NR needs iPhone and Android Support to Survive?

[kwaugh]

...a nice example to work from!

One item that did take me a while to figure out from the example. Having the image button this way:

<a href='' OnClick='return SendIR("ON");' OnMouseDown='return SetImage("OnButton", "On_d.png");' OnMouseUp='return SetImageDelayed("OnButton", "On.png");' onmouseout='return SetImageDelayed("OnButton", "On.png");'>
<IMG src='On.png' border='0' id='OnButton' />
</a>

Caused the page to refresh when I clicked the button. I dropped the <a> tags and moved the OnClick into the image tag and all was good.

Thanks again!

[tmorten]

Originally Posted by kwaugh

...a nice example to work from!

One item that did take me a while to figure out from the example. Having the image button this way:

<a href='' OnClick='return SendIR("ON");' OnMouseDown='return SetImage("OnButton", "On_d.png");' OnMouseUp='return SetImageDelayed("OnButton", "On.png");' onmouseout='return SetImageDelayed("OnButton", "On.png");'>
<IMG src='On.png' border='0' id='OnButton' />
</a>

Caused the page to refresh when I clicked the button. I dropped the <a> tags and moved the OnClick into the image tag and all was good.

Thanks again!

Glad to hear it worked, and thanks for the heads-up on the <a> tag! Which browser are you using that was refreshing on the button press? Was that on iPad? I haven't picked one up yet, so I'm curious how it behaves.

Cheers,
Tim

[kwaugh]

Yes, it was the same in all the browsers I tried:

IE8
Firefox
Safari (on PC)
Safari (on iPad)

I can't find the link, but while I was trying to figure it out, I found an article on this behavior, so I think it's 'standard'...

Thanks again!

K

[HTLuke]

A con with utilizing the web server that I've not seen called out is the ability to use controls like held-down and sliding buttons, particularly on touch screen interfaces such as iPhone and Android.

For example, I've had a really nice multi-page web remote backed by Girder for my home theater for a couple of years now, but I had to implement volume, channel and directional-pad controls as multiple discrete touches. Holding down or dragging in iPhone or Android gets trapped by the UI and not sent to the browser (unless it's a Flash app on the latest Android, which I'm toying with using but that has obvious limits since most lite/mobile browsers don't offer Flash).

Has anyone done anything creative to get around this? I've been considering a lightweight Android app that is nothing more than an imbedded browser with the Android UI stuff turned off so held and/or dragged clicks get passed to the page properly.

Otherwise once you get past some of the mechanics of AJAX and web design, I agree that this is the way to go.

[tmorten]

There are Javascript onMouseDown and onMouseUp events, so if you need to repeat a keypress, you should be able to pull that off either using an AJAX call to Girder LUA, or using an interval timer from Javascript in combination with those events. I understand there are some different functions such as onTouchStart and onTouchMove to use in the iPad browser.

If you need to send an absolute value, a slider (such as the one provided by JQueryUI) could be a good way to go. If you want to drag and drop elements, there is some support for that in JQuery UI as well.

Best,
Tim

[HTLuke]

Yeah I've actually got infrastructure to handle repeating commands and sliders using javascript. They work great in desktop browsers but they're ineffectual on all the touch screen devices I've used as a remote (Nokia 900 internet tablet, iPhone, Android phone) because of the intercepted touch commands.

I just did some digging in the Android SDK to find out what I might be able to do with a little customized app wrapping around a standard web-view, and it looks promising. Might also build a small client-side API on the device too for connection checking and other utility functions to make things work a little more smoothly. If anything comes of it I'll post it up here for any that are interested.

[tmorten]

Sounds good - any tips are appreciated! I had a chance to try an iPad this weekend, and the JQuery slider appeared to work, but I didn't get to do any extensive testing, so I haven't tried any of the touch-device-specific javascript calls as yet.

Cheers,
Tim