Topic: screensaver

Nice job on the screensaver.  Of course, not all widgets display correctly.

Re: screensaver

The screensaver will be useful for widget developers to see how their widgets might appear on some other forthcoming large-screen devices.

Re: screensaver

Duane wrote:

The screensaver will be useful for widget developers to see how their widgets might appear of some other forthcoming large-screen devices.

Is there plan to provide a screensaver for other OSes, such as Mac OS X or Linux's gnome-screensaver?

Re: screensaver

Eventually, but we'll see how the Windows version goes before we spend the time on the "better" platforms smile

Actually, it's mainly a matter of internal developer bandwidth.

Re: screensaver

Duane wrote:

before we spend the time on the "better" platforms smile

Nice I can wait for a linux version, maybe we can see if you can have more than one widget running on the screensaver, cause you could put a weather app in one corner and pin it. Another with sports updates, etc

Re: screensaver

Very much looking forward to a Mac version. big_smile

7 (edited by joltdude 2010-11-01 08:42:57)

Re: screensaver

Like the screensaver.. doesnt like to escape out (even after hitting esc the mouse doesnt enable, or trying to double escape doesnt exit either), and how do you pin with it... Not bad for a first release..Kind of reminds me of the old days of PointCast...

Also it is a bit tricky to configure some widgets that insist on using the touch display to configure them
the preview window allows this but havent gotten the fullscreen to work (preview window for the screensaver)

Re: screensaver

joltdude wrote:

Like the screensaver.. doesnt like to escape out (even after hitting esc the mouse doesnt enable, or trying to double escape doesnt exit either), and how do you pin with it... Not bad for a first release..Kind of reminds me of the old days of PointCast...

What version of Windows are you running the screen saver on?  By default, the mouse cursor is supposed to enable when the mouse is moved or the esc key is pressed.  Do you see this problem consistently?  Try letting the screen saver fully load before moving the mouse or hitting esc to see if the problem persists.  We've seen the mouse cursor fail to enable on occasion - we're looking into it.

joltdude wrote:

Also it is a bit tricky to configure some widgets that insist on using the touch display to configure them
the preview window allows this but havent gotten the fullscreen to work (preview window for the screensaver)

The screen saver doesn't currently support notifications, so when you configure a widget directly from the screen saver, the screen saver isn't notified to fetch a new set of widget instances (widget configuration settings).  If you configure a widget, then exit and restart the screen saver, you should see that your settings persist.  We'll be adding notification support to the screen saver shortly - the change will be transparent to existing screen saver users.

Re: screensaver

ken wrote:

What version of Windows are you running the screen saver on?  By default, the mouse cursor is supposed to enable when the mouse is moved or the esc key is pressed.  Do you see this problem consistently?  Try letting the screen saver fully load before moving the mouse or hitting esc to see if the problem persists.  We've seen the mouse cursor fail to enable on occasion - we're looking into it.

Haven't been able to get the mouse to work in the screensaver... Windows 7 64bit edition. Will try waiting for the screensaver a bit longer before moving the mouse or hitting esc.. Hitting esc usually will bring up the option window but not let me exit out. iv had to kill the process a few times to get out of it..

joltdude wrote:

Also it is a bit tricky to configure some widgets that insist on using the touch display to configure them
the preview window allows this but havent gotten the fullscreen to work (preview window for the screensaver)

The screen saver doesn't currently support notifications, so when you configure a widget directly from the screen saver, the screen saver isn't notified to fetch a new set of widget instances (widget configuration settings).  If you configure a widget, then exit and restart the screen saver, you should see that your settings persist.  We'll be adding notification support to the screen saver shortly - the change will be transparent to existing screen saver users.

That would be great.. How far do you plan to go with this emulation. Also it would be good if you could allow users/chumby to tag widgets for compatibility with large display devices.. Never did like how when you register a device it just assumes you want to move ALL your widgets to that device, instead of offering a new channel dedicated to that device..

10

Re: screensaver

joltdude wrote:

That would be great.. How far do you plan to go with this emulation. Also it would be good if you could allow users/chumby to tag widgets for compatibility with large display devices..

We do have a compatibility bitmask that we can leverage to indicate whether a given widget is compatible with the screen saver; we haven't enabled it because while some widgets may not look as nice on the screen saver, they're still may be fully functional.  However, we're addressing all of the widgets that we own that render poorly on large screen devices and we're encouraging community developers to update their widgets to support a liquid layout and to use vector graphics over bitmaps.

joltdude wrote:

Never did like how when you register a device it just assumes you want to move ALL your widgets to that device, instead of offering a new channel dedicated to that device..

When you register a new device, widgets aren't "moved" to the device, the server simply assigns your Default channel to that device.  You can select whichever channel you prefer (as well as create a new one) for the new device.

Re: screensaver

When you register a new device, widgets aren't "moved" to the device, the server simply assigns your Default channel to that device.  You can select whichever channel you prefer (as well as create a new one) for the new device.

Im not a fan of it defaulting the new device to the channel (perhaps the default channel should be the Shared main channel, but thats just me) .. What I ended up doing is creating a channel for each device.. What i would have liked to have done, is have each device create its own "default" channel on registration.. and then the pool of channels that can be added to, and be able to copy/move widgets from one channel to another without going through the add channel process again. This also might help later with apps that dont quite run right on a larger chumby not attempting to run just because they are in the "shared default channel"

Re: screensaver

Some of the chumby-enabled devices have their own "default" channels upon activation - the Sony devices do that, for instance.

Are you asking that we do the same for the screensaver?

Re: screensaver

Duane wrote:

Some of the chumby-enabled devices have their own "default" channels upon activation - the Sony devices do that, for instance.

Are you asking that we do the same for the screensaver?

Actually I think that would be a good idea..

Re: screensaver

Ken wrote:
joltdude wrote:

Like the screensaver.. doesnt like to escape out (even after hitting esc the mouse doesnt enable, or trying to double escape doesnt exit either), and how do you pin with it... Not bad for a first release..Kind of reminds me of the old days of PointCast...

What version of Windows are you running the screen saver on?  By default, the mouse cursor is supposed to enable when the mouse is moved or the esc key is pressed.  Do you see this problem consistently?  Try letting the screen saver fully load before moving the mouse or hitting esc to see if the problem persists.  We've seen the mouse cursor fail to enable on occasion - we're looking into it.

joltdude wrote:

Also it is a bit tricky to configure some widgets that insist on using the touch display to configure them
the preview window allows this but havent gotten the fullscreen to work (preview window for the screensaver)

The screen saver doesn't currently support notifications, so when you configure a widget directly from the screen saver, the screen saver isn't notified to fetch a new set of widget instances (widget configuration settings).  If you configure a widget, then exit and restart the screen saver, you should see that your settings persist.  We'll be adding notification support to the screen saver shortly - the change will be transparent to existing screen saver users.

Basically im running Windows 7 64bit.. It seems that there is a known issue with this combination.. But i like where its going
Yes I was having an issue where the mouse cursor fails to enable, as well as finding out that notifications arent supported..

Looking forward to seeing a refresh version of the screensaver.

Re: screensaver

Just a suggestion: Would it be possible to add an option for the apps to appear in their native size of 320x240 and then perhaps the apps could could float around the screen real estate? Thanks!

Brian, #1 Joan Jett Fan