortal

 

[lugiber]

I like the suggestions on the look on the lcd screen, especially the "media portal style". Would it be possible to print the menus in this way in order to better illustrate which menu is selected:

My Weather
My Plugins
>> My Music
My Pictures

Or perhaps "invert" the line with the selected menu.

No ideas about the filmstrip view, looks like a tough one to solve...
Why but i'll keep it in mind and let you know if i figure something out. For starters why not try to emulate what is displayed on the tv/computer as good as possible. For instance if you have a four line display it might look like this:

pic1 pic2 pic3 pic4
pic5 pic6 pic7 pic8
pic9 >pic10< pic11 pic12
pic13 pic14 pic15 pic16

That way you would at least get the up/down/left/right buttons to work in a sensible way.

No idea on how to work with one or two line displays at the moment. But i am sure that people owning them have suggestions.

Thanks for making this possible!

/Peter

 

[tomtom21000]

For instance if you have a four line display it might look like this:

pic1 pic2 pic3 pic4
pic5 pic6 pic7 pic8
pic9 >pic10< pic11 pic12
pic13 pic14 pic15 pic16

That way you would at least get the up/down/left/right buttons to work in a sensible way.

No idea on how to work with one or two line displays at the moment. But i am sure that people owning them have suggestions.

I was just about to make the same suggestion. with putting the elements in a line, the logic of up/down and left/right is also working on the lcd.
Why shouldn´t this work on a 2-line display , too? For filmstrip you need only one line anyway, on icon view you simply display only two lines?

But: what if your picture is not named pic1? If it is named "Thomas and Katrin on the beach at Cannes" and so on. Aren´t the characters somehow limited to 40?/80? characters?

So maybe on a 2-line display (same for 4-line) it could be like this:

pic1  >pic2< pic3 pic4
Thomas and Katrin on the beach at Cannes

and

pic1  pic2 >pic3< pic4
Icecream in Cannes 2004

The first line allways called "pic1 pic2 ..." second line of the icons (down)which will be displayed on the first line of the 2-line display "pic5 pic6..."

The same goes for films in the filmstrip view.

tomtom21000

 

[Anonymous]

Why shouldn´t this work on a 2-line display , too?

The problem with two lines is (as you can sometimes see in console games) that it's sometimes hard to tell which line is selected. Especially when
- there are only two choices
- the selected line is marked with inverted text
- the selection wraps around from bottom to top and from top to bottom
In this case no matter which key you press, the selection always toggles.

Aren´t the characters somehow limited to 40?/80? characters?

It's mostly 16 and 20 characters...

So maybe on a 2-line display (same for 4-line) it could be like this:

pic1  >pic2< pic3 pic4
Thomas and Katrin on the beach at Cannes

and

pic1  pic2 >pic3< pic4
Icecream in Cannes 2004

What about this?

>this_is_a_long_filen...
 this_filename_is_eve...
 and_this_filename_is...
^v<>

On LCDs with 2 and more lines the LCD would show the possible key presses. "^v" for standard menus, "<>" for filmstrip and "^v<>" for icon view.

Of course nobody knows of this is possible at all. E.g. if Frodo has the possibility to send such detailed information about the currently used menu.

And I admit that I have no clue if inverting a character/line on a standard LCD is possible.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure what purpose a menu to display photo names would accomplish? If your looking at photos, then you need the screen on, if you have the screen on, then why would you want to select a photo via a small 16x2 / 20x2 display when you can see a whole screen in front of you? I can see the use for selecting MP3 albulbs/songs etc. and for main menu selection to select mp3/cd etc. but you got to think about what info NEEDS to go on the lcd, not what can go on there.