List boxes.

ericmedley · November 2013

I know this is old news to many of you. I also know the forum is not meant for griping.

But I must vent.

I just spent the past 2 weeks working on trying to implement list boxes on the X panels and TP Control iPads for use with a media server. My hope was to create something that more resembled stuff like iPads and iTunes menus. Based upon our initial research we thought it might be possible to pull off.

The main things attractive about the concept were the ability to manage long lists of data and, of course, swiping gestures (something I find lots of people doing to touch panels nowadays and being disappointed when our stuff doesn't do that)
Now that I'm on the other end of this little project I find that there are several features and functions THAT ARE STILL TO THIS DAY being advertised as 'being there' that are not working at all or are at best Half-Baked Cookies. My manager scrapped the effort. I don't blame him. It was a tremendous time suck. And I feel cheated out of some really good code that would have worked wonderfully had the features called upon lived up to expectations.

The fact that these things aren't working is frustrating but I honestly get why they are not. What is tremendously frustrating is the weird disconnect between reality and the "Features" list. I really do read this stuff. Please have the common decency to remove a feature from the list if it does not work as advertised.

I read a lot of the discussion on the forum about the troubles and hoped it was just a temporary glitch. In this case it has been hinted that it is not temporary and will probably be so for,the foreseeable future. If so, fine... But please take it off the features list then. I'm sorry if that makes the new features seem a bit anemic but that is the reality. Perhaps that should tell you something about the new features.

Colzie · November 2013

An emphatic +1

Gestures and sub-pages fall into this category as well.

vining · November 2013

ericmedley wrote: »

I also know the forum is not meant for griping.

I completely agree with everything except the above line. heck, if it weren't for venting gripes I would only have about 4 posts on these forums.

sling100 · November 2013

+1 from the UK too.

What's really ironic is that the 19" demo X panel GUI includes a 'pretend' VC address book that purports to do exactly this. Except that it can't be done ....

I was hoping that the introduction of the custom_events generated by the subpages would help, but no dice, as they don't report anything until the scrolling has stopped.

Simon

ericmedley · November 2013

vining wrote: »

I completely agree with everything except the above line. heck, if it weren't for venting gripes I would only have about 4 posts on these forums.

I still owe you a beer...

troberts · November 2013

I have had LOTS of experience with this and had similar frustrations. This is what I know about Listbox
1) It works on TPControl very well, with the expedition of a current bug on iOS7...which TPControl will be releasing a work around in their next app
2) Channel feedback on TPControl will not work and even on regular panels it is tricky and in my opinion not worth the time
3) Swiping through a listbox is ONLY supported on TPControl, MXD, NXD, and R4, is a button press to scroll up and down
4) You cannot copy and paste listboxes from panel to panel

I have found that subpages are really a great way to swipe through a list. You can make a subpage a single button. However since subpages count towards the 500 page limit you may find that you hit it and cannot create any more pages. The other downside of using a subpages instead of a listbox, is that you loose the ability to sort easily your data. But subpages to support feedback.

I hope this input helps.

champ · November 2013

+1 to venting.

Doesn't it suck when people ask for the things that the demos appear to do and expect it to be quick because it is already done, then you have to tell them that it is just a demo and incredibly time consuming to actually implement.

If you attempt to implement the room scheduling demo that uses lots of "[roomSched]Time??" sub pages the first thing you need to do is assign the button channels and addresses... to realise you can't use Power Assign accross sub pages. GAH! The next thing you have to do is figure out how to move the list box to display the sub page displaying the current time.

DHawthorne · November 2013

It's even worse when it's your boss that sees the demo, and wants you to make it happen for a customer he just promised it to (because he saw a demo).

vining · November 2013

DHawthorne wrote: »

It's even worse when it's your boss that sees the demo, and wants you to make it happen for a customer he just promised it to (because he saw a demo).

And then he thinks your just a dumb a$$ cuz you can't seem to get it right.

mjones2620 · March 2015

champ wrote: »

+1 to venting.

Doesn't it suck when people ask for the things that the demos appear to do and expect it to be quick because it is already done, then you have to tell them that it is just a demo and incredibly time consuming to actually implement.

If you attempt to implement the room scheduling demo that uses lots of "[roomSched]Time??" sub pages the first thing you need to do is assign the button channels and addresses... to realise you can't use Power Assign accross sub pages. GAH! The next thing you have to do is figure out how to move the list box to display the sub page displaying the current time.

Hey, just curious if you were able to figure this out? Working on the same thing right now...

ericmedley · March 2015

As I understand it it's DOA for G4 panels but it 'might' be coming alive on the new G5 panels with the next firmwware load. Don't quote me on that. It was a halg-baked-cookie on the G4s and was pretty miserable.

sling100 · March 2015

I gather there is to be a scrolling 'widget' for G5 that will read data from a csv file located on the master and can be as long as needed. Great for a static phone book, but not so good for dynamic lists like music (which TPC list boxes do very well) unless there are to be lots of API commands. I don't know if it will support dynamic images as part of the widget, but you would hope so.

Simon

ericmedley · March 2015

sling100 wrote: »

I gather there is to be a scrolling 'widget' for G5 that will read data from a csv file located on the master and can be as long as needed. Great for a static phone book, but not so good for dynamic lists like music (which TPC list boxes do very well) unless there are to be lots of API commands. I don't know if it will support dynamic images as part of the widget, but you would hope so.

Simon

Yes, that's what I saw basically. There was also some indication that it would behave in a way the origianl list box was supposed to but didn't With button pushes and whatnot. The origianl was just painful. I spent a whole ton of time toying with it only to find that it was not workable in a practical sense.

That's why I'm pretty skeptical about the new one. Once bitten - twice shy.

HARMAN_Chris · March 2015

The G5 ListView button type is what you are referring to. This is quite cool and will solve a number of issues for programmers dealing with dynamic data.

List boxes.

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