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Author Topic: NEW: Touch Screen Support  (Read 15701 times)

JimH

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NEW: Touch Screen Support
« on: April 15, 2015, 12:56:24 pm »

We've done several things lately to help with touch screens.

A new option to allow wider scroll bars in Standard View

Pinch to Zoom for image display. 

Click to Zoom on images.

Today, Matt got touch scrolling working in Standard View.

Please make suggestions for other similar changes.  Be as specific as possible and keep in mind that easier changes are more likely to be done.
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csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2015, 04:14:40 pm »

Theater View - operational volume and position sliders in Playing Now, with the position control in particular filling most of the width of the screen for accuracy (with a little margin either side for neatness). Also make them more visual/conventional, rather than a vague dot that is just floating on the screen.

   MAYBE
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csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2015, 04:17:41 pm »

Theater View - graphical transport controls/buttons on Playing Now on the main screen (perhaps below the track title) to make them easier to access, rather than/as well as textual controls in the secondary roller which have to be scrolled to access them all.   MAYBE
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csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2015, 04:21:14 pm »

Theater View - if connected to a remote server, or sending to a remote instance of MC as a renderer, the ability to change the active zone on the server so that you can play video remotely.  (Could actually be done via an enhancement to Zone Switch rules instead, as detailed in another request - that would be preferable as it would mean all types of remote would work without modification, including DLNA controllers).  If using a desktop with keyboard and mouse, you could fire up TeamViewer on the server to change the active zone - that's a PITA in itself but it's slightly more awkward on a tablet/touch screen.

Have you tried sending video remotely to each of two zones on the ID yet?
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csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2015, 04:38:44 pm »

Theater View - quick access to Playing Now screen, maybe a button somewhere that toggles between Playing Now and the current playlist.   MAYBE
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csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2015, 04:42:27 pm »

Theater View - drag and drop reordering of the current playlist.
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syndromeofadown

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2015, 08:33:40 pm »

Here are a few ideas. Nothing I feel strongly about, just some initial thoughts.

- An easy way to switch to Playing Now in standard view:
I suggest adding the ability to lock the Display window open (bottom left by the action window). This way there will always be a big square to tap on instead of having to tap on a line of text or a small button.

- Add an actual Touch View:
Basically just a second theatre view with a different name. This way users could easily switch between theatre and touch without having to go into options. Would be useful for plugging tablets into TV as well as transferring libraries/setting from HTPC to tablet. In the view options it would be nice to have the option of “Use same categories as Theatre view” in case the user wants it the exact same as theatre just with a different skin. A big standard view button to enter touch view would be nice.

- Add the ability to minimize Theatre View:
Currently it hijacks the desktop and isn’t convenient when switching to other programs.

Minimize clicks/taps
- On the home screen of theatre view give the option to control what the exit button does so the prompt that follows isn’t needed. I personally want ‘Exit’ to exit theatre view and have never chosen sleep or shut down. This isn’t a big deal on an HTPC but could get annoying on a tablet. It would be nice if on the home screen you could add both “Exit Theater View” and “Exit MC”
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fitbrit

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #7 on: April 15, 2015, 08:51:37 pm »

Theater View - operational volume and position sliders in Playing Now, with the position control in particular filling most of the width of the screen for accuracy (with a little margin either side for neatness). Also make them more visual/conventional, rather than a vague dot that is just floating on the screen.

+1
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fitbrit

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2015, 08:53:03 pm »

Theater View - graphical transport controls/buttons on Playing Now on the main screen (perhaps below the track title) to make them easier to access, rather than/as well as textual controls in the secondary roller which have to be scrolled to access them all.

+1 Very useful when using a tablet to select and play what is playing on the MC server HTPC. Gizmo and JRemote do it well, and it would be ideal if a Tremote tablet could too.
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dtc

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #9 on: April 15, 2015, 09:18:50 pm »

We've done several things lately to help with touch screens.

A new option to allow wider scroll bars in Standard View

Pinch to Zoom for image display. 

Click to Zoom on images.

Today, Matt got touch scrolling working in Standard View.

Please make suggestions for other similar changes.  Be as specific as possible and keep in mind that easier changes are more likely to be done.

Thanks! In standard view with album covers can you scroll the Tree, the Album Covers and the Detail boxes separately? Currently (MC 19), in the tree and detail windows, it seems to try to move lines around when you try to scroll. Also, you should be able to simply tap an album cover to select it and maybe double tap to play the album. Now if you tab an album cover it only seems to select it if the detail window is already showing. Not sure how easy any of that is, but that is what I would be looking for.  Note I am on MC 19, so if any of that has been implemented on MC 20, my apologies. Touch screen in standard album mode would be a reason to upgrade.
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csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2015, 04:57:21 pm »

Theater View - option to completely disable the mouse pointer. At the moment, it reappears when the mouse moves, i.e. a touch swipe/drag causes it to reappear, and it looks a bit untidy/out of place on a touch interface.      PROBABLY

[EDIT: No longer required I think, it looks like it was Splashtop that was doing this]
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MikeO

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #11 on: April 17, 2015, 12:08:33 am »

+1 to minimising the theatre view. I am set up to start Theatre View at startup , so when I start and want to do something like copy files I have to close Theatre View first before I can get to file explorer rather than just minimise it.

Mike
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JimH

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #12 on: April 18, 2015, 06:06:59 pm »

Thanks! In standard view with album covers can you scroll the Tree, the Album Covers and the Detail boxes separately?
Yes, in the newly implemented feature.  It scrolls in the wrong direction and we'll fix that in the next build.
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JimH

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #13 on: April 18, 2015, 06:08:53 pm »

+1 to minimising the theatre view. I am set up to start Theatre View at startup , so when I start and want to do something like copy files I have to close Theatre View first before I can get to file explorer rather than just minimise it.

Mike
F11 on a keyboard will do that.  Green Button on a Media Center Remote, too.
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Grenache

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #14 on: April 19, 2015, 10:30:42 pm »

F11 on a keyboard will do that.  Green Button on a Media Center Remote, too.

Isn't this thread about "touch screen support"?
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MrHaugen

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #15 on: April 20, 2015, 08:19:46 am »

Good to hear that this is more in focus now. I hope you will look into improve touch support in Theater View as well. That's a much more likely interface for touch imo.

Csimon came with some good suggestions. Rating, Volume controls, seek/skip is stuff that I think should all be possible with a sliding functionality. However, it's not only Playing Now that needs some love though. The whole navigation system needs a bit of tuning to function properly with a touch screen.
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csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #16 on: April 20, 2015, 08:32:51 am »

The whole navigation system needs a bit of tuning to function properly with a touch screen.

Yes - the rollers (aka menu system) are not really touch-friendly in the sense of working how you'd expect them to work on a touch device.  But first things first!  This is an "easy" request thread I think, and Theater View is ostensibly a remote-control and keyboard interface, how much it changes or can change or is reasonable to change to become a Windows mobile remote app remains to be seen (as syndromeofadown suggested above - a new applicaiton for touch mode). But in the first instance some basic usability on a tablet would be extremely welcome, for example the playback controls, zone changing and playlist manipulation, which are pretty fundamental and essential and you just can't use it without.

I have to say I was quite pleased with how well it's working now on a tablet actually, having come to play with it recently in response to this thread. I last had a go a long time ago using an antiquated 12" acoustic wave touchscreen monitor, originally a PoS device I think, that I bought second-hand. It wasn't the best of experiences at all, although I don't know how much of that was due to the non-capacitive screen of the monitor. But I found Theater view practically impossible to use.

In the last week or so I've now used an iPad and Splashtop remote control to test it out and even with the lag due to the network streaming of the desktop, it works very well in areas that I found diffricult before, i.e. scrolling of the screen, and access to the items off the right hand of the rollers. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is much, much easier to use than with a remote control or keyboard now!  just with the caveat of the things I've pointed out. As long as the improvements continue I'm now seriously considering a Windows tablet (Linx 10.1", Asus 10.1" Transformer Book, or 10.8" Surface 3). If I had a room big enough, I'd go for a coffee table 19" all-in-one PC!
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fitbrit

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #17 on: April 20, 2015, 09:17:25 pm »

Isn't this thread about "touch screen support"?

Touché
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yupiyayeh

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #18 on: April 21, 2015, 10:56:32 am »

Hi guys,

in my opinion you don't need to change the standard view of jriver and try to make it better for touch. It works perfectly with mouse and keyboard.

It would be better to adapt a new view only for touch devices. This view could look like the jremote.
This app works funtastic on iPad and for sure it would be great on Windows devices like Surface or Yoga.

Keep it simple!

BR
Robert

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6233638

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #19 on: April 21, 2015, 11:53:37 am »

in my opinion you don't need to change the standard view of jriver and try to make it better for touch. It works perfectly with mouse and keyboard.
Depending on the task, Standard View is often best suited for it - whether you are using a tablet or not.

It would be better to adapt a new view only for touch devices. This view could look like the jremote.
This app works funtastic on iPad and for sure it would be great on Windows devices like Surface or Yoga.
Theater View with the Obsidian Touch skin is what you're looking for there.
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JimH

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #20 on: April 21, 2015, 12:18:33 pm »

Even if you have a keyboard and a mouse or trackpad available, sometimes it is just easier to use the touch screen.  Scrolling a page is one of these times.

Many laptops now come with touch screens, and you quickly adjust to using them.
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yupiyayeh

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #21 on: April 21, 2015, 02:59:10 pm »

I use jriver on a Surfce Pro 3, a Windows 7 Desktop (as server), an iPad (jremote), and three Android mobiles (gizmo) and they all work great. Only the touch support for Surface is not best suited especially with the hires screen of Surface Pro 3 the standard view is not the best solution.

I never try out the Obsidian Touch skin (for sure I will do that soon) but the common Theater View is good for an usage with IR remote control and TV.

I would prefer to have a solution out of the box.

Just think about Microsoft and the beginning of Windows 8. They've remove good old features like the start button because they thougt the desktop mode is not needed wit touch but as you see with Windows 10. The Desktop is back and you can switch between full screen touch mode or windowed desktop mode. Both together makes no sense.

But all in all I'm very happy with jriver. It's the best media server software and I use it since years.

Thanks so far.
Robert
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Matt

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #22 on: April 29, 2015, 08:39:55 am »

Theater View - option to completely disable the mouse pointer. At the moment, it reappears when the mouse moves, i.e. a touch swipe/drag causes it to reappear, and it looks a bit untidy/out of place on a touch interface.      PROBABLY

When I use my touch in Theater View, the mouse never appears.  I wonder what might be different?
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #23 on: April 29, 2015, 08:47:05 am »

When I use my touch in Theater View, the mouse never appears.  I wonder what might be different?

At the moment, I've been testing this on an iPad with Splashtop remote desktop. Could it be Splashtop that's  re-enabling the cursor?  But then again, you'd expect the cursor to appear in Theater View anyway when you move the (real) mouse?

Anyway, I've actually been and gone and bought a Linx 10.1" tablet now, the temptation was too much.  I have no idea how well it will work with Theater view but it was cheap enough to be disposable!  (£135 incl;uding keyboard and case).  Might use it as a Voxcommando "server". I haven't got it set up yet but when I do then I'll be able to tell if that too brings the curosr back when touched.
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csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #24 on: April 30, 2015, 04:08:56 am »

Now got it installed and indeed the mouse pointer doesn't appear. It must have been Splashtop that adds it, so scrub that request!
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Matt

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #25 on: April 30, 2015, 09:49:02 am »

Now got it installed and indeed the mouse pointer doesn't appear. It must have been Splashtop that adds it, so scrub that request!

Great.  That's the best kind of feature requests.  Ones that do themselves or make themselves unnecessary.  Ha!
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Matt Ashland, JRiver Media Center

csimon

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Re: NEW: Touch Screen Support
« Reply #26 on: May 07, 2015, 08:50:02 am »

Theater View - an attractive new screen for a Now Playing overview of all zones, i.e. the equivalent of the overview that is currently in Standard View.  If you're using a touch screen on a tablet, it's awkward to come out of Theater View and then use Standard View.

Horizontal scrolling/swiping for viewing more zones than can fit onto the screen. vertical scrolling/swiping for revealing more items in the playlsts.  A tap on the zone name heading will switch to the normal Now Playing screen for that zone, from where it will be easy to control playback for that zone and rearrange the queue...
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