UI Animations

[Droid]

I have a MCE unit in my office. I do not like some of the basic functions, but I DO like the polished UI. What strikes me about sage is that it is very utilitarian and not very "friendly" feeling. The MCE application flows and pulses and gives a sense of movement like the Tivo does with its background animations etc... It seems that there is no reason we couldnt have animated gif's as buttons or backgrounds.... Can this be done in studio/sage? Why hasnt it been done before?

Thanks

Andy

[salsbst]

It can and has been done, but I guess none of the current crop of public STVs has any animated menus, per say. Why not? Probably because the STV authors don't care for that or didn't get around to it.

Granted this is not the use of animation that you're interested in, but if you want to see an example of what can be done with animations in SageTV, the Weather Report Suite (which you can find in nielm's STV) has animated radar images.

[mightyt]

As long as it's balanced, I'm on board ... Too many animations gives you a headache

But maybe dissolve transitions between menus, as long as they don't slow things down, would be cool.

Not sure about animated gif backgrounds ... I am thinking that might confuse trying to read menu text things underneath are fluid. That's why I don't use clear menus with video running behind it ... IMHO of course.

But, I see your point, some clean animations or gradient 3-D would even look less cold.

T.

EDIT: And Salsbst WRS is a slick addition to Nielm's STV, no doubt! Oh, and Salsbst, will you add legends to the animated maps in WRS some day? Please!

[salsbst]

will you add legends to the animated maps in WRS some day?

Somebody (can't remember his forum name) created (or found) a legend for accuweather and added it to his config. I guess what I'm trying to say is that legends are supported, they just didn't show up in my/Niel's default config.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I actually created the ability to crop downloaded images in order to *remove* a legend that was taking up too much room! I guess that should telll you how I feel about legends.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by salsbst

Somebody (can't remember his forum name) created (or found) a legend for accuweather and added it to his config. I guess what I'm trying to say is that legends are supported, they just didn't show up in my/Niel's default config.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I actually created the ability to crop downloaded images in order to *remove* a legend that was taking up too much room! I guess that should telll you how I feel about legends.

Thanks ... I hadn't seen that post ... Guess I'll have to try a search ...

Oh ... and I see you are not a legend lover ... it's really good for the non-weatherman folk in the fam and considering WAF as well. OK, even I admit I don't know everything about weather maps. There I said it!

T.

[mightyt]

Originally Posted by mightyt

Thanks ... I hadn't seen that post ... Guess I'll have to try a search ...

Oh ... and I see you are not a legend lover ... it's really good for the non-weatherman folk in the fam and considering WAF as well. OK, even I admit I don't know everything about weather maps. There I said it!

T.

I am still interested in this ... So, Salsbst ... how did abasu2003 get legends included in this map??

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showpos...6&postcount=55

Thanks, T.

[abasu2003]

Originally Posted by mightyt

I am still interested in this ... So, Salsbst ... how did abasu2003 get legends included in this map??

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showpos...6&postcount=55

Thanks, T.

That map just has a legend built into the gif. There are a lot of maps (with legends) at www.wunderground.com. All I did was make an entry for it pointing to that gif.

Also, if you notice, in all of salsbt's pictures in the weatherconfig.xml file, there is a "crop bottom" field. You can try deleting that but it kind of looks bad.

Is it possible just to use an animated gif as a background? I never tried.

[salsbst]

It wasn't abasu to whom I was referring, it was someone else who actually added a legend to the bottom of an image as an extra layer.