Topic: Pre-load widget content

Maybe my network connection sucks, but half the time I look at the Chumby I see "loading..." on various widgets (btw, it would also be nice to be able to easily tell how strong your signal is on the Chumby). But anyway, the Chumby knows which widget will be loaded next - it would be great to have the content pre-load for the next widget (especially if no user interaction is taking place) whenever it can. I'm sure this is easier said than done, but it would go a long way for my user satisfaction. I'm hanging in there, though - I know (hope) this type of stuff will get better. I sure hope stuff like this, and the choppy YouTube videos aren't hardware issues with the Chumby.

BTW, when I first got the Chumby, I wanted to show my 3 year old son pictures of trucks from Flickr, but only about 2 images came up (the rest kept saying "loading..."). So he said, "See trucks on the computer with the chair!" :-)

Re: Pre-load widget content

Unfortunately, only the widget knows what it's going to load, so until it's been fetched and running with the configuration set by the user, there's no way for the chumby to pre-fetch the content.

On the other hand, the chumby should be caching the content if the server allows it to.

3 (edited by skada 2007-11-11 14:37:51)

Re: Pre-load widget content

Hmm - any way for the Chumby to pre-load the whole widget then in the background, as if it was being displayed (as far as the widget was concerned), but hold off on displaying it until it was supposed to? Or would that open up a whole can of worms?

Re: Pre-load widget content

We don't really have the memory or performance to be running that many Flash Players at the same time - in any case, what happens if it's a movie that expects to be showing something on the screen from the outset, such as a video widget?

5 (edited by skada 2007-11-11 17:43:02)

Re: Pre-load widget content

Well, the video widgets so far don't start until you push play (would be very annoying otherwise), but I guess there probably would be cases where things would get screwed up. And if the memory's not available, then I guess that's end of discussion anyway.

I've got a feeling it might just be my wireless connection. Looking more into that now...

Thanks for the responses.

6 (edited by skada 2007-11-14 08:21:56)

Re: Pre-load widget content

FYI, I changed the channel on my router, and I've got it running a bit more stable now, though Shoutcast using btplay is still rough - getting a numbe of  "AlsaOutput::Write - **** UNDERRUN *****", but even that's a lot better than it was.

EDIT: got that fixed now, too. I moved my router up about 2 feet and pointed the antenna slightly toward the Chumby. I've been running Internet radio via btplay for an hour now without a blip.