WebDT 366 ongoing development?

[colinjones]

Thom - are you still actively working on the WebDT image? If so, can I give you some feedback on a couple of points?

1. The suspend function is great, but still takes too long to make it worth using when having a long session with the web pad. Given the limited battery life, esp with the second hand units, what options are there to reduce running power like timing out the LCD after 5 mins (say), perhaps slowing the CPU, or even some kind of suspend to RAM, each woken on a button/screen press?

2. The search function is excruciatingly slow, each letter typed can take 5 seconds to come up, and some presses seem to be missed. I'm assuming this is just a limitation of the performance of the pad, and nothing can be done about it?

[jondecker76]

While on the subject.... A few improvements I think would be very useful:

1) Photo_Screen_Saver inclusion (I may try this myself this weekend if I get time)
2) Orbiter embedded phone inclusion
3) I think it would ge nice to be able to use one of the bottom buttons to toggle on/off the backlight and LCD manually.
4) I noticed that on the 4-way button on the right of the WebDT, pushing to the left takes you to the home screen..  Maybe this could be moved to one of the bottom buttons, and use the 4-way Up/Down for channel up/down, and left/right for volume up/down?


Great work on this, its a great orbiter platform!

[colinjones]

love point 4! Yes, fantastic work

[tschak909]

currently, suspend-to-ram is the only option, and what I am using. There is insufficient space on the flash to do even a tuxonice compressed predictable resume.

As for the search, just keep typing, the keystrokes are stacked, do not worry about the screen updating. It will update when the datagrid callback returns.

Orbiter needs to be modified somewhat to make sure that the hard-keys do not conflict. There are still some goofy hard-mappings laying around in the code that deal with the added stuff for UI2.. somebody wanna help me there?

As for SimplePhone and Photo_Screen_Saver... SimplePhone should be able to be run, with a few modifications.... Photo_Screen_Saver will not run as is, it is an OpenGL application... Instead, a simpler screen saver built from Update Object Image commands and a blank designobj should be used.

-Thom

[jondecker76]

Would Photo_Screen_Saver run if the appropriate OpenGL libraries were installed and OrbiterGL is running?

As far as simplephone, is the audio working on the webDT at this point?

[tschak909]

you'd kill the CPU. Again, a simpler solution is needed. Listen to what I said above.

As for audio.. The audio drivers are loaded, and you can get sound to output. work just needs to be done because simplephone makes some assumptions that it is on an MD.. designer work also needs to be done..a.s well as work in the telecom plugin to route virtual devices to the right places, we can no longer assume that "Take the call in here" just goes to the MD.

-Thom

[jondecker76]

Thom,

I'm at work(last night for a few days! Finally!) looking at Photo_Screen_Saver source....  I do believe that it will run without OpenGL, and run on the WebDT!

Look at this snip from the cmd_On implementation:

Code: [Select]

string sUseAnimation = m_pEvent->GetDeviceDataFromDatabase(m_pData->m_dwPK_Device_ControlledVia, DEVICEDATA_Use_OpenGL_effects_CONST);
281                 bool bUseAnimation = sUseAnimation == "1";
282 
283                 if(DATA_Get_Type() == "animated")
284                         bUseAnimation = true;
285                 else if(DATA_Get_Type() == "static")
286                         bUseAnimation = false;
287                 //else default -- leave default
288 
289                 GallerySetup* SetupInfo = new GallerySetup(w, h, bUseAnimation, DATA_Get_ZoomTime(), DATA_Get_FadeTime(), m_sFileList, bNPOTTextures, this, nMaxSize);


Basically, if the parent of Photo_Screen_Saver (the Orbiter) does not have the "Use OpenGL Effects" option checked, then the Photo_Screen_Saver will not use the OpenGL animations. Furthering this, if you create an MD using UI1, the Photo_Screen_Saver does run, just with no animations.

I may give this a try this weekend

[tschak909]

Oh Ok! I stand corrected

-Thom

[jimbodude]

In response to getting simple phone on the DT:

I was working on getting it to run on the DT360 before I fell off the face of the earth for a month.  Progress detailed here: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/User:Jimbodude/Orbiter_Phone  I'm not sure I'll have time to go much further with it for about 2 months.

There is an image available here (http://jimbodude.net/tab/webpad-dt360-beta4-based-gamma1-simplephone.dd.tar.bz2) for anyone who wants to play with it.  Note that I only have web space for one version at a time, so if it's not there anymore, there's something newer.

[jondecker76]

I've done a little work to get Photo_Screen_Saver running. So far, it is not as simple as adding the Photo_Screen_Saver binary and required files and .sh scripts, and adding a child PSS device to the orbiter. I'll be spending more time on it soon, still doesn't look too hard to get going

[jondecker76]

jimbodude:

regarding simplephone on orbiters: another thing to consider is adding buttons to answer "on this orbiter" or "on media director A", "media director B", etc... or even "on Media Director in this room" for that screen. This should be a decent way to handle being able to take calls on both orbiters and media directors.

[patmankn]

Hey guys,

i finally got my Webpad Orbiter to work... and it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. ;O)
Knoppix is just amazing concerning hardware detection.

As the internal wireless nic won't support WPA under any linux OS... are there some recommendations concerning an already supported one that could be grabbed for cheap on ebay?
I don't like the idea to have just one wifi-router online jus for the "remote".
So if anyone tried something that did work out... please let us know ... ;O)

Patrick

Btw. Awesome work, Thom! Works really pretty smooth!

[tkmedia]

Hey guys,

i finally got my Webpad Orbiter to work... and it wasn't as hard as i thought it would be. ;O)
Knoppix is just amazing concerning hardware detection.

As the internal wireless nic won't support WPA under any linux OS... are there some recommendations concerning an already supported one that could be grabbed for cheap on ebay?
I don't like the idea to have just one wifi-router online jus for the "remote".
So if anyone tried something that did work out... please let us know ... ;O)

Patrick

Btw. Awesome work, Thom! Works really pretty smooth!

What version of the web pad are you using ? and what did knoppix have to do with it?


Tim

[tschak909]

There is a gamma1 release.

-Thom

[jimbodude]

jimbodude:

regarding simplephone on orbiters: another thing to consider is adding buttons to answer "on this orbiter" or "on media director A", "media director B", etc... or even "on Media Director in this room" for that screen. This should be a decent way to handle being able to take calls on both orbiters and media directors.

Correct. Not even close to that yet.  Need to get it to run first.