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Author Topic: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences  (Read 4720 times)

AndyCircuit

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10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« on: October 20, 2014, 05:05:57 pm »

While travelling Poland I've found a real bargain and couldn't resist:  Prestigio Multitouch Visconte PMP810E, Celeron N2805 @ 1,47 MHz, 2GB Ram, 24,3GB SSD including Office 2013 H&S for € 200 (that's the price for the software alone here). My first idea was this could be a great remote for MC since Gizmo is limited in many ways. Of course I was expecting troubles and here is the story of my first attempts.
Install of MC 20 and connecting to my library server was no problem but in was clear very early that standard view is troublesome. Even though I have thin fingers the scroll bar was very hard to hit, everything else popped up, so I switched to theater view. The look is much nicer, and no trouble to hit anything but.... no scroll bar at the right side like in Gizmo. That means if I scroll my music by artist (in my not exactly small library) it looks like I try to chase millions of ants off my touch screen. Apparently there isn't a way to use the on screen keyboard when in theater view, the lower bar won't appear and you can't add items to the Charms bar. This stops me to hit a letter to jump to say "L". Also, if in Playing now i can't use fast forward/rewind. Looks like I have to look for a standard view with wider scroll bars but adding ones to theater view would make me happy.
The next trouble isn't MC related, but the ability to move the thumbnail folder could help. Windows fills up the SSD very quickly, mainly the WinSxS folder and there isn't much you can do to stop it. Moving my 500MB thumbnails could ease the pain. So if anybody plans to do something similar, take a tablet with a bigger SSD. After tweaking as much as possible there is only 2GB space left! Hope this helps those with the same idea.
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Mr ChriZ

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Re: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2015, 05:02:50 pm »

i just tried obsidian touchscreen mode and  coudn't get out of it!
would like to see some touch screen focus!

syndromeofadown

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Re: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2015, 06:41:45 pm »

Quote
Even though I have thin fingers the scroll bar was very hard to hit
Use theatre view with touch screen skin.
In option/theatre view/ set scroll bar size to extra wide.

Quote
Apparently there isn't a way to use the on screen keyboard when in theater view,
You can swipe from the right then choose settings/keyboard/touch keyboard and handwriting panel.

Quote
i just tried obsidian touchscreen mode and couldn't get out of it!
Hit exit on the home screen of MC theatre view.
Theatre view basically takes over the desktop.
You can press the windows button to get start screen then choose a new app/program to use.
You can drag from the top, down and left to dock programs.
You can swipe from the left to switch between open/docked programs.

A nice feature would be an option to minimize and close theater view like regular programs so it doesn't hijack the desktop.
Maybe act like metro apps with minimize/maximize/close that appear when mouse over too.

Quote
So if anybody plans to do something similar, take a tablet with a bigger SSD. After tweaking as much as possible there is only 2GB space left! Hope this helps those with the same idea.
I have a 60gb tablet with a 60gb sd and I find it decent but I wouldn't want anything less. There are 120gb sd card now, hopefully the prices drop soon.
Hopefully tablet storage stops being so uselessly small. msata drives are cheap and large now. Tough to swap when they are soldered to devices that are glued together.

I suspect windows 10 will fix a lot of general issues.
Maybe multiple desktops will allow theatre view to stay open on one desktop while other programs are on another.
The keyboard is suppose to work better with non-metro apps so that may help too.

Windows tablets take a bit to get used to and don't give a good first impression. I have come to really like mine as have my whole family.
We no longer use android for anything other than GPS and would like to phase android out of our lives completely.
It would be awesome if MC was fine tuned a little to make it even better for touch.
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Mr ChriZ

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Re: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2015, 05:34:15 am »

Hit exit on the home screen of MC theatre view.

I figured this out eventually - the trouble being I'd gone into the video menu and it wasn't remotely clear how to get out of it, I then forgot I'd even gone into the video menu  - I ended up pressing audio to get out of it...I'm not sure if there's another way.
There's no back key when you're just using fingers on a tablet.

Considering I've been using Media Center for years and had a remote controlled Theater View PC setup at one point this is indicative that the UI is not intuitive enough in this mode I think?
The screenshot below is from my laptop.  I've got a feeling on my tablet (not with me at the moment) I'd succeeded in scrolling audio off the screen as well....
I think maybe it needs a back button once you've entered the video menu - or the ability to swipe back.

csimon

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Re: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2015, 06:46:01 am »

Considering I've been using Media Center for years and had a remote controlled Theater View PC setup at one point this is indicative that the UI is not intuitive enough in this mode I think?

+1. http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82006.msg559203#msg559203 Jul 2013
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MM_switcher

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Re: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2015, 07:45:08 am »

How often has improvement of a touch-friendly skin been requested? Seems JRiver that they are implementing things they like to, not what we users request.
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csimon

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Re: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2015, 07:54:44 am »

To be fair, I think it's on the list of things to do for the second half of MC20 development, but things are kept very quiet and I don't think it would be anything like a native tablet experience - looks like they want to push Android and iOS for that and not Windows or even Windows Metro (or whatver it's called at the moment!).
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beats_works

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Re: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« Reply #7 on: October 10, 2015, 01:57:09 pm »

How often has improvement of a touch-friendly skin been requested? Seems JRiver that they are implementing things they like to, not what we users request.

They have commented before that major skinning improvement would require massive re-write and would be problematic across multiple OS so not holding my breath  :P
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GuitRdone

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Re: 10" Tablet Win 8.1 with MC experiences
« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2015, 10:42:57 am »

With Windows 10, MS is into their second generation touch enabled OS, and with Office 2016, their first fully touch enabled productivity suite.

As an IT pro, it seems to me that a touch enabled Windows environment is a wave and not a ripple. If you're going to say your software is Windows compatible software, you need to be seriously thinking about touch compatibility, too.

As time moves forward, I expect to see more and more touch enabled Windows devices, and fewer and fewer non-touch Windows devices, along with a similar shift in Windows software.
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