02-04-2016, 04:32 AM
OK, so I'm in the process of completely re-vamping my set-up, the primary goal being to update the control panels/surfaces. The panel side of my set-up has gone pretty much untouched for about 7 years - possibly even longer!!!
When I first built the system, I took the root of repurposed POS kiosks. These were cheap, and provided a nice - albeit slightly large, clunky and noisy package - solution. In most cases, the screens/touchpanels were separated from the base, and hidden (since, although mostly compact, often incorporated a money tray! :-) ).
These were windows based, and so ran the IV very well. I'm pretty sure this all pre-dated RIVA, and certainly pre-dated gesture control.
So that's the background, and hopefully gives you an idea of the user experience the family is accustomed to (WAF-factor is a big consideration here).
Now, to my revamp. I've been developing a completely new set of graphics for the replacement IV - cleaner, more modern and hopefully easier to use. Expectations have been re-set in the household, due to all the touchscreen based systems now available. And here lyeth the problem :-(
We're pretty much 100% an iOS establishment these days - far too many iPads and iPhones to be healthy for a family :roll: Therefore, the expectation is for the new control system to incorporate these. I've therefore been experimenting, and gesture scrolling on the iPad and RIVA test client seems to stutter badly. On considering how this works, I can understand why this is, and I'm therefore considering my options before going too much farther forward. As I see it, there are 3 options:
When I first built the system, I took the root of repurposed POS kiosks. These were cheap, and provided a nice - albeit slightly large, clunky and noisy package - solution. In most cases, the screens/touchpanels were separated from the base, and hidden (since, although mostly compact, often incorporated a money tray! :-) ).
These were windows based, and so ran the IV very well. I'm pretty sure this all pre-dated RIVA, and certainly pre-dated gesture control.
So that's the background, and hopefully gives you an idea of the user experience the family is accustomed to (WAF-factor is a big consideration here).
Now, to my revamp. I've been developing a completely new set of graphics for the replacement IV - cleaner, more modern and hopefully easier to use. Expectations have been re-set in the household, due to all the touchscreen based systems now available. And here lyeth the problem :-(
We're pretty much 100% an iOS establishment these days - far too many iPads and iPhones to be healthy for a family :roll: Therefore, the expectation is for the new control system to incorporate these. I've therefore been experimenting, and gesture scrolling on the iPad and RIVA test client seems to stutter badly. On considering how this works, I can understand why this is, and I'm therefore considering my options before going too much farther forward. As I see it, there are 3 options:
- use the existing iPads/iPhones, and avoid using extensive gesture based scrolling (media browser and sliders would need sacrificing, as the ergonomic feel is not 'right' for me). This imposes limitations on the design of the IV, but might be workable.
- replace all control surfaces with full Windows tablets. Ignoring the cost for the moment, I don't think this will go down well with the family - especially with the recent addition of iWatches; we're just too tied to iOS devices!!!
- wait for the HTML5 client. This, I thought might be the solution, but on trawling the forum I read something about it only working with auto-generated UIs? If that is the case, it's probably a non-starter, as I've got a couple of custom non-V2 compliant drivers that are essential, and no time to rewrite them any time soon.