We ALL love it 
OK, I think I've been quiet enough... I really need to give my opinion on how this project has been handled.
When I first saw those gorgeous screens nearly 8 months ago, I was, in turn, amazed, impressed and slightly sceptical. The scope of the application seemed way above and beyond any other remote Mediaportal app... however, I kept the faith, tagged the page and checked on its progress regularly. I was, however, consistently disappointed that no alpha or beta versions appeared, and then when I discovered that the screens everyone was drooling over were merely concept mockups, my heart began to sink. Then there was the suggestion that it would be a "free app"....
Now I can understand some small useful plugin being created and given away for free, but an ongoing project which has taken at least 8 months of people's time?
I think that releasing those images was a bad idea. It created an expectation that a product was somehow under intensive development and would appear shortly. The fact that so many, many messages on this thread are either a) blind praise or b) update requests would suggest that tha's been many eople's interpretation. So, 23 pages of , well, nothing much at all, has left me with a few questions.
1. Is this product ever going to actually appear, or is it one of these things that will forever be stuck in development hell due to technical restrictions?
2. Do you continue to maintain that it will be a free app, despite the hours and months under which it has, apparently, been in development? (I'm not bothered if it DOES cost money, to be honest. If the final app actually does all the things that appear in those images, then it would be worth it...)
3. Should the work on yet another fancy skin, Titan, REALLY take precedence over work on an application which would radically upgrade Mediaportal?
4. Finally... Isn't there any way of giving SOME kind of roadmap for this product, before many people just lose interest?
Sorry if this sounds harsh, and, trust me, I'll be the first to apologise if EVE's promise holds true, but I think that putting out images and concepts for a product that clearly hadn't even been started was a bit unfair to the people who, I'm sure, assumed that something wonderful was coming, very soon.
I'm still waiting
When I first saw those gorgeous screens nearly 8 months ago, I was, in turn, amazed, impressed and slightly sceptical. The scope of the application seemed way above and beyond any other remote Mediaportal app... however, I kept the faith, tagged the page and checked on its progress regularly. I was, however, consistently disappointed that no alpha or beta versions appeared, and then when I discovered that the screens everyone was drooling over were merely concept mockups, my heart began to sink. Then there was the suggestion that it would be a "free app"....
Now I can understand some small useful plugin being created and given away for free, but an ongoing project which has taken at least 8 months of people's time?
I think that releasing those images was a bad idea. It created an expectation that a product was somehow under intensive development and would appear shortly. The fact that so many, many messages on this thread are either a) blind praise or b) update requests would suggest that tha's been many eople's interpretation. So, 23 pages of , well, nothing much at all, has left me with a few questions.
1. Is this product ever going to actually appear, or is it one of these things that will forever be stuck in development hell due to technical restrictions?
2. Do you continue to maintain that it will be a free app, despite the hours and months under which it has, apparently, been in development? (I'm not bothered if it DOES cost money, to be honest. If the final app actually does all the things that appear in those images, then it would be worth it...)
3. Should the work on yet another fancy skin, Titan, REALLY take precedence over work on an application which would radically upgrade Mediaportal?
4. Finally... Isn't there any way of giving SOME kind of roadmap for this product, before many people just lose interest?
Sorry if this sounds harsh, and, trust me, I'll be the first to apologise if EVE's promise holds true, but I think that putting out images and concepts for a product that clearly hadn't even been started was a bit unfair to the people who, I'm sure, assumed that something wonderful was coming, very soon.
I'm still waiting
Last edited:
- August 29, 2009
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From discussions I've had with the developers I can tell that the project had actually been started when the images have been published. I'm sure they didn't want it to take 8 months either, but sometimes real life just takes over and doesn't leave you with a choice...
- January 31, 2009
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Hardylane, I can understand your frustration. I'm frustrated too, not being able to spend much time on eve during the last couple of months. Oxan is correct, real life require too much for fast development. Family, friends, day job and house goes before this project, It's just how it is. I have vacation right now and prioritize family. I need e.g. to get the boat in the water, almost half the summer has past and it's still on land..... I have just built myself a sofa for the garden and enjoy that
I spent a lot of my time initially when I joined the team. At that time I was home full time with my son and I could find some time when he was sleeping and I had an urge to develop when not doing it as the day job. Now both me and my wife work and it's just hard to find time and energy. I'm still in the team but can not spend much hours. I can not give you a time frame but it will for sure take more moths before we are ready. Patrick is not active in this forum but he work as much as he can. He is looking forward to vacation, he will spend a lot of time with eve development.
We also took a step back when redesigning, you have probably noted that the first page pictures show a quite different look compared to the old metal one. It will take us some time to get back to where we were before with the “old” design. Some parts is “just” to replace images. Other parts need more work because transitions of the activities has changes a lot and that require some custom animations. One could argue that it's wrong to change things drastically when in the middle of the project, one would not do that during a professional development project. Anyway, it's our time that is spent and we all agreed that it's worth it.
So what have we implemented? The below descriptions about the different activities will give you some idea of where we are. I also added a few screen dumps from the ipad using the “old” design.
Movies: List, thumb and wall view implemented. Info about selected movie. Sorting with title, genre etc. works. Alphabetic/regular sliding bar for fast scrolling, in sometimes long, movie lists. Can start movie in MP, watch trailer on Ipad, open in app browser with IMDb. Small or large now playing screen with movie controls when movie is playing. The mockups from previous design could have been from the app.
Series: Almost the same as for movies. No now playing screen or sorting yet.
Recordings: Display screen-shot and info for the four latest recordings. More info is shown for selected recording. Can display a list with current schedules. Free disk space is displayed. Three tabs with lists for watched, unwatched and all recordings. Recordings with same name are added to subfolders. Sorting works for channel, recording time, ascending descending. Can not yet start a recording....
EPG. Two views are implemented, One vertical channel view that show all programs for one channel and a “regular” epg as in MP with channel icons and two hour of display time. Can start recording, switch channel.
Music implemented with the three lists for artist, album and tracks. Can not start track yet and no playlist handling implemented yet.
Remote fully working.
Settings page implemented with support for several backgrounds and multiple MediaPortal clients as different zones. The zones can be changed with an icon in top right corner. WOL implemented, eve ask if you want to wake computer if one get no connection at start or resume.
Global search functionality implemented where the results are sorted according to the active activity. I.e. music displayed in top of search result if in the music section. Press e.g. a music track and the artist/album/track lists are scrolled and selected in the music section. This works for music, movies, series, recordings and epg. The search is performed and result are displayed after each key stroke.
So we have come quite far but it's still a lot more to do before it's fully working. No activity is finished. Regarding beta testers. We discussed this and came to the conclusion that it will not help us getting forward at this point. We are aware of a lot of bugs and the things to implement next. A beta tester at this stage will just slow us down.
The new design is more or less"done" so most the remaining work need to be done by me and Patrick. I.e. Joosts work on Titan do not slow down development of eve at all.
I also have mixed feelings about showing teasers that mostly are mockups and not fully functional. But without them I would never have joined the project. We will, at some stage, make a new thread that only show real images from running eve.
Regarding cost of the eve when it's finished. We haven't really talked about it in a long time, and non of us are doing this for earning money. I do not know, and really do not care, about it right now.
Also, we still miss a designer for icons. Eve can not be released without new icons....
Have a nice summer,
Johan
I spent a lot of my time initially when I joined the team. At that time I was home full time with my son and I could find some time when he was sleeping and I had an urge to develop when not doing it as the day job. Now both me and my wife work and it's just hard to find time and energy. I'm still in the team but can not spend much hours. I can not give you a time frame but it will for sure take more moths before we are ready. Patrick is not active in this forum but he work as much as he can. He is looking forward to vacation, he will spend a lot of time with eve development.
We also took a step back when redesigning, you have probably noted that the first page pictures show a quite different look compared to the old metal one. It will take us some time to get back to where we were before with the “old” design. Some parts is “just” to replace images. Other parts need more work because transitions of the activities has changes a lot and that require some custom animations. One could argue that it's wrong to change things drastically when in the middle of the project, one would not do that during a professional development project. Anyway, it's our time that is spent and we all agreed that it's worth it.
So what have we implemented? The below descriptions about the different activities will give you some idea of where we are. I also added a few screen dumps from the ipad using the “old” design.
Movies: List, thumb and wall view implemented. Info about selected movie. Sorting with title, genre etc. works. Alphabetic/regular sliding bar for fast scrolling, in sometimes long, movie lists. Can start movie in MP, watch trailer on Ipad, open in app browser with IMDb. Small or large now playing screen with movie controls when movie is playing. The mockups from previous design could have been from the app.
Series: Almost the same as for movies. No now playing screen or sorting yet.
Recordings: Display screen-shot and info for the four latest recordings. More info is shown for selected recording. Can display a list with current schedules. Free disk space is displayed. Three tabs with lists for watched, unwatched and all recordings. Recordings with same name are added to subfolders. Sorting works for channel, recording time, ascending descending. Can not yet start a recording....
EPG. Two views are implemented, One vertical channel view that show all programs for one channel and a “regular” epg as in MP with channel icons and two hour of display time. Can start recording, switch channel.
Music implemented with the three lists for artist, album and tracks. Can not start track yet and no playlist handling implemented yet.
Remote fully working.
Settings page implemented with support for several backgrounds and multiple MediaPortal clients as different zones. The zones can be changed with an icon in top right corner. WOL implemented, eve ask if you want to wake computer if one get no connection at start or resume.
Global search functionality implemented where the results are sorted according to the active activity. I.e. music displayed in top of search result if in the music section. Press e.g. a music track and the artist/album/track lists are scrolled and selected in the music section. This works for music, movies, series, recordings and epg. The search is performed and result are displayed after each key stroke.
So we have come quite far but it's still a lot more to do before it's fully working. No activity is finished. Regarding beta testers. We discussed this and came to the conclusion that it will not help us getting forward at this point. We are aware of a lot of bugs and the things to implement next. A beta tester at this stage will just slow us down.
The new design is more or less"done" so most the remaining work need to be done by me and Patrick. I.e. Joosts work on Titan do not slow down development of eve at all.
I also have mixed feelings about showing teasers that mostly are mockups and not fully functional. But without them I would never have joined the project. We will, at some stage, make a new thread that only show real images from running eve.
Regarding cost of the eve when it's finished. We haven't really talked about it in a long time, and non of us are doing this for earning money. I do not know, and really do not care, about it right now.
Also, we still miss a designer for icons. Eve can not be released without new icons....
Have a nice summer,
Johan
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- July 4, 2009
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Hi Hardylane,
I can tell you this, from a CommandFusion perspective (The company who develops and sells iViewer), that iViewer is certainly capable of doing what EVE is claiming it will be able to do.
With regards to the cost, it should be noted that iViewer is not free. It requires a paid license if you wish to display more than a single control page.
I'm not 100% across how this will affect EVE, but it certainly needs to be taken into consideration.[DOUBLEPOST=1343264335][/DOUBLEPOST]I have just spoken with a few of the guys here that have been involved with the EVE project for longer than I have.
We are currently looking at different ways to keep the cost of iViewer in this project to a minimum.
The EVE developers will update you when an agreement has been reached.
Indeed, think I'll get a pad just to use eve tbfh
Any chance that there will be a very first version of EVE before this thread will be a year old? I can't await it!
J
joostzilla
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Who knows
Would be a nice anniversary present.
btw. If i had a sponsor for an iMac and an iPad 3 things would speed up a great deal.
Would be a nice anniversary present.
btw. If i had a sponsor for an iMac and an iPad 3 things would speed up a great deal.
- July 4, 2009
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We have added a short section on EVE to our Wiki - see here to check it out. http://cmdf.us/evewiki
Everyone at CommandFusion is very impressed with the screenshots so far.
Everyone at CommandFusion is very impressed with the screenshots so far.