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chumbysphere forum → Chumby, the Device → How do I manually ADVANCE channels?
How do I manually advance channels? I don't want to have to wait 15 seconds for every widget to play before I get to view the weather if I want to see the weather channel..
how do I manually advance to the widget I want?
To advance between widgets, bring up the Control Panel (by pressing the top) and use the two triangle buttons to navigate between widgets. When you press the "Hide Control Panel" button (of simply touch the thumbnail image), you'll return to widget mode with the widget you chose.
To switch channels, enter the Control Panel as before, and hit the "Channel" button in the upper right, which will bring up a list of your channels. Select the channel you want and hit "OK", and it will switch to that channel.
We're looking at making this quicker/easier to do.
what about an arrow on the touch screen to go forward or backward?
Duane,
You've probably looked into this, but gestures might be an intuitive way to advance widgets. A bottom-left to top-right motion might be a good advance, with bottom-right to top-left being reverse.
Or maybe even hot points on the extreme corners of the device? I see gestures potentially conflicting with some widgets, but maybe having small set points in the corners for single tap or click to advance widgets would be nice.
Whatever the method is, it really needs it bad! Also would be good to be able to "stay" on one too.
AGREED!
You can hold a widget's place by going to the control panel and selecting the little push pin "Stick" thingee... I don't mind doing that so much.
shoe
I've been using mine all of 2 hours now, but the "stick" push pin in the control panel seems like an absolute must. Would be nice to not have to constantly goto the control panel though.
would be cool if you could switch widgets by tilting the thing. Not exactly practical.. but cool 
Or perhaps by just tapping the unit to the left or right. The accelerometers should be able to pick that up.
I was thinking that for one who likes to quickly switch between a number of widgets, it would be more efficient, after clicking to the control panel, to have a page full of all the widgets in a 5x5 matrix. The other functions could be on separate pages switched by tabs at the top of the screen.
One of the arguments against using accelerometer actions for advancing channels is that it would make it impossible for a widget to really USE the accelerometer. But i suspect that the number of them that actually want to use it would be small. Perhaps the default behaviour would be to allow a "hit left", "hit right", "tilt back", "tilt forward" to have widget control activities such as previous, next, hold, continue. Any widget that WANTED to use the accelerometer could call a system function to disable the accelerometer-based widget controls for the duration of its activity (so that it could have exclusive access to the accelerometer). Does that make sense???
Totally agree with you regarding the limited number of accelerometer apps. The fact that the device is tethered to a power cable really detracts from it's usefulness as a stand alone physically interactive device.
I see the Chumby being used primarily in 3 different modes:
1) unattended: deco-informative display, where it sits on a shelf or table away from reach
2) semi-interactive: Chumby used like a web browser to display various pages of info. interactivity consists of paging through info on the screen or switching widget apps.
3) full interaction: games (virtual pets?), demos, robot controller?, and other oddities which require full use of the accelerometer,speaker,i/o devices.
I envision that a lot of people would like to use the chumby as a mini-extension of their monitor while working at the computer (something betweeen #1 and #2). Possibly to partition off notifications like email, IM, stock quotes, RSS Feeds, voicemail/caller ID, "reminder to go eat" from the main display. For this purpose remote access via the host keyboard would be useful.
~Rolan
Per the commenter above regarding pinning... I've noticed the difficulty with widgets that you might use for 2+ minutes (YouTube, Archive.org, Games) and the desire to actually set the widget to display for the period of time you might use them.
That is, I don't want to look at the YouTube widget for 5 minutes unless I'm watching a video. Likewise, I don't want to see the CHONG! widget for 5 minutes unless I'm engaged in play.
So, how about the ability for Chumby to "auto-pin" some widgets if the user is engaged with them - IE do not advance to the next widget until gameplay is completed or videos are no longer playing?
Weeelll we could always get that microphone working.
CHUMBY! NEXT! lol for advancement
thats all I can think of right now
I'd rather see a more intuitive use of the top clicker for navigating channels.
1 click = Next Widget
2 clicks = Previous Widget
Click and Hold = Control Panel
Most of the time that I'm heading into the control panel... it's to manually change widgets. And I'd rather just be able to pat the chumby on the head and switch to the next widget.
Just my 2 cents. *thumbs up*
I'd rather see a more intuitive use of the top clicker for navigating channels.
1 click = Next Widget
2 clicks = Previous Widget
Click and Hold = Control PanelMost of the time that I'm heading into the control panel... it's to manually change widgets. And I'd rather just be able to pat the chumby on the head and switch to the next widget.
Just my 2 cents. *thumbs up*
It is a good idea but idk it seems like it would get a little tricky. There could be selectable control schemes as well in this case. Tilting right and clicking and tilting left and clicking might be an option. I totally see a chummote in the future via usb
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