Re: What's the latest news?

Thanks Ben.

Current status: have widget catalog, widget previewing, new channel creation working on C8.  Working on adding/removing widgets to/from channels.

My son just spent an hour playing with various game widgets.

Re: What's the latest news?

In-house testing at its finest!

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

Re: What's the latest news?

Ha! Someone just tried to gain control over the @chumby Twitter account.

Re: What's the latest news?

Yes now can see what I have been missing on the SONY.........

Re: What's the latest news?

I have an infocast 8, getting the start trek clock.  Do I have any options for getting a weather display?

Re: What's the latest news?

soon

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: What's the latest news?

I believe you mean:

http://i6.minus.com/jKhTCxgEhLmo0.jpg

Re: What's the latest news?

*lols*

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: What's the latest news?

I want to thank you Duane for all your hard work and dedication, as well as ask for a status update since it's been a few weeks. Also when can we expect an ETA?
Again, huge thanks!

Re: What's the latest news?

Well, I have C8's now completely supported along with the 3.5" devices, and I'm now working on the widget catalog and channel management on the website.  So far I have the categories view and the widgets-in-a-category working, now working on the add-to-channel and widget configuration stuff.

Account password recovery is working, but there's an issue with account creation emails that I need to sort out.

I also apparently missed some important fields related to widgets when I migrated the database, so I'll have to do it again.

I'm stripping out a lot of the "how to use a chumby" help and FAQ sections of the site for now - I'll be restoring that post-launch, since it's a few hundred pages in the CMS that need editing for the new world.

I'm debating what to do withe the I8's - they supported an rather weak "unregistered device" mode which I'm not really inclined to support since it's a bit of a pain.  I can either force them to use the C8 Control Panel, or delve into the I8 Control Panel to force the registration, like all the other devices.

All in all, I'm spending most evenings working on this.

Re: What's the latest news?

If it makes your life easier, I am all for forcing the I8s into using the C8 control panel. As far as I am concerned it is an improvement anyway. Just my $0.02.

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

Re: What's the latest news?

BoloMKXXVIII wrote:

If it makes your life easier, I am all for forcing the I8s into using the C8 control panel. As far as I am concerned it is an improvement anyway. Just my $0.02.

I agree, although you may want to post some help files for Insignia users post-launch if you choose this route.

Re: What's the latest news?

nathanm wrote:
BoloMKXXVIII wrote:

If it makes your life easier, I am all for forcing the I8s into using the C8 control panel. As far as I am concerned it is an improvement anyway. Just my $0.02.

I agree, although you may want to post some help files for Insignia users post-launch if you choose this route.

me three, though I've already convinced my i8 that it's a c8.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: What's the latest news?

My I8 was convinced it was a C8 a long time ago.  I suspect all the I8 users will be so happy to have more than just an internet radio with a space clock that any learning they need to do will not be looked on negatively. Not saying some help files wouldn't be useful...

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

Re: What's the latest news?

Well, there would be some loss of certain functionality - the I8's had much heavier support for photo frame functionality than the C8's, which were more widget-oriented like the 3.5" devices.

On the other hand, it's not like I have any particular obligation to support I8 devices at all, so anything's better than nothing.

At some point, we'll probably want to consolidate functionality across all devices.  I think the C8 Control Panel is a bit complicated and confusing.  It's much less of a "power it up and forget about it" device than the 3.5" devices.

Re: What's the latest news?

Duane wrote:

At some point, we'll probably want to consolidate functionality across all devices.  I think the C8 Control Panel is a bit complicated and confusing.  It's much less of a "power it up and forget about it" device than the 3.5" devices.

So does this mean that the 8 inch devices will run some hacked-up version of the 3.5" firmware in the future, or vice versa? I'm all for this, since if it means less hosting costs, it also means less money charged to us consumers (At least, if you don't go with the "Duane Pays" economic structure), as well as the fact that it would speed up the "Open source control panel" process, but it would require quite a bit of additional effort on your part, adding devices and backporting functionality from the 8" firmware and such.

Re: What's the latest news?

I'm only talking about the Control Panel, which is downloaded after power up.  There really isn't much cause at this point to update the firmware.  It would be nice if they all ran FlashLite 4 (like the C8) so one could use Actionscript 3, but I haven't pulled out the build servers from storage to see what condition they're in.

My thought would be to consider creating the One True Control Panel, that would run on all of the devices, merging the best of the functionality from each of the devices, and throwing away the stuff nobody uses, such as sending/sharing.  The main obstacle is that the UI would have to take into account the different screen sizes, and they would still have the different music source UIs, since those are approved by each of the partners, and I would not want to go through that process.

I'd probably want to add certain functionality to the Control Panels that are better done there than as widgets - for instance, a simple kitchen timer.  It also seems like there could be some enhancements to alarms, such as choosing days of the week instead of simply all weekdays (the dash supports this).  The 8" devices have very weak alarms compared to the 3.5" devices.

Anyway, the current focus is to get the service up - that stuff will be dealt with later.

Re: What's the latest news?

Duane wrote:

  I think the C8 Control Panel is a bit complicated and confusing.  It's much less of a "power it up and forget about it" device than the 3.5" devices.

I agree, the c8 was a disappointment to me... I'm currently using one as my alarm clock, with it's louder speakers and larger "where are my glasses" display, but I miss the c1 control panel.

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

69 (edited by nathanm 2014-02-05 19:08:45)

Re: What's the latest news?

Duane wrote:

It would be nice if they all ran FlashLite 4 (like the C8) so one could use Actionscript 3

*COUGH, COUGH*
Apart from that bit of humor, I agree. I meant the control panel, not the firmware, but I guess too much time spent working on my "offline" solution has limited my vocabulary. Anyway, after the initial crunch keeping all devices supported would be a breeze. It would be nice to have some of the Chumby 8 features, like the little bar for controlling music at the top of the screen, while still keeping the "set it and forget it" spirit of the 3.5" devices.

Re: What's the latest news?

diamaunt wrote:
Duane wrote:

  I think the C8 Control Panel is a bit complicated and confusing.  It's much less of a "power it up and forget about it" device than the 3.5" devices.

I agree, the c8 was a disappointment to me... I'm currently using one as my alarm clock, with it's louder speakers and larger "where are my glasses" display, but I miss the c1 control panel.

The C1 Control Panel *almost* works in the C8 - there's a little difference in how the display is handled that makes it fail, but it's very close.

Re: What's the latest news?

Duane wrote:

The C1 Control Panel *almost* works in the C8 - there's a little difference in how the display is handled that makes it fail, but it's very close.

when I was trying to get my i8 past it's failed crypto processor, and then convice it that it was a c8, ("You're a c8" "NO, I aint!" "YES YOU ARE *waves fist*") at one point, it booted up and got the c1 control panel... and I was like YAY!!!... then I 'fixed' something else and it started using the c8 panel, *sad face*

Cleaning up any loose bits and bytes.

Re: What's the latest news?

The C1 Control Panel is the "default" when it can't determine the hardware type.

Re: What's the latest news?

Now I'm getting all excited Duane!
Are we in a countdown yet?