LinuxMCE Forums

General => Users => Topic started by: darrenmason on October 11, 2010, 02:21:13 pm

Title: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 11, 2010, 02:21:13 pm
Hi,

Managed to get a little bit of time tonight so got to use my DEV machine. I thought I would make available a test version of Android Touch Orbiter so that some people can have a play/test.

Please download apk from http://filebin.ca/cdxej/AndroidTouchOrbiter.apk or http://filebin.ca/cdxej

It is still pretty raw but I have tested it on the emulator and my phone (HTC Tattoo). You will need to find the port number of your proxy orbiter which is available through the web admin screens. Port is set through the menu settings and you will need to kill the app to get the settings recognised.

Try and get the source attached to a trac or something whenever I get a moment but interested if this works for anyone and what issues are encountered.
Wil also try and write up some details in a wiki page.

If you are able to get logcat outputs then that would be good if you are reporting a problem.

Have fun
Regards
Darren

Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: los93sol on October 12, 2010, 01:59:00 am
Darren, I've got a version going as well...implemented some nice features into it already and localized every string in the app and translated to English, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Japanese, and French.  I'm working tonight to get some server-side work done to validate the user and create the devices on the core completely dynamically to make it literally just download off the market, follow the quick setup wizard in the app and start using it.  So far the UI is in place for the setup wizard in the app, just need to complete the server-side work and add a few additional features to the app and it's complete.  Orbiter itself is fully functional and quick snappy on my Droid X.

Please stop by the dev channel if you'd like to work together so we aren't ending up with separate efforts for the same task.

Regards,
Adam
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 12, 2010, 05:01:40 am
Hi Adam,

Will try the dev channel and chat - might be hard to align time zones though.

What is the server side part that you have done? Are you setting up an explicit device for it?

I have tried to keep my version as dumbed down as possible. It will currently take whatever resolution image is thrown at it and scale it to the device that is running it, this was to minimise having to change the server side ProxyOrbiter config.

Really interested to see what you have done - is the apk or the source available?

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: aico on October 13, 2010, 07:16:11 am
Hello,

I got my Eken M002 some days ago and it works fine with WebOrbiter 2.0. Is it possible to install your TouchOrbiter on this device (I am very new to Android).

Will it be possible to shutdown the Tablet PC using your Orbiter?
I think it would be fine to shutdown the Orbiter when I send my home to Sleep Mode.

Regards
Johannes
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: gonesurfing on October 13, 2010, 08:20:22 am
hi
i would like to help test this, I have an android tablet (EKEN M003 running android 1.6)
I have downloaded the app and have set up a gerneric proxiy orbiter #239 in the web admin of lmce regenerated the orbiter after setting the screen size reloaded the router I then started the orbiter and entered the settings page and entered the 239 as the port and then restarted the orbiter but it gives me a message that it failed is there anything that you would like me to try
steve
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 13, 2010, 11:49:00 pm
hi,

are you sure that you have the right port? I think the default for the first proxyorbiter is 3461

to find it go to admin then select show device tree, core->generic web device->generic proxy orbiter and then check the listen port in the device data.

You will need to restart the app after a settings change - which if you don't have an app killer might be easier to restart (or start lots of other apps)

Let me know how you go.

@aico you should be able to install on this device. The orbiter will not shutdown the tablet without a DCE device on the tablet itself

regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: los93sol on October 14, 2010, 12:33:34 am
darrenmason, if you implement onResume() you can reload the settings upon re-entry to the main activity...just a quick tip so you don't have to have people rebooting their phones and all that
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: gonesurfing on October 14, 2010, 12:11:56 pm
Hi
Thanks for the tip on the port number I got it working today and started to play with it here is the alogcat
http://pastebin.ca/1961784
I hope it is of some use Is there anything you would like me to try
steve
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: wombiroller on October 14, 2010, 02:35:52 pm
Hey Darren,

Using 2.2/Froyo (Enom) on an N1 - won't load for me - i have to force quit the app. logcat:

Code: [Select]
D/NativeCrypto( 8290): Freeing OpenSSL session
D/dalvikvm(  538): GC_EXTERNAL_ALLOC freed 7818 objects / 671064 bytes in 46ms
D/dalvikvm(14550): GC_EXPLICIT freed 9217 objects / 570440 bytes in 87ms
D/class com.linuxmce.AndroidTouchOrbiterActivity(14934): Size width[320.0] and y[508.0]
D/AndroidRuntime(14934): Shutting down VM
W/dalvikvm(14934): threadid=1: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x4001d850)
I/Process (14934): Sending signal. PID: 14934 SIG: 9
D/dalvikvm(  451): GC_EXTERNAL_ALLOC freed 14784 objects / 754104 bytes in 102ms
D/alogcat (14911): stopping ...
D/alogcat (14911): resumed

Cheers,
Adriel.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 14, 2010, 11:29:50 pm
Thanks for the testing guys..

@gonesurfing: Your logcat looks like a normal startup - are you getting an image displayed? I can't see any touch events in the log. Are you able to interact with it or are you just getting a black screen. You have at least given me some important info that the ANYNEWS polling seems to be working (it doesn't work on my server - so I couldn't test it properly)
Please let me know what you are seeing/ not seeing etc... One interesting thing with your setup is that your device resolution is actually bigger than the image - it will therefore attempt to scale up rather than down - which I have not tested.

@wombiroller: You don't seem to be getting far at all. I will have to look into it further. I will try and setup a 2.2 emulator to see if I can replicate. Do you go on the IRC channel at all?

I will setup emulators for both of you to test on environments closer to yours.

FYI... The behaviour that you should be seeing is;

The orbiter image displayed almost immediately on startup scaled to fit the full screen of your device in the orientation it is currently in. Most phones will look better if you turn them horizontal.

The only menu option is the settings which allows you to set the server address and port of the lmce proxy_orbiter and the polling time for the ANYNEWS check (in millseconds).

It should reconnnect when connection is lost and display a popup error when connection can't be made.

Regards
Darren


Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: wombiroller on October 15, 2010, 02:51:18 am
@darrenmason - not often (not a dev so can't add much value) - but happy to jump on for testing. Let me know when you might be around and I will login for a bit.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 15, 2010, 05:07:55 am
Will see if I can replicate your results in the emulator (using 2.2) - might just be related to different API.

I developed it using the 1.5 API so it would potentially be usable by all devices.

If I can't replicate then I will try and contact you more interactively to see if we can work out what is happening...
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: gonesurfing on October 15, 2010, 09:24:31 am
hi
 happy to be of some help,okay yesterday after changing the port number it started to work and i had the image of the orbiter and i was able to use the buttons (turn on the lights,play media,etc)  however the page was oversized and was cut of at the phone button so i tried to play with the resolution in the web admin it did not work and left me with a black screen and thats the log
today i uninstalled the app and then reinstalled as you will see from the new log it is working however it is still oversized the second log is when i rotated the screen the screen got cut of at the thermostat and the buttons were elongated and not working as well
http://pastebin.ca/1962801
steve
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 19, 2010, 04:45:35 am
Quick Update... Still working on it. Definately a problem with 2.2 that I am able to replicate. The screen scaling issues you are getting I have not been able to replicate exactly yet but will keep trying.
Will try and get a new version soon....
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on October 20, 2010, 01:33:38 am
Just got my droidx and will be testing this if needed...

Richard

P.S. darrenmason Have you ever looked further into the android on the webdt? I have android 2.1 running but no touch screen functionality.


Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on October 20, 2010, 03:45:41 am
Will see if I can replicate your results in the emulator (using 2.2) - might just be related to different API.

I developed it using the 1.5 API so it would potentially be usable by all devices.

If I can't replicate then I will try and contact you more interactively to see if we can work out what is happening...

Great to see all this activity around your Android Touch Orbiter. Hopefully we'll have a feature complete version soon...I will see if one of my team here can do some testing next week.

All the best


Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 20, 2010, 06:02:59 am
Just got my droidx and will be testing this if needed...

Richard

P.S. darrenmason Have you ever looked further into the android on the webdt? I have android 2.1 running but no touch screen functionality.


Hi Richard,
Regarding TouchOrbiter: It looks like I need to do some changes for both 2.1/2.2 - hope to have a new version by the end of the week. In the meantime give it a try - it may not work right now that's all.

Havn't done much regarding Android on the webdt lately. Sort of stopped because I was struggling with getting a reliable Wifi connection to work with the card I have in it.
I got the touchscreen working with a modified kernel so that should also be doable with 2.1 as well. Did you just use the Android-x86 image?
When I last tried 2.x there was a problem with the video performance that made the UI effectively unusable on the webdt. I have noticed that latest builds are supposed to fix that. What was the UI performance like? Might be time to put some more effort into it.
Additionally, when you ran 2.1 did your network card work? If so, which card is it - the airnet one? Also, did sound work. I am yet to see sound work but havn't investigated much as it was lower priority than network.

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on October 20, 2010, 06:58:42 am
DarrenMason i downloaded the apk and it's not starting at all. my droidx has 2.3.15 installed btw.
"The application Android Touch Orbiter (process com.linuxmce) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again. (only option is force close)

I'll try in a vbox too.

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: mackindesouza on October 22, 2010, 01:07:53 pm
I think the channel will be hard with the align time zone.
but maximum part will be done by the server and its device, but if you are working in the old version then you need for the upgrade version.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 22, 2010, 03:28:40 pm
Hi,

New version to test.

http://filebin.ca/pkcprg/AndroidTouchOrbiter.apk or http://filebin.ca/pkcprg

Should work on 2.x versions now. Havn't done anything about the screen size problems yet - can't seem to replicate.

There is a known issue with this version.
When the device is rotated it restarts the application - which is starting a new comms thread - but it seems like the old ones aren't finishing.
Will look at when I can - but doesn't affect functionality.

Let me know how tests go..

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: kyfalcon on October 25, 2010, 03:24:49 pm
Darren,

Works great. The only things I can see that need improvement are the constant need to hit the refresh, and the scaling issue. One thing you may want to do is force it to stay in landscape mode.

I have the original Motorola Droid, running Android 2.2. The response time is excellent!

I will continue to test this!

Kevin
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 25, 2010, 11:22:10 pm
Good stuff. Are you able to elaborate on the refresh problem. Under what circumstances do you need to refresh? I noticed a problem on first startup (which also applies to each time you rotate) but other than that it should be OK.

For screen scaling I coded it so that it scales the image received to the current resolution and fits the whole image on screen. This allows it to work for devices with different native resolutions and more importantly allows it to handle the resolution change when the device is rotated. Perhaps an option to not react to rotations (and stay in landscape) would be useful.

The other option is to not squeeze the whole image in, perhaps scale vertically and preserve the aspect ratio. Open to suggestions - perhaps they can all be menu options.

Keep up the testing, will try and keep the versions coming.

regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: kyfalcon on October 26, 2010, 03:37:45 pm
Darren as far as the refresh, mine works just like you describe. have to refresh on beginning and any rotation, which basically means anytime I set the phone down and pick it back up. Not a deal breaker, but forcing the app to landscape only would be great.

As far as the scaling, it probably is more the aspect ration as you point out. One thing I did notice is the blue used for the playlist and the yellow used for lighting, makes it difficult to read what is going on.

Does this work for other UI themes?

I'll try and mess with it some more this evening.

I found this for the landscape only place this in the manifest file.
android:screenOrientation="landscape"

Kevin
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: los93sol on October 26, 2010, 09:01:46 pm
Darren,
RE: Refresh problems after screen orientation changes...you may want to try this in your manifest file for the orbiter's activity definition

android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation"

By default Android will reset your Activity when the screen orientation changes, but setting the above will prevent that from happening.  The other option is to handle this scenario directly in code which you probably don't need to do since I assume the only thing really being reset is your socket connection.

Just a quick tip, hope it helps.

-Adam
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Enigmus on October 28, 2010, 05:54:43 pm
Is a new version coming out soon?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on October 31, 2010, 11:45:54 am
Yeah was planning to do some work on it this weekend but just turned the computer on for the first time Sunday night at 9:30pm and don't think I'll get much done tonight.

Should get some time tomorrow evening. What feature are you waiting on?

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 01, 2010, 01:31:40 pm
New version available

http://rapidshare.com/files/428289131/AndroidTouchOrbiter.apk
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=18HIJLP1

Please test. No known issues currently - I have fixed the problem with the threads not closing on rotation and also the first screen refresh problem. I also simplified a couple of areas.

Let me know how it goes. Also open to feature requests.

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Marie.O on November 01, 2010, 01:35:18 pm
Just a quick note. Next time, just attach the file to your post. That way, people don't have to put up with rapidshare nerve wracking site
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 01, 2010, 07:43:15 pm
Can you attach it here, both sites do not work..

Thanks,

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 01, 2010, 10:42:07 pm
Sorry guys, usually stick it on filebin but it was down last night so I went with a couple of alternatives.

Try this one, it is taken from a backup of my phone. If there are problems will upload the proper one tonight.

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 02, 2010, 06:33:35 pm
I have a droidx with the latest android from verizon (2.3.15).

The program runs great with the following issue

When you turn it landscape, it force closes

Other then this it's very responsive and playing media, turning lights on/of etc... works great.

I couldn't get it to work from "outside" the lmce network, is there a special trick?
I have ddns setup, port forwarded to lmce setup, tried IP address, but nothing worked.

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 02, 2010, 10:10:37 pm
Thanks Richard. Are you able to send me a logcat of when you get the force close? I am not getting this problem on the simulator or my phone.

It should work out side the linuxMCE network ( although I havn't tried it ). Will try mine and let you know....

Edit: Just tried it from external and works OK. A bit slower than on the lan but I guess to be expected. Note that there is no security however. My core is my gateway so I just opened the 3461 port and set my touchorbiter to my dyndns address.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: jeangot on November 03, 2010, 06:40:07 am
Darren,

I just stumbled on this and it works great on my Droid. Since you said you are open to feature requests: any plans to add user authentication (similar to the web orbiter) so it could safely run over public internet?

Jean
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Enigmus on November 03, 2010, 02:29:43 pm
This is a network application?  I thought this was a blue tooth based application.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 03, 2010, 09:07:14 pm
Darrenmason: got it to work from outside, i had to use my ip address though, the ddns name didn't work, but this is probably another problem.

If you could tell me where i can find this log, i will post it here :)

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: kyfalcon on November 03, 2010, 10:42:40 pm
I could very well be wrong, but Apache needs to be set up to recognize your ddns name in order for that functionality to work

Darrenmason: got it to work from outside, i had to use my ip address though, the ddns name didn't work, but this is probably another problem.

If you could tell me where i can find this log, i will post it here :)

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 03, 2010, 10:44:50 pm
ddns in my honest opinion just "resolves" my ip address to the name i setup, which is a dns issue. should have nothing to do with apache server.

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 04, 2010, 12:14:14 am
Hi all,

Good to see it in use. Some answers to the questions:

>This is a network application?  I thought this was a blue tooth based application.
This connects directly via a TCP/IP socket to the linuxMCE server. Bluetooth is not used

> If you could tell me where i can find this log, i will post it here
2 ways: If you have the dev kit installed on your PC and are able to connect to your phone then you can use adb. Just do 'adb shell' and type logcat in the shell and you can copy/paste anything relevant. Alternatively there are apps that allow you to push out your log. Havn't used them myself but they exist. See http://code.google.com/p/android-log-collector/ which is also on the Market

>  any plans to add user authentication (similar to the web orbiter) so it could safely run over public internet?
Not by me at the moment, but Adam (los93sol) was looking at something.
My suggestion though to get a secure connection is to use a ssh tunnel. This works fine (I just tried it on my phone) and is much safer than opening up more ports on your linuxmce gateway.
See http://tech.shantanugoel.com/2010/08/02/ssh-tunneling-android.html for instructions. You will want a local port forward from linuxmceserver:3461 to whatever you want locally (I used 3461 as well) then just changes the settings in Orbiter to use 'localhost' as the server address.

btw: I am using dyndns for this and am having no problems connecting to my dns address - not sure why it is not working for you. I am pretty sure it is not related to the Orbiter software.

Regards
Darren



Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: kyfalcon on November 04, 2010, 06:27:06 pm
ddns in my honest opinion just "resolves" my ip address to the name i setup, which is a dns issue. should have nothing to do with apache server.

Richard

Apache is capable of hosting many URLs on the same server, not sure how linuxmce uses Apache , if they use the hostname part etc. Was just offering a possible explanation :)
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 04, 2010, 10:57:21 pm
kyfalcon, yes i understand and i appreciate any help. But it is probably just my stuff that doesn't work

Now i have tried the orbiter a bit and setup the "iphone4" weborbiter for my android which should be close to the resolution it can handle.

I still have a main menu that looks "crunched" like it's scaled about 50% down (this i think is meant to be)
All other menu's and/or media lists only take up half of the screen AND they are scaled about 50%, so both, this makes it hard to read and touch the stuff you want.

I'll probably try to make picture of my screen for clarification when i get to it, hopefully tonight or tommorrow.

Still when i rotate the orbiter it force closes on me and i will try to get a log to you soon.

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 04, 2010, 11:32:51 pm
Darrenmason, i got this log, hope it helps you. It starts with me downloading the log collector, then i open the android app, rotate it to landscape..... it crashes.... rotate back to portrait hit force close and start the log collector to get this data.

Hope you can make sense of it :P

http://linuxmce.pastebin.ca/1982247

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 05, 2010, 03:07:03 am
Thanks Richard, will take a look tonight - it is exactly what I need and should be able to work out your problem.

wrt. your resolution/ image squashing issues: Your device resolution is 480x854 in portrait and 854x480 in landscape so you want to use an orbiter image that preserves your aspect ratio (preferably in landscape). Your is about 1.78 (854 / 480) so just choose the resolution that is closest to that aspect ratio. It can be higher or lower resolution but higher will just mean that the image that gets transferred between your phone and the server is larger and lower will mean that you are not utlising the full resolution of your device.
Obviously, a resolution exactly matching your device can be used.
The app will currently squeeze the image it receives into the device in each rotation. Your current generated image is 960x640 which is 1.5

But send me a picture so we get an idea of how bad it is.

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 05, 2010, 04:51:03 am
Darren,

Some more testing done. I made my orbiter 720x480. I noticed that when i start it in Landscape, everything looks nice and normal, in portrait it's all scaled in.

I can actually go from landscape to portrait without it crashing, but trying to go from portrait to landscape i get the force close.

Touches are very accurate and everything i have seems to be working.

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 05, 2010, 12:00:19 pm
Richard,

Can I get you to try this version?

regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Enigmus on November 06, 2010, 08:44:22 pm
Will bluetooth support make it on the road map for this application.  My wireless is not part of my trusted network.  I'd rather not go through the whole ssh tunneling to utilize the app.  Though I suppose if that native authentication works it's way in, that would ease the issue.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: wombiroller on November 09, 2010, 01:06:04 pm
Hey Darren, sorry about the delay.. WiFi troubles (dead router)...

The new version works great on the N1 with Froyo 2.2. No more black screens when flipping from landscape to portrait. Speed is still great. The portrait mode looks a bit skewed, but that is to be expected. Also the scroll arrows are tough to press, but again that is more a form factor thing.

Might be handy if we could force to landscape on these smaller devices (user preference) or maybe this is just a good excuse for me to get an android tablet ;)

Thanks!!!

Cheers,
Adriel.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: los93sol on November 10, 2010, 05:14:04 pm
We've got 2 touch orbiters source code checked into SVN now.  I'm exploring more advanced features like implementing bluetooth support, etc. (Preliminary code for this is in svn already)  Anyways, had a brainstorm and wanted to get some discussion going.  With Android devices we are able to retrieve the last known location, and have several options for location detection, bluetooth, gps, cell triangulation, and wifi come to mind.  With a little effort we can probably do some cool things with location based scenarios (like the mobile orbiter scenarios when away from home).  I'm thinking it would be cool to levarage something like Google Maps so we can make the home aware of where we are/have been.  I wanted to plant the seed and get some feedback, do you guys think something like this could be useful, what ideas do you have for something like this, etc?

Keep in mind that the original mobile orbiter code was written when phones were not nearly as capable as they are today, we need to do some thorough research and assess what we currently have before making any final development decisions.  I feel that the touch orbiter is a definite step in the right direction, but let's not forget there are lots of other features of the mobile orbiters too, and we have the source code so we can be innovative in this area.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 10, 2010, 11:07:28 pm
Darrenmason, it works great with this last version.

As far as options for tracking location, not sure what could be beneficial to that.

I would like to see the app expand with notifications, etc....
e.g. 10:15 front door opened
       10:17 front door closed
       11:15 motion detected (and house in "Away" mode)
etc...

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on November 11, 2010, 01:42:40 am
As far as options for tracking location, not sure what could be beneficial to that.

I would like to see the app expand with notifications, etc....
e.g. 10:15 front door opened
       10:17 front door closed
       11:15 motion detected (and house in "Away" mode)

Any of the Touch Orbiters can already display those kind of event alerts...but currently they will be displayed as standard Orbiter screens of course. We're looking into ways to extend this in the future in Touch Orbiters & proxy_orbiter (proxy_orbiter2.0 in effect) so that the Touch Orbiter can use the graphical display capabilities of its underlying OS to layout/display the UI. The objective here would be to allow Touch Orbiter to display more dynamic & graphically rich UI's that we can today. This is still very much in its very early stages but as soon as we have something demonstrable we will make it available to the community.

All the best


Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 11, 2010, 04:59:21 am
Good stuff Andrew, Aligns well with some discussions that Adam(los93sol) and I have had.

Do you see this still progressing with the HAD Designer based screen model with layout in the database and the rendering (in the proxy) producing data structures instead?
This is what I am thinking but interested in what you have come up or thinking about.

regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on November 11, 2010, 09:41:55 am
Good stuff Andrew, Aligns well with some discussions that Adam(los93sol) and I have had.

Do you see this still progressing with the HAD Designer based screen model with layout in the database and the rendering (in the proxy) producing data structures instead?
This is what I am thinking but interested in what you have come up or thinking about.

regards
Darren

Hi Darren,

Yes basically what you describe above is where our current thinking is. Our current feeling is that the proxy_orbiter2.0 will be a complete re-write from scratch (and released under GPL too). Functionally PO2.0 will send screen layout/content info to and receive responses from Touch Orbiter and will act as the interface into the existing HAD driven screen architecture (at least for a while). PO2.0 will not send png's or jpg's of whole screens (though it will probably send png's for screen elements such as buttons or other UI elements) and will use an xml like format for describing each screen.

This is all in flux...what we will probably do is build a few proto's and let everyone have a play with them etc to see if this approach makes sense. We think it does but lets see ;-)

Any ideas or thinking you or Adam have on this would be welcome - post any thoughts/ideas for discussion here.

All the best


Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: cht_winston on November 15, 2010, 09:19:48 am
Hi Darren,

Just wanted to give you a quick update on our testing of Android devices and the Touch Orbiter:-

HTC Hero (Android 2.1 update) looks fine with a screen res of 480 * 320 (iPhone).

Sony Ericcson Xperia X10 (Android 1.6) looks fine with 960 * 640 (iPhone4)

Have to refresh the screen on the change of orientation and after screen-saver on both devices but other than that nothing to report. Looking forward to any updates.

Winston
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: bongowongo on November 15, 2010, 11:46:45 am
Using liveCD android 0.3 android version 1.5
When I try to install after download the apk package I get a parse error.

Also if somebody could point me to an better way to install /use andriod in virtualbox, I can test.
______________________________________________________________________________
Edit, I got it working in virtualbox.


presto.


Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 15, 2010, 10:15:54 pm
If you are trying to run Android in an emulator then just download the dev kit. it includes a skinned emulator which I think is just qemu emulating an arm processor..
but good to see you have it working in virtualbox

regards Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: bongowongo on November 15, 2010, 10:53:59 pm
Well I just do not understand the dev-kit :)
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Crawtech on November 20, 2010, 03:53:09 am
Hi All

Darren Just trying the Andriod obiter out on a 10" Epad (ZT-180) seems to work well let you know how it goes over the weekend
http://gadgetmix.com/mids/zenithink-zt-180-ipad-clone-running-android/
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rchamp on November 22, 2010, 01:14:42 am
willing to test too. I have an Android 2.1 HTC hero.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on November 22, 2010, 03:11:23 am
willing to test too. I have an Android 2.1 HTC hero.
Feel free. The apk is attached to one of my previous messges in this thread...

Currently I am not aware of any issues other than the need to do refresh_image explicitly sometimes.

The source code is checked into the linuxmce svn server (under people->darrenmason) for those interested
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rchamp on November 22, 2010, 04:16:03 pm
This might be a noobie question, but what type of orbiter do I need to set up in the web admin to enable the touch orbiter? general proxy orbiter?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: bongowongo on November 22, 2010, 05:18:23 pm
See the wiki page of weborbiter 2.0, set up accordingly, use that port for your android orbiter.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rchamp on November 22, 2010, 05:32:28 pm
thanks, I will try that later.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rchamp on November 24, 2010, 07:43:08 pm
Works like a champ. Now I am going to try it out on a touch pad, http://www.aliexpress.com/store/700168/210459879-343512208/W1510-Android-Tablet-PC-MID-8-inch-Tablet-PC-Support-HD-Video-WiFi-best-Christmas-gift.html

Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rperre on November 25, 2010, 07:02:33 pm
i've been using the android orbiter and it works great, i do believe that the screen should be restricted to landscape, since the portrait just scales the image..... or maybe the portrait image can be set to not scale it.

It just looks wrong and it's hard to make selections, however if it would cover the full screen, it would be great for one handed operation.

What do you all think of this.

I have played with HADesigner a bit and will try to fix the layout a little if that's the more desired action to take.

BTW the  orbiter i am using is 720x480 and i'm using a droidx

Richard
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on November 26, 2010, 09:52:24 am
i've been using the android orbiter and it works great, i do believe that the screen should be restricted to landscape, since the portrait just scales the image..... or maybe the portrait image can be set to not scale it.
Re Above - we're making that same restriction in the next release of the iOS Orbiter too - Landscape only.
Quote

It just looks wrong and it's hard to make selections, however if it would cover the full screen, it would be great for one handed operation.

What do you all think of this.

Re Above - 100% agree with you. On the iOS Orbiter we just rotate to either landscape orientation.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: MarcoZan on November 28, 2010, 10:52:28 am
This is just to say that yesterday I finally was able to put my hands on an Eken M002 (Android 1.6), and I installed on it the Android Touch Orbiter.

It is working like a charm, so thank you Darren for your great job.

Shortly I should be able to test it on a HTC Wildfire (cross fingers, it will be my wife's new cell), and I will report back.

Thanks again
Marco
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Enigmus on November 30, 2010, 05:17:11 am
Any progress on authentication, or blue tooth connectivity?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on November 30, 2010, 10:57:21 am
Any progress on authentication, or blue tooth connectivity?

We are working on adding secure remote access support to the iOS iTouchOrb Orbiter currently. The next release will have support for this and its based on a system we already use here at CHT. I believe some of the backend code may already be in the SVN.

More details on the above shortly.

We're not working on any Blue Tooth capability for iOS devices currently.

Cheers


Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Enigmus on December 04, 2010, 04:00:11 pm
iOS iTouchOrb is the offical name of the Android orbiter, or a parallel project?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: cfernandes on December 17, 2010, 03:43:22 pm
Hi darrenmason

i installed on my motorola mb300 (android 1.5), and is to slow , is there any think  that i need to change.

i have a touchorbiter on a ipaq  with familiar linux  on same network and this run fast.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Enigmus on December 19, 2010, 05:32:29 am
Any update on the next release?  I'm interested in that authentication option.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on December 19, 2010, 11:31:37 pm
Hi darrenmason

i installed on my motorola mb300 (android 1.5), and is to slow , is there any think  that i need to change.

i have a touchorbiter on a ipaq  with familiar linux  on same network and this run fast.


Hi ,

What exactly is slow? Screen draws? Refreshes? Response to touch?

There is a setting to change the polling interval. decreasing this will only improve the visibility of non-user invoked events (ie; pused out)

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on December 20, 2010, 12:27:45 am
Any update on the next release?  I'm interested in that authentication option.

Havn't looked into it any further, when there is another touch orbiter working (ie: Backend is in place) will do an update to do the same....
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: cfernandes on December 21, 2010, 12:25:38 pm
Hi Darren ,

is slow to response to touch .
mainly when i need to enter a pin

Carlos
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on December 22, 2010, 12:18:11 am
Carlos,

I see. Every touch does an image refresh so the behaviour should be similar for any touch orbiter. Will have a look when I can and see what can be done to make it better.

What is your network connection like for other things - pretty quick?

It might just be a product of slow device/wireless network/large images.....

Will update when I know more.

regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: davegravy on January 25, 2011, 11:00:35 pm
My Eken m006 just arrived and I got it working last night without a hitch. Only catch was that i had to create a custom resolution.

Also I installed the program called Screen Mode which prevents the screen from locking so that you don't have to do the annoying swipe each time you pick it up.

Only request would be for some auditory feedback on button pushes. Oh yeah, follow-me would be the icing on the cake :p

Nice work!
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: MDH1966 on January 30, 2011, 12:52:19 am
Have you guys seen this?

http://www.gmote.org/

It seems that is uses a server/client setup to make it work.  The server obviously lives on the computer that the phone is controlling.  There is a linux version of the server.

It is a free app for android phones and it is also open source.  The code lives here --> http://code.google.com/p/gmote

It also seems that it is recently became unsupported.  I don't know why...it was just a quick glance at their forum.

I don't know if this helps but you may be able to incorporate it into LMCE or at least see how they did stuff for ideas.

<M>
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: rchamp on February 03, 2011, 08:45:46 pm
I used that on my WMCE. Box before I switched to LMCE. It worked awesomely then. :-)
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Marie.O on February 11, 2011, 12:05:04 am
Darren,

even if los93sol's Orbiters is supposedly much more powerful in terms of automatic device creation, remote access and what not, I got your Orbiter to run on my small 7" android tablet.

One thing that I *really* love on the weborbiter is the instant feedback. When I touch anything, the whirlwind or flying tux comes up, and I know, I've hit the touch screen the way it likes to be touched. The web browser on the android even does a little click sound.

This is *really* missing from your Android Orbiter. Any idea, on how to implement it? imho it is the main thing missing, even though I still use it.

Thank you for your work with the Orbiter. It is greatly appreciated.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on February 11, 2011, 03:44:59 pm
Darren,

I am currently running your orbiter on a cheap and nasty 7" Android tablet and it is fantastic, thank you.

Have also been playing with los93sol's orbiter; I can see that it has a lot more features, making it useful for mobile (cell) phones, but yours is the one I am currently using due to its simplicity/reliability. Perfect for a wifi-only "armchair" device.

My only comment is that when watching TV, you click on "recordings", it doesn't always automatically change to keyboard. Same when you select something to watch - it doesn't always automatically change back to the remote screen. Obviously the orbiter can just be reloaded via the menu system so no biggie, but thought I'd mention it anyway.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: pdanders on March 13, 2011, 03:48:15 am
anyone have a valid link?

Thanks!
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on March 14, 2011, 03:14:26 am
http://svn.linuxmce.org/svn/people/darrenmason/AndroidTouchOrbiter/bin/AndroidTouchOrbiter.apk should work I think.

Also, didn't realise that this thread had a few updates - will try and do a few of the suggestions and build another version as soon as I can

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: pdanders on March 18, 2011, 12:39:35 am
Yes, that link worked.  Thank you!
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: bulek on March 18, 2011, 10:11:09 pm
Hi,

I'm new one to Android field. Have managed to install Orbiter and it works quite ok. Thanks to author for great effort.

Have two quick questions :
- can I get some feedback on touch event (I'm on cheap, resistive touch tablet) - click, beep, ...?
- do floorplans work ? I've tried with desktop and Android Orbiters side by side and motion sensor doesn't update on Android Orbiter.... Is it suppose to work or is this not working yet ?


Thanks in advance,

Bulek.

Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on March 21, 2011, 12:27:59 am
Hi,

A couple of requests now for the feedback on touch. Shouldn't be too hard so will try and look at it this week.

I think there was a couple of other requests that I will look at as well.

wrt. floorplans; what exactly isn't working? The display of floorplans? Just the motion sensor being triggered?

Basically - all touch orbiters are just standard orbiters that run on the core and render to an image file (rather than native libraries). So all orbiter functionality should work AFAIK.

Regards
Darren



Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: kvelland on March 25, 2011, 01:27:47 pm
Great work. I just installed it on my Galaxy Tab and my HTC desire.

Will post back as soon as tested
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on March 29, 2011, 10:32:04 pm
Just thought I'd mention.... installed on a stock HTC Desire HD, worked great.

I have however since installed a custom ROM (LeeDr0iD http://leedroid.com/), and now the orbiter crashes occasionally when started (but usually starts second time), and it ALWAYS crashes upon screen rotation. I can't find any other applications that are doing this.

Is there anything else I can do to diagnose the problem/test? I disabled as many phone effects as I could.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on March 30, 2011, 04:33:42 am
Hi Matt,

If you go back through this thread there is details on ways to get the logcat from the device.

Ideally, restart your phone, start the app, rotate (for the crash) and then send me the log at that point.

When the phone is rotated it re-initialises the whole app effectively - probably a bit overkill but it seemed to work more reliably than not.

Might explain why you are getting crashes on startup sometimes.

The log should give me enough to fix it...

btw; Started looking at the feedback stuff - just trying to find a little bit of time to do the coding.

regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: bulek on March 30, 2011, 08:09:34 pm
Hi,

A couple of requests now for the feedback on touch. Shouldn't be too hard so will try and look at it this week.

I think there was a couple of other requests that I will look at as well.

wrt. floorplans; what exactly isn't working? The display of floorplans? Just the motion sensor being triggered?

Basically - all touch orbiters are just standard orbiters that run on the core and render to an image file (rather than native libraries). So all orbiter functionality should work AFAIK.

Regards
Darren

Hi,
 
I meant situation when for instance motion sensor is triggered it's painted red on floorplan. Side by side, same floorplan, same sensor - works on Winxp Orbiter, but doesn't change colour on Android one...

Thanks for efforts,

regards,

Bulek.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on March 30, 2011, 08:36:01 pm
Hi,
 
I meant situation when for instance motion sensor is triggered it's painted red on floorplan. Side by side, same floorplan, same sensor - works on Winxp Orbiter, but doesn't change colour on Android one...

Thanks for efforts,

regards,

Bulek.


There was a bug in the Orbiter code awhile back that caused floor plan icons to be rendered incorrectly...you might be experiencing that as proxy_orbiter is based on the same code. Its unlikely to be the Android Orbiter itself causing this as it plays no part in the rendering of the screens themselves - it just displays the screens its given.

All the best

Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Marie.O on March 30, 2011, 08:56:01 pm
I meant situation when for instance motion sensor is triggered it's painted red on floorplan. Side by side, same floorplan, same sensor - works on Winxp Orbiter, but doesn't change colour on Android one...

Click on refresh and see if that helps
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on April 03, 2011, 02:07:48 pm
Hi Matt,

If you go back through this thread there is details on ways to get the logcat from the device.

Ideally, restart your phone, start the app, rotate (for the crash) and then send me the log at that point.

When the phone is rotated it re-initialises the whole app effectively - probably a bit overkill but it seemed to work more reliably than not.

Might explain why you are getting crashes on startup sometimes.

The log should give me enough to fix it...

btw; Started looking at the feedback stuff - just trying to find a little bit of time to do the coding.

regards
Darren

Sorry for the delay http://pastebin.com/mwTJ63cT
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: bulek on April 04, 2011, 11:03:00 pm
Click on refresh and see if that helps
Refresh always helps. Even if I rotate screen, then it's redrawn again and then sensor is refreshed into proper color...

Regards,

Bulek.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on April 05, 2011, 11:15:45 am
Refresh always helps. Even if I rotate screen, then it's redrawn again and then sensor is refreshed into proper color...

Regards,

Bulek.


I often find that when I flick between live TV and recordings or guide or whatever, the orbiter doesn't change to the correct screen, but of course a refresh always sorts it - is there a way to make this refresh automatic? Minor gripe I know.

My only comparison is the Nokia N800 orbiter, which always changed to the correct screen.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on April 05, 2011, 03:55:15 pm
Sorry for the delay http://pastebin.com/mwTJ63cT
Not much to go on in there...

Do you have live wallpaper? If so, could you disable it and see if the problem persists or not.

Thanks
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Marie.O on April 05, 2011, 05:30:17 pm
The problem is inherit with every proxy_orbiter 2.0 device I have used. iPod Touch, Android and Web Browser. There seem to be a condition where ANYNEWS does not return correct information.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on April 06, 2011, 12:37:44 am
The problem is inherit with every proxy_orbiter 2.0 device I have used. iPod Touch, Android and Web Browser. There seem to be a condition where ANYNEWS does not return correct information.

Yeah I had a quick look at this issue as well last night. It seems that the image returned has not been updated yet and it also does not flag anynews properly - suggesting that it is a proxy_orbiter device problem and not the touch orbiter (any variant). When I get a moment might look to see if there is anything obvious that can be done in the proxy orbiter.

Also done a couple of updates to the Android Orbiter. Just need to do a few more tests tonight and should have a new version....
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Marie.O on April 06, 2011, 08:13:37 am
darrenmason,

is there a deeper reason why you are not working off the svn repo? I see that you haven't done a commit to people/ for 5 month.

Another thing: Could you add a readme file detailing what is needed to get the android touch orbiter build on our builder? That way we could incorporate the output into our repo, and people would have it available from the web admin login page.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on April 06, 2011, 12:18:24 pm
Not much to go on in there...

Do you have live wallpaper? If so, could you disable it and see if the problem persists or not.

Thanks
Darren

I do have live wallpaper, yes, but disabling it didn't make any difference unfortunately. Should I do the log again without the live wallpaper?

Do I remember correctly you saying that a feature would be included to lock the orbiter to landscape?

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on April 06, 2011, 12:59:49 pm
darrenmason,

is there a deeper reason why you are not working off the svn repo? I see that you haven't done a commit to people/ for 5 month.

Another thing: Could you add a readme file detailing what is needed to get the android touch orbiter build on our builder? That way we could incorporate the output into our repo, and people would have it available from the web admin login page.

No reason - I havn't done any changes to the orbiter in 5 months. Only started doing some changes just the last couple of days.

At the time someone on the irc channel said put the stuff in people so that's where I stuck it.

wrt. building - shouldn't be too hard I guess. It will need the android SDK and probably has a few other dependencies but I will look into it.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on April 06, 2011, 01:03:26 pm
I do have live wallpaper, yes, but disabling it didn't make any difference unfortunately. Should I do the log again without the live wallpaper?

Do I remember correctly you saying that a feature would be included to lock the orbiter to landscape?

Cheers,
Matt.

Might as well do the log again - it was the only thing present that seemed to be going on at the same time.

Yeah the lock landscape feature is done - just testing some more. You might find that your issue goes away as well as it will no longer reload on rotation.
Try and get the new app uploaded as soon as possible.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on April 06, 2011, 02:00:48 pm
New version uploaded.

See http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/browser/people/darrenmason/AndroidTouchOrbiter/bin/AndroidTouchOrbiter.apk for the latest apk.

Change log:
Added configuration and related code to allow locking the screen orientation in either landscape or portrait. Still allows default behavior as well
Added a couple of lines of code to give some feedback on touch. This is more playing around at the moment as I don't think it will meet the needs of the people that requested this. But see how it goes and feel free to give some more feedback. It should click and also give haptic feedback (if haptic feedback is on in config)

Anyway - please try and give me some feedback.

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on April 07, 2011, 10:48:57 am
New version uploaded.

See http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/browser/people/darrenmason/AndroidTouchOrbiter/bin/AndroidTouchOrbiter.apk for the latest apk.

Change log:
Added configuration and related code to allow locking the screen orientation in either landscape or portrait. Still allows default behavior as well
Added a couple of lines of code to give some feedback on touch. This is more playing around at the moment as I don't think it will meet the needs of the people that requested this. But see how it goes and feel free to give some more feedback. It should click and also give haptic feedback (if haptic feedback is on in config)

Anyway - please try and give me some feedback.

Regards
Darren

Have tried on both my HTC Desire HD and a cheapo Internet tablet, and both work well - thank you very much.

I haven't been getting the crashes that I had before on the HTC, but that might be because I have locked it to landscape. Tonight I will try rotating and see if the same things happens. The haptic feedback also works well; very nice touch.

Works well on the tablet as always (never crashed in the first place). The tablet doesn't have a vibrate function, and I must say I didn't hear the *click*, but it could well be on silent (I only had a quick look last night), so will give it a more thorough examination this evening.

Thank you again for sharing this!

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on April 09, 2011, 12:37:57 pm
HTC Desire HD - no longer crashes upon rotation, but this is somewhat academic with the new "lock to landscape" feature.

I can confirm that I do not hear any clicks on neither the Desire or the cheapo Internet.

My suggestion (without having any knowledge of how easy or hard this would be) would be to have an on/off option for haptic feedback and clicks in settings, allowing you to choose one or the other, or indeed both.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on April 11, 2011, 03:12:19 pm
Out of interest (this is a question for Thom I guess), why is the N800 orbiter so responsive (in terms of volume control, skipping forward/back, any repetitive button presses) in comparison to the touch orbiters? Also the N800 ALWAYS displays the correct screen, in that it never needs to be refreshed - is there some fundamental reason for this?

I assure you this isn't a dig at your work darrenmason, I am just curious.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: nite_man on April 11, 2011, 03:22:51 pm
Out of interest (this is a question for Thom I guess), why is the N800 orbiter so responsive (in terms of volume control, skipping forward/back, any repetitive button presses) in comparison to the touch orbiters? Also the N800 ALWAYS displays the correct screen, in that it never needs to be refreshed - is there some fundamental reason for this?

I assure you this isn't a dig at your work darrenmason, I am just curious.

Cheers,
Matt.

N800 Orbiter is a port of SDL onscreen Orbiter. And it doesn't have any relations with Touch Orbiter. That's why you can see some different between them.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Marie.O on April 11, 2011, 03:23:25 pm
There is a fundamental reason: One is a real orbiter, the other is a cludge that needs to poll stuff.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on April 11, 2011, 04:05:57 pm
Gotcha, thanks for the response guys.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on April 12, 2011, 01:35:40 am
Out of interest (this is a question for Thom I guess), why is the N800 orbiter so responsive (in terms of volume control, skipping forward/back, any repetitive button presses) in comparison to the touch orbiters? Also the N800 ALWAYS displays the correct screen, in that it never needs to be refreshed - is there some fundamental reason for this?

I assure you this isn't a dig at your work darrenmason, I am just curious.

Cheers,
Matt.

The Orbiter runs natively on N800. By that it connects directly to the server, responds to and creates its own DCE messages and then renders the user interface to the N800 using native libraries.

The android orbiter or any of the touch orbiters that have been developed and also the web orbiter rely on a proxy orbiter. What this is, is the same orbiter described above that runs natively on the N800 is running on another linuxMCE machine (typically the CORE). This orbiter is not rendering it's user interface to local libraries but is instead rendering to a bitmap - which is effectively a snapshot of the screen.
The touch orbiters then connect (typically via wireless) to the proxy orbiter and retrieve the bitmap. It is then displayed on the remote device which listens for touch commands on the bitmap. Those touches are sent back to the proxy orbiter which then reacts by updating the UI and rendering a new bitmap. This is then sent back to the touch device.

So each touch will at a minimum involve the rendering of a new bitmap and transferring that to the remote device. This takes time and introduces the lag that you are seeing in interactions that involve a lot of repetitive key presses.
There is also some code in the proxy orbiter that allows a flag to be set when the display updates independant of a user touch. The problem is that the remote device needs to poll for this flag as the communications with the proxy obriter as essentially client server. Depending upon this polling interval - there will be a lag associated with these updates. Additionally if that flag is not being set correctly then there may be inconsistencies with what is on the screen and what has been rendered.

Ways to improve;
* Write a native orbiter for the device or more correctly port the orbiter code to a device. This is easier on devices that support the same runtime libraries as Orbiter has already been built with. The N800 platform is better suited to this than Android and/or iOS.
* Reduce the work that the proxy orbiter is doing. This can be done by reducing your resolution and therefore decreasing the bandwidth required to transfer the bitmaps back and forth. This could also be done by not sending bitmaps but instead send markup that would be natively drawn.
* Reduce your 'AnyNews' polling interval so that refreshes occurr quicker when the updates are from independent events

Keep telling people what is not working the way you want it to though as it will be input for any changes that do get done.

HTH

Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: daci92 on April 27, 2011, 10:53:08 am
It runs so smooth on galaxy pad , i was trying  the one from Los93soL but didn't work well ,so i've tried this one and guess what i didn't had any problem . thanks mate
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on May 16, 2011, 04:30:44 pm
Yeah I had a quick look at this issue as well last night. It seems that the image returned has not been updated yet and it also does not flag anynews properly - suggesting that it is a proxy_orbiter device problem and not the touch orbiter (any variant). When I get a moment might look to see if there is anything obvious that can be done in the proxy orbiter.

Also done a couple of updates to the Android Orbiter. Just need to do a few more tests tonight and should have a new version....

True its a proxy_orbiter bug.

Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on May 16, 2011, 05:36:41 pm
New version uploaded.

See http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/browser/people/darrenmason/AndroidTouchOrbiter/bin/AndroidTouchOrbiter.apk for the latest apk.

Change log:
Added configuration and related code to allow locking the screen orientation in either landscape or portrait. Still allows default behavior as well
Added a couple of lines of code to give some feedback on touch. This is more playing around at the moment as I don't think it will meet the needs of the people that requested this. But see how it goes and feel free to give some more feedback. It should click and also give haptic feedback (if haptic feedback is on in config)

Anyway - please try and give me some feedback.

Regards
Darren

Hi Darren,

Just downloaded your latest apk above and have tested it on a Samsung Galaxy Mini GT-S5570 (600Mhz ArmV7) running Android 2.2 Froyo. The Mini has a native resolution of 320x240 so its far from being the ideal Android handset to use the Orbiter on! However the install went perfectly smoothly and the config/setup was straightforward too... apart from the screen resolution settings. I initially selected the 320x24 resolution in Web Admin... but this produced a 1/4 screen sized Orbiter in the top left hand quadrant of the screen (in landscape). My colleague had already setup his HTC Wildfire which has the same screen resolution and he determined that 640x480 was the resolution that delivered a full screen Orbiter. When I changed the Mini to that resolution it also displayed the Orbiter full screen.

Anyway the Orbiter works very nicely indeed and is very snappy on my Mini - nice work! The only thing I can say I miss is the refresh indicator which i'm used to seeing on the iOS Orbiters we normally use... not a big thing at all really and more to do with what I am 'used' too more than anything else!

All the best


Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on May 17, 2011, 02:30:44 am
Andrew - What is the refresh indicator? Not sure that I know what you mean. Do you mean like an on-screen animated icon whilst a refresh is occurring?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on May 17, 2011, 02:50:03 am
Andrew - What is the refresh indicator? Not sure that I know what you mean. Do you mean like an on-screen animated icon whilst a refresh is occurring?

Hi Darren,

Yes that what I mean. Although it has to be said that the response in normal operation is reliably fast so there is very little time before the Orbiter responds. However there are situations where the indicator is useful... if for example the Core does not respond quite as quickly for some reason. Its minor thing though to be frank. Nice work by the way :-)

Have you any plans for additional features? I'd love to have you update your Orbiter when we have the spec for new Proxy_Orbiter pinned down. If you'd be interested in updating your code when we have a stable API etc let me know ok?

All the best


Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on June 10, 2011, 01:57:48 am
Andrew,

Sorry must have missed this post when it was originally made....

But definitely interested in updating with increased functionality and to utilise additional Proxy_Orbiter features. Send me whatever you have or post whatever is available as I might get some time this weekend to spend on this....

Regards
Darren
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on June 10, 2011, 03:03:23 am
Andrew,

Sorry must have missed this post when it was originally made....

But definitely interested in updating with increased functionality and to utilise additional Proxy_Orbiter features. Send me whatever you have or post whatever is available as I might get some time this weekend to spend on this....

Regards
Darren

No Problem Darren. We're just doing the final debugging of the new QT Touch Orbiter reference App now...we hope to have that ready for distribution over the weekend. I'll keep you updated on how we do on that...but it looks like we will release it this weekend.

All the best


Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: tux-box1 on August 17, 2011, 03:48:29 am
I'm experiencing firewall issues. your orbiter works only when I disable the fire wall on the core. the web orbiter works just fine with out any firewall changes. Am i missing something?
I added an exception for the correct port on the firewall config tab. Shouldn't this port be open by default?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: totallymaxed on August 17, 2011, 09:30:29 am
I'm experiencing firewall issues. your orbiter works only when I disable the fire wall on the core. the web orbiter works just fine with out any firewall changes. Am i missing something?
I added an exception for the correct port on the firewall config tab. Shouldn't this port be open by default?

Hmmm... why would the firewall come into play at all? You are using the Touch Orbiter on the LAN side of your Core so it should not go near the firewall. Provide a schematic of how your system is physically interconnected so we can see how each device is inter-connected etc.

Andrew
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on August 17, 2011, 10:26:31 am
I'm experiencing firewall issues. your orbiter works only when I disable the fire wall on the core. the web orbiter works just fine with out any firewall changes. Am i missing something?
I added an exception for the correct port on the firewall config tab. Shouldn't this port be open by default?

As Andrew said, shouldn't go near the firewall. Is your wireless access point on a different network to the LMCE internal one?

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on August 18, 2011, 03:02:51 am
I'm experiencing firewall issues. your orbiter works only when I disable the fire wall on the core. the web orbiter works just fine with out any firewall changes. Am i missing something?
I added an exception for the correct port on the firewall config tab. Shouldn't this port be open by default?

I can only assume that you are either trying to access the orbiter from an external network, either 3G or Wi-Fi somewhere other than your home.

If that is the case then it is behaving as expected. It is built to establish a socket based connection to the server. If you want an external network to access this server then you will need a path through your firewall. If this is what you are trying to do then I have tested it by tunnelling it over an SSH connection which I would recommend  rather than just exposing or port forwarding the proxy orbiter port.

If you are not accessing from external network then as some others have suggested you have a setup issue. Check what IP address your device has received via DHCP should be 192.168.80.X address is everything setup as default. If it is then connection should have no problem to core running on 192.168.80.1 and whatever port is used.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on August 18, 2011, 05:28:32 pm
...I have tested it by tunnelling it over an SSH connection which I would recommend  rather than just exposing or port forwarding the proxy orbiter port.

I take it you are changing the "LMCE Server" setting to something clever in order to achieve this? Is that all you have to do for this approach to work, or do you have to SSH into the core separately from a terminal or something before you fire up the touch orbiter?

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: darrenmason on August 19, 2011, 02:30:17 am
I take it you are changing the "LMCE Server" setting to something clever in order to achieve this? Is that all you have to do for this approach to work, or do you have to SSH into the core separately from a terminal or something before you fire up the touch orbiter?

Cheers,
Matt.
Yes, need to connect and authorise to core via SSH first - via terminal or something. Add a tunnel to a local port and then change the settings in the touch orbiter to your local IP address and whatever port you have setup. I think I used connectbot when I did the test but I believe there is dedicated SSH tunning apps that might simplify the process if you were doing it often - and I think they can run by default as a proxy if you have a rooted device.

I was using the same technique to access lmce admin  and mythweb from my phone or laptop on the bus on the way home.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on August 19, 2011, 10:32:02 am
That's very interesting, thank you. I have always accessed my core using SSL/HTTPS - what is your opinion on this vs your SSH tunnelling method? I have never been able to use your touch orbiter externally via SSL before; I assume it's not as simple as just putting in "https://<ExternalIP>" for the "LMCE Server" option.

FYI I found this page quite useful if anybody else is interested in the basics. There are some examples too http://www.debianadmin.com/howto-use-ssh-local-and-remote-port-forwarding.html
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on October 14, 2011, 05:41:48 pm
Just wanted to show off darrenmason's touch orbiter on my new(ish) Advent Vega running Honeycomb 3.2. Feels nice and responsive having never had a tablet that cost more than 100 quid (although I managed to pick this one up for only £130), and will test some more once my system is back on its feet.

(http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv234/purpss/IMAG0180.jpg)

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: bongowongo on October 15, 2011, 09:39:43 am
Just wanted to show off darrenmason's touch orbiter on my new(ish) Advent Vega running Honeycomb 3.2. Feels nice and responsive having never had a tablet that cost more than 100 quid (although I managed to pick this one up for only £130), and will test some more once my system is back on its feet.

(http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv234/purpss/IMAG0180.jpg)

Cheers,
Matt.

I think this is a generic unbranded one
The Yarvik looks exactly the same and almost same price.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: slampt on October 15, 2011, 09:43:14 am
Very nice indeed!
It also runs  on the  HP Touchpad (Running CyanogenMod).

Slampt
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on October 15, 2011, 03:18:53 pm
I think this is a generic unbranded one
The Yarvik looks exactly the same and almost same price.

I don't think so. My tablet has a capacitive screen and nVidia Tegra graphics.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Newguy2 on October 24, 2011, 05:21:25 am
Fellas, I'm using the android orbiter on a HTC  EVO 3D which has a resolution of 540x960 on a 4.3" screen.  Unfortunately, I have tried various orbiter sizes and none has filled the whole screen.  I can make it get smaller with sizes such as the windows mobile selection.  But getting it to fit the entire screen, rather than sit in the middle of the screen has been impossible.  I used this orbiter on my HTC Hero when i had it, and it filled the screen fine, i assume because it was a smaller screen. Any size orbiter i select above 320x480 comes out the same size.  any hints?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Marie.O on October 24, 2011, 07:41:01 am
Take a look at http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Custom_Display_Resolutions#Orbiter_size
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Newguy2 on October 24, 2011, 08:10:37 am
Ok thanks
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: kyfalcon on November 03, 2011, 08:34:55 pm
Hey when I run this on my 10.04 system I get the screen but there are no options on the bottom. IE can't pick user, can't pick room. So I can't pick any media etc.

Anybody experience this? Did I miss something when setting this up?

Thanks,
Kevin
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on November 20, 2011, 02:42:34 pm
Hello chaps, I have a resolution question - I've seen the various resolution discussions on this thread, but I'm not sure they address the issue I'm having.

My tablet is 1024x600, but selecting this resolution in web admin makes it look pretty gash. The best resolution I've found so far is Nokia770 (800x480), but it still looks somewhat blocky. Why might the 1024x600 not be working properly?

Is there a better way to choose the resolution? Or do I need to create a custom one?

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Newguy2 on November 23, 2011, 06:39:03 am
Take a look at http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Custom_Display_Resolutions#Orbiter_size

Ok, I added a new resolution and a new orbiter size successfully, but the same issue still exists.  No matter what orbiter size I choose it does not fill the screen of my evo 3d.  I can see changes in the orbiter, but it does not increase the size of the orbiter beyond a certain size.  So it just sits in the middle of the screen.  any suggestions?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: kyfalcon on November 23, 2011, 03:16:04 pm
You may have to change some settings on your tablet. The top menubar takes up some of your display size, so your tablet may be shrinking orbiter to fit. IE if your screen size is 800x600 and the menu bar is 800x20 your true resolution is 800x580. There are settings to hide the menu bar.  Not sure if this is your issue, just a suggestion.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Newguy2 on November 24, 2011, 06:12:56 pm
You may have to change some settings on your tablet. The top menubar takes up some of your display size, so your tablet may be shrinking orbiter to fit. IE if your screen size is 800x600 and the menu bar is 800x20 your true resolution is 800x580. There are settings to hide the menu bar.  Not sure if this is your issue, just a suggestion.

Kyfalcon, thanks for trying to help, but it actually has to do with the entries in the manifest when the app was developed. I found an app named "spare parts" in the android market. For those who may encounter the same issue, just download the app, find and deselect an option named "compatibility mode". Reboot.  The spare parts app as well as the android orbiter should fill the screen after reboot.  What I am actually using for and orbiter is my phone, a HTC EVO 3D. it has a larger screen than the usual cell phone.  thanks.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on November 25, 2011, 08:50:14 am
Is this anything to do with why I am not getting a sharp image on my 1024x600 tablet?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: slampt on November 25, 2011, 11:02:03 am
Hey Newguy2,

I had a similar problem and had to disable compatibility mode under settings > Spare parts
Not sure if it will help  you though!

Cheers
Slampt
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Newguy2 on November 26, 2011, 05:08:54 am
Hey Newguy2,

I had a similar problem and had to disable compatibility mode under settings > Spare parts
Not sure if it will help  you though!

Cheers
Slampt

that's what i did, i guess i made it sound like spare parts didn't work, but it did. i just wanted to give anyone else who may run into the same problem a heads up. thanks though.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Newguy2 on November 26, 2011, 05:10:58 am
Is this anything to do with why I am not getting a sharp image on my 1024x600 tablet?

I could be wrong, but did you try creating a new resolution/orbiter size?
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on November 26, 2011, 01:50:55 pm
I did not, I wasn't sure what good it would do - 1024x600 is the exact resolution I need.

I wish I'd tried the touchorbiter before I flashed the tablet to honeycomb.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Newguy2 on November 26, 2011, 11:50:23 pm
I did not, I wasn't sure what good it would do - 1024x600 is the exact resolution I need.

I wish I'd tried the touchorbiter before I flashed the tablet to honeycomb.

It did make a difference on my phone, doesn't hurt to try.  I tried that prior to finding the spare parts app.  thanks to the app and making a new orbiter resolution/size, the orbiter works great.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: purps on November 27, 2011, 12:41:13 am
Thank you for the various pointers. Ultimately, it was spare parts with compatibility mode switched OFF that solved it. The creation of the new resolution was not necessary for me either, although that did work also. FYI I was able to uninstall spare parts after compatibility mode had been disabled, and it still works. Thanks again.

Cheers,
Matt.
Title: Re: Android Touch Orbiter
Post by: Newguy2 on November 27, 2011, 01:02:20 am
Thank you for the various pointers. Ultimately, it was spare parts with compatibility mode switched OFF that solved it. The creation of the new resolution was not necessary for me either, although that did work also. FYI I was able to uninstall spare parts after compatibility mode had been disabled, and it still works. Thanks again.

Cheers,
Matt.

no problem