Topic: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

So I'm getting with this whole "ambient" Chumby lifestyle. I've noticed that when someone sits down near the thing, a common use case is that they want to switch to some other widget. Say for example, the widget they saw 30 minutes ago was hilarious, and now with more people around, they want to get to it to show them. Or they were watching something just as it switched away, and I want a quick way to go back to it.

Obviously you can do that with the control panel. However, it would be much better if you could do it with some physical manipulation of the Chumby. Say for example, you *hold* the button down, and then hit or shake the chumby to go back or forward one widget. That would be cool!

Cheers,

Nick

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

(OT. Couldn't help myself)

nparlante wrote:

and then hit or shake the chumby

A chumby rights and protection network would be even more cool wink

PET-C---People for the Ethical Treatment of Chumbys /shoe

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

Shaken chumby syndrome! PET-C---People for the Ethical Treatment of Chumbys. smile

Either some sort of squeeze, touch combination interaction, or a "mouse gesture" type thing at a certain area of coordinates on the touch screen to easily cycle widgets. It would be a cool little feature.

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

If we use the accelerometer for widget advancement, it woud no longer be available for use by widgets.

Similarly, if we use certain gestures, then those actions would no longer be available to widgets.

Both of these would seem to be somewhat limiting on the widget authors, particularly game developers.  We *could* add some flag for the widget author to have such gestures ignored by the Control Panel, but then the user would have no idea what would work for any given widget, creating an inconsistent experience.

There's also the issue of "training" for people to even know that these methods work - how does the user intuitively know about these gestures?

I'm curious - please explain why pressing the button on the top is a problem compared to these other methods.  We are running some experiments with UI for this functionality and would like your input.

5 (edited by nparlante 2007-10-18 15:38:18)

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

I was thinking that the widget-switch mode would only happen while *holding down* the button on top, so it would not need to conflict with any widget. Rather, when holding the button down, draw a big <- -> graphic sortof alpha-composited on top of a (frozen) view of the current widget (like the keyboard loudness control in OS X). The user plays with the accel to go back and forth. Or, you could go with on-screen controls to forward and back by one (on screen controls are actually more obvious than the accel, but the accel has much better neato factor).

(adding)Oh, and I don't think this would be a discoverable feature ... however once you saw it, it's both easy and visual, so I think it would be com ea super common feature to play with.

Cheers,

Nick

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

I think whacking the top of the chumby is the right idea.  However, I think the current control panel is a bit intimidating to the curious (or casual) user.

When people look at my Chumby and press the top button, they think they've messed something up and hand it back to me.

Could one whack advance the widget, and two quick whacks enter the control panel?

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

I have to second the OP comments. I'm currently reviewing slowly my one day old Chumby, hoping to contribute to this great idea. Heres the first thing I noticed.

  Setup was a breeze. I threw some widgets in the default channel, so it was like Default Clock-Binary Clock-Weather. I tweaked the customized timing for each and boom, I was up and running. So Boom, Default Clock, Boom Binary.. which I got bored with and wanted to "Advance to the next Widget", which isn't possible from with out the Setup screen, and within the set up screen it's a small arrow control to do so. After adding more random channels and widgets there were many times I wanted to "Advance to the next Widget".

  After reading these posts maybe the way to fix this would be to put tabs in the control panel and the first tab would be the widgets/channel changer, a bop on the head (setup) and a poke (Next Widget) and another bop  to the head(Chumby Proper).

  This is my first post, was really trying to hold off till I have gotten a handle on this thing and could contribute more. I think the other posters or right on, the new user is going to be a bit confused. I was surprised that some more basic info on Advancing Widgets wasn't in the Manual

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

i think the idea of holding the top button and doing something is a good one, but the action of the button would have to change, in old hypercard terms, to "on mouseUp" instead of "on mouseDown"

smile

i also think it would be nice to be able to hide the control panel with another press on the top button... i was surprised to find this wasn't the case already

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

For my fat fingers, entering the CP and poking the arrows is a little kludgy to advance widgets. What about reserving the top right and left corners for ff and rew of widgets?

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

I'm OK with hitting the top.  It doesn't take very much time, it's fun, and its easy to do.

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

Nobody made a more obvious suggestion....if there are different ways to advance the widget, then make a different widget for each method and let the individual user select the widget that best suits their preferences???
Different people select different widgets and might not have the accelerometer interference or prefer touching the screen in a special 'secret' place. Ultimately I see the chumby being shipped with a menu of these widgets to select from during the customization.  I tried many widgets and got bored enough to drop them.  We all weigh the importance each widget has for us anyway.

12 (edited by gsr264 2007-11-17 23:33:13)

Re: shortcut manipulation to advance widget

What if we add a GUI overlay that is on top of the screen (regardless of the state or widget in use) any time you hold the top button down. (I'm guessing this would have to be a firmware addition not just an installed widget? Ideas?)

The overlay I'm picturing would show a large Up, Down, Left and Right arrow with an 'Enter' button in the middle (simlar to a TV remote layout) You could then hit the left and right arrows to navigate the widgets in your current channel... or the up and down arrows to navigate the channels themselves.

The channels/widgets would change but the overlay would stick until you release the top button.

UI wise... there seems to be the need for more that one static button. I think this would still allow one-handed operation but increase the usability of that top button.

It seems the only way to add more functionality to the top button but not disturb the other features of other widgets. You could still have a push of the button go to the settings screen like now... but holding it would pull up the 'channel/widget changer' overlay. Regardless... I think with only one static button on the unit... it needs to have more than one function.

Thoughts?