HME Apps For You Today - Page 3

zoma4 · 11-15-2005, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdhenry

Once developers converge on a standard (like "pause" to exit or go back) it will all be easier. Kind of like <CTRL>-X, <CTRL>-C, <CTRL>-V, and the rest.

You use Ctrl-V to paste?? Ridiculous! I prefer Shift-Insert.

The.Mayor · 11-15-2005, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gonzotek

TiVo, Live TV, Guide, Exit, List, DVD.
*Note not all of these keys are available on every remote.
For a list of all keys available to HME devs, and the ones reserved for TiVo use, and the keys that do not appear on all remotes, see http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/docs/...html#wp1032414

Note also that pressing any of the reserved keys will take you directly to the normal TiVo function of that key (e.g. Live TV will put you into the live buffer). None will drop back to Music, Photos, and More. My personal opinion on clean exiting is that TiVo should modify the behaviour of the "TiVo" button for HME apps to drop to the Music, Photos, and More screen, rather than to TiVo Central. A second press would still take the user to TC, and a third to NP.

About "pause to exit", that would not work for slideshows, music playback, and similar apps that require a natural pause function in their routines.

Wow!

I think you posted a very informative msg.
Especially http://tivohme.sourceforge.net/docs/...html#wp1032414
.
I am going to digest what you have provided. Thank you so much.

I know there has been discussion that each app SHOULD clearly indicate what the EXIT key should be. The only problem is that they don't do that. It is a "shudda, cudda, wudda" situation.

It is a PITA to use the TiVo Button to exit an app. Your point about rethinking the behavior of the TiVo key is well taken.

73

John

wgary · 11-15-2005, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

How are you guys able to get the weather app to save a zip code from the entry screen? I can't seem to figure it out.

I finally figured this out last night; I had random success in the past. After entering the number, left-arrow out! Don't go down to the bottom to exit. It's pretty cool how you can select which zip you want from within the screen. But the interface overall is a little funky. Agree with the need for some UI guidelines.

apps-tv · 11-18-2005, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peteypete

apps.tv I liked the word game alot. Please look at it and fix!!

OK, I think I've finally figured out the problems the app was having. It's up again, please give it a shot.

For those who haven't tried it, its a multi-player word game similar to Boggle.

DocNo · 11-18-2005, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jubrand

Mine just randomly saved it after trying it a bunch of times. No idea why or how.

I finally figured it out. After you type in your zip code, you have to left arrow from the numbers/alphabet section of the screen, not from "Return to Main Menu" bar at the bottom.

Oh, it will store multiple zip codes and you can switch between them at will on the options screen - pretty cool.....

davezatz · 11-18-2005, 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apps-tv

OK, I think I've finally figured out the problems the app was having. It's up again, please give it a shot.

For those who haven't tried it, its a multi-player word game similar to Boggle.

Is there going to be a limit on the amount of active players? If not, maybe you should shorten the time of each round? I just played a couple of times with about 10 players and it seem like the words ran out pretty quick.

Also once you get the high score section up it could be a bit misleading since higher scores comes with fewer player - maybe it should be number of first place finishes, though I guess playing in off hours would skew that as well.

I think is a kickass game on numerous levels, especially the ability to play other networked users live! Interacting with others brings HME to a whole new level.

megazone · 11-18-2005, 09:50 PM

I'd really like to see an RSS feed that updates when there are new items to check out on Apps.tv.

Weaselboy · 11-19-2005, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DocNo

I finally figured it out. After you type in your zip code, you have to left arrow from the numbers/alphabet section of the screen, not from "Return to Main Menu" bar at the bottom.

Oh, it will store multiple zip codes and you can switch between them at will on the options screen - pretty cool.....

Whew... thanks!! That worked for me also. I musta been in that screen twenty times trying to figure this out.

john123 · 11-19-2005, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apps-tv

OK, I think I've finally figured out the problems the app was having. It's up again, please give it a shot.

For those who haven't tried it, its a multi-player word game similar to Boggle.

Looking good - had a few games last night - even managed to get the top score when there were seven people playing (conveniently forgetting the other games...)

As davezatz says, playing against other network users adds a lot to the game - good job!

apps-tv · 11-19-2005, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davezatz

Is there going to be a limit on the amount of active players? If not, maybe you should shorten the time of each round? I just played a couple of times with about 10 players and it seem like the words ran out pretty quick.

Also once you get the high score section up it could be a bit misleading since higher scores comes with fewer player - maybe it should be number of first place finishes, though I guess playing in off hours would skew that as well.

I think is a kickass game on numerous levels, especially the ability to play other networked users live! Interacting with others brings HME to a whole new level.

Yeah, one of the reasons why I haven't implemented the high scores is exactly that reason, I haven't come up with a fair way of ranking. Its possible that I may just remove that screen. another possibility is to remove the "race" aspect to is so that everyone gets three minutes to find as many words as you can so it doesn't matter if there is 1 person or twenty. However I think the racing to find words first is fun so I'm hesitant to remove that aspect of the game.

One other option is to change it to a 5x5 grid so that there are a lot more words to find.

I'll have to think about it a bit more. My main concern at this point is that it is still freezing up occaisionally and I haven't figured out why.

Thanks for the suggestions.

apps-tv · 11-19-2005, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by megazone

I'd really like to see an RSS feed that updates when there are new items to check out on Apps.tv.

I like that idea. Any good suggestions for me to read how to set up an rss feed, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to all the RSS stuff.

DancnDude · 11-19-2005, 07:23 PM

Wow I just played the word game and it's excellent! A really well-made HME app. I'm impressed

One suggestion would be the ability to use channel-up-down for looking at the words between rounds. Again, great work on this

megazone · 11-19-2005, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apps-tv

I like that idea. Any good suggestions for me to read how to set up an rss feed, I'm pretty clueless when it comes to all the RSS stuff.

All RSS is, is a properly formatted XML document with the data. Since Apps.tv doesn't update constantly, you could even manually update the file whenever you add a new app.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_Simple_Syndication
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

peteypete · 11-19-2005, 09:16 PM

Thanks for fixing the wordgame. I like having the wordlist show up at the end of the game. my only request is that the dimmed out board be show a little brighter so that you can see all the tiles so you can figure out the words found. Right now you can't read it behind the "top 5"

P

schalliol · 11-21-2005, 01:44 AM

Just a note of thanks for the TiVo employees to set off and do this on their off-time. Also, a thanks to TiVo for not restricting its employees from doing such things (many companies do).

davezatz · 11-21-2005, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DancnDude

One suggestion would be the ability to use channel-up-down for looking at the words between rounds. Again, great work on this

Carl got it in there, works nice - you can see your words (and count) plus all others and can use the channel up/down for quicker navigation. He dropped the font down to show the top 8 players - my bedroom TV has pretty crappy PQ and the small font isn't great for me, but whatever.

By the way, it's much easier to play with my SD-H400 remote (bedroom) over the TiVO peanut (living room). My Harmony remote is generallt too slow for the fast pace of the game. I never considered Boggle when choosing remotes.

By the way, have I mentioned this game kicks ass? As more and more people start using it, I wonder if it's going to be less satisfying. I think we need several "rooms" to spread out into so we'll never competed against more than say 8 or 10 people simultaniously. Or perhaps on the fly the game can resize to 5 blocks when 10 or more players are present.

DancnDude · 11-21-2005, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davezatz

Carl got it in there, works nice - you can see your words (and count) plus all others and can use the channel up/down for quicker navigation.

Yeah cool! I noticed that last night and it works great

Thanks! This game is one of those can't-put-it-down games. You play a few rounds and keep saying "just one more" until you've spent more time than you planned.

jkovach · 11-21-2005, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apps-tv

Yeah, one of the reasons why I haven't implemented the high scores is exactly that reason, I haven't come up with a fair way of ranking. Its possible that I may just remove that screen. another possibility is to remove the "race" aspect to is so that everyone gets three minutes to find as many words as you can so it doesn't matter if there is 1 person or twenty. However I think the racing to find words first is fun so I'm hesitant to remove that aspect of the game.

One other option is to change it to a 5x5 grid so that there are a lot more words to find.

I'll have to think about it a bit more. My main concern at this point is that it is still freezing up occaisionally and I haven't figured out why.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I really enjoy your game, thanks for providing it!

Regarding the high scores - I don't think the current scores should be directly involved with the overall player ranking. The way I envision it, the current score system would still be needed in order to rank the players in each round, and their position relative to the other players would contribute to their overall score. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to fairly rank everyone, and here's what I've come up with...

Players would accumulate rank points based on the number of players they've beaten (using current scoring system), minus the number of players who've beaten them. For example, if you place 1st (no tie) in an 8 player game, you would get 7 rank points since you beat 7 other players. If you placed 2nd (no tie), you would get 5 rank points (6 rank points for beating 6 others, but -1 for getting beat by 1 player). If you tied for 3rd place (2 people with same score), you would get 2 rank points (4 for the players you beat and -2 for the 2 players who beat you). If more than half the players beat you, you would actually get negative rank points towards your total. If you played alone in the middle of the night, you'd get 0 rank points.

Maybe reset the scores each week, and add a screen to show current and prior week's top 10 or more.

It might be tempting to calculate the average rank points (using above point system) per game played, and rank players that way - but it would cause your better players to not want to play when there are only a few players, as the relatively low score for winning the game could lower their average.

One problem I see happening is dealing with players who exit the game before it is complete. Or players who join late in the game. I propose the following:

A player isn't counted unless he submits at least 1 word, and if a player who submitted at least 1 word exits a game before completion, they will still be included in the point calculations. I guess this would also prevent the potential problem of players who fall asleep while playing, so rounds they don't participate in aren't counted against them...

Another potential problem is handles. Do you have any way to prevent someone from changing their handle to someone else's, thereby messing with someone's score? Can the game support multiple (but not simultaneous) players from the same TiVo by changing handles? Can a player use more than 1 TiVo in the same household (not at the same time) and use the same handle on each one?

I like the idea of a bigger grid, especially if the game is made stable with larger numbers of players. However, another idea might be to allow letters to be reused after they are 3 or 4 letters old. In other words, only grey out the prior 3 or 4 letters selected, after that they can be reused. This would create new words in mind-bending ways.

Finally, how about some kind of sorting on the world list that is displayed at the end of the round, and maybe indicate the player # who got the word in the points column?

Again, thanks for the great game!

Jeff

mgrossman · 11-24-2005, 11:14 AM

I just got into writing HME apps, and my first shows the whole family pop accounts
and lets you read just headers or the complete emails.

I'm writing my second app to show a constantly changing jpg file......
I have a remote web cam that takes a pic and ftps to a computer.
It has the capability of changing the filename or replacing 1 file.

I wrote an HME app that wakes up every 5 seconds to display the current
ftp file BUT even after the file is updated it still show the first one that was
present when the HME app started. It seams like either the java HME app
(or the tivo) is cashing the jpg file. How can I disable the cashing so the
current (most recent) jpg is always seen?

PS I have 2 BViews and alternate (with a fade) between the two.
PPS I even tried doing a Img.flush() call after each call to setresource()

dylanemcgregor · 11-24-2005, 11:19 AM

Quote:

need help writing a HME app

You might want to try asking your question in the HME developers section of the forum. I believe a number of developers frequent that section who do not normally check out the Coffee House. You might have better luck there.

-Dylan

azitnay · 11-24-2005, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mgrossman

I wrote an HME app that wakes up every 5 seconds to display the current
ftp file BUT even after the file is updated it still show the first one that was
present when the HME app started. It seams like either the java HME app
(or the tivo) is cashing the jpg file. How can I disable the cashing so the
current (most recent) jpg is always seen?

If you were using HTTP instead of FTP, as a quick-and-dirty solution I'd recommend simply appending a GET parameter (such as donotcache) with a unique value (such as a timestamp) to the URL. For example, if the URL were:

http://www.zitnay.com/image.jpg

You could request:

http://www.zitnay.com/image.jpg?donotcache=1234567890

where 1234567890 is a timestamp that changes with each request.

Obviously, FTP won't allow this, but perhaps you could run a webserver on the same computer and give it the same document root, so you could access the same file via HTTP.

Drew

apps-tv · 11-27-2005, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by megazone

I'd really like to see an RSS feed that updates when there are new items to check out on Apps.tv.

here you go!

http://www.apps.tv/appstv.rss

This gets generated on demand so it should always be up to date.

TiVoCanada · 11-27-2005, 08:41 PM

how about some apps for gmail,yahoo mail, hotmail etc? TiVo Mail app

megazone · 11-28-2005, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TiVoCanada

how about some apps for gmail,yahoo mail, hotmail etc? TiVo Mail app

I don't think I would recommend that. You'd have to trust your password with the 3rd party that is hosting the application. And that's NOT something anyone should do.

megazone · 11-28-2005, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by apps-tv

here you go!

Cool - I syndicated it at LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/appstv/

The.Mayor · 11-29-2005, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by megazone

Cool - I syndicated it at LJ: http://www.livejournal.com/users/appstv/

I want to thank you for providing a vast list of Tivo resources on your signature line! I added it to my bookmark list.

John

Hew · 11-30-2005, 02:28 PM

Whats going to happen when TiVo launches its official HME app? Are you going to be able to put your apps on their servers or are you going to keep it seperate. Will TiVo allow anyone to come up with an app and post it on their server or will there be an official server and a server for all the programers out there like apps.tv is.

pdhenry · 11-30-2005, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hew

Whats going to happen when TiVo launches its official HME app? Are you going to be able to put your apps on their servers or are you going to keep it seperate. Will TiVo allow anyone to come up with an app and post it on their server or will there be an official server and a server for all the programers out there like apps.tv is.

TiVo HME and Apps.TV can coexist happily. No need for an official TiVo approval or hosting of the apps.

CharlesH · 12-02-2005, 03:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hew

Whats going to happen when TiVo launches its official HME app? Are you going to be able to put your apps on their servers or are you going to keep it seperate. Will TiVo allow anyone to come up with an app and post it on their server or will there be an official server and a server for all the programers out there like apps.tv is.

As I understand it, anyone can put up their own HME server and communicate its name to the public however they want, and then people can just point their TiVo to it. TiVo warns you that they have no control over what happens if you give personal info to HME apps.

Stu_Bee · 12-08-2005, 08:35 PM

Here's a prolly a dumb question.
How do I remove the apps.tv Subscription manager from my Tivo? I don't see a remove option?
Maybe this is a more general HME question.