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 Post subject: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Animatio
PostPosted: Tue Jan 30, 2018 4:24 am 
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I love the dock, my hope though is to use it on my big screen as a media center launcher. Right now if you use the kb shortcut to make Nexus the active program you can use left / right / enter to select items. The problem though is there is no indication animation, so you don't know what icon you're on. What would be good is if on kb select it triggers the mouseover animation or has its own selection box.

That way I could use my logitech harmony from the couch to do the activation shortcut key, then direction pad / ok to select Kodi or Netflix or Steam Big Box.

Great software, this is really slick. So close to the solution I'm looking for.

Thanks


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Tue Jan 30, 2018 5:10 am 
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I think I have an email from you on my inbox at the Winstep support address waiting to be replied to, right? If that's you, I'll just reply here then:

The problem is that docks, unlike menus, were NEVER intended to be used with anything other than a mouse. Menus have a selection bar which highlights the currently selected item, docks have fancy mouse over animations such as magnify, which even depend on where exactly the mouse pointer is over the icon.

Most other mouse over animations also happen only ONCE, that is, the mouse pointer goes over an icon, the select animation plays once and that's it. After that you wouldn't know which icon is currently selected just by looking at the dock.

This said, it is not impossible, as some of the mouse over animations keep repeating/looping for as long as the mouse pointer is over the icon.

Many years ago I actually implemented the basics of keyboard navigation to the dock (and then never thought about it again) and these days you can still - sort of - see it in action: if the dock is the active window and you press an arrow key, assuming you're using the magnify mouse over effect, you will see the currently selected icon *briefly* magnify (but then deflate just as quickly, like a perforated balloon). Other mouse over animations do not play AT ALL.

The major problem here is coordinating mouse input with keyboard input: you see, with a menu it does not matter at all if the currently selected item remains selected when you move the mouse pointer away from the menu, in fact that is expected behavior. But a dock is different, you don't want the dock to remain magnified when you move the mouse pointer away from it - if that were to happen, users would think of it as a bug, and that would be a no-no.

Anyway, I'll look into what can be done.

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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Tue Jan 30, 2018 7:27 pm 
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Thanks for the super fast reply and explanation. Totally makes sense why this isn't a feature, but I think more people than just myself may find it handy. Its great kicking back on the couch with the pc hooked up to the big screen and activating the dock and launching steam big box, or kodi or whatever. With the dock and a nice background the setup just looks beautiful, very pro.

Appreciate your response and checking it out! This thing is really awesome.


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:20 pm 
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Hi... The email you have received was probably mine!
Sorry for creating a new thread... Never found this one.

I'm getting the exact behavior you are describing using my keyboard. A keyboard compatible dock would bring you the whole Home Theatre market!!!

All that is needed is a way to highlight the current icon "until" there is any mouse movement... No?

Or maybe some kind of timer that could prevent the icon from deflating if there was NO mouse movement just before triggering the animation?

I think it could be simply be implemented by looking at the absence of mouse movement, before the trigger, after the trigger... or both!

Thanks


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:44 pm 
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MrMazda wrote:
Hi... The email you have received was probably mine!


Ooops. Since he never denied it, I assumed it was DrsWaity. Didn't bother checking email addresses, sorry about that.

MrMazda wrote:
A keyboard compatible dock would bring you the whole Home Theatre market!!!


You really know how to bring big shinny dollar signs to someone's eyes, don't you? lol :wink:

Problem is: you can have the best most marvelous tool in the world, but it's as good as useless if your target market doesn't even know it exists. :)

Still, you gave me a valid marketing approach. I never really tried it, but I assume none of the other docks have ANY keyboard support?

How about you two posting screenshots of your docks in action from a Home Theater user's perspective? Just for inspiration purposes. :)

MrMazda wrote:
All that is needed is a way to highlight the current icon "until" there is any mouse movement... No?


I haven't really looked into this yet (I will, though, just as I promised) but keep in mind there are other possible mouse over effects which only play once, and they might not even be combined with the Magnify effect.

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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:54 pm 
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Quote:
I never really tried it, but I assume none of the other docks have ANY keyboard support?


I haven't found any yet...
I've been playing with the idea of writing my own for about 2 years now but being a self-taught code writer, it's quite a big project to tackle with a lot to learn before getting anything nice done!

I can't provide any screenshot as I'm not even using a dock yet. I wrote a completely invisible launcher which listens to the keyboard (an IR remote through FLIRC) that activates, brings to front, launches and closes programs. It's not easily customizable and only I can use it!!!

I mentioned "Home Theatre" but it's really for anyone who has a PC in a living room and is sitting in a couch!

Initially I was only watching Blurays but the PC got more powerful and I now also use it for gaming, watching videos, PVR, etc... Doing this, without a real full keyboard or mouse is the goal... For sure there are others needing this!


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 9:50 pm 
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Sorry for the delay here, yep i had also emailed - thought about the forum after hitting send.

I don't run a different dock, Nexus is still the best. There currently isn't any on the market that support keyboard controls. I think yours is close to the first on the market for a home theater dock solution.

I can send a screenshot of mine in action, but I have the nexus dock hide after a second, and activate with a kb hotkey. I also use Wallpaper Engine for a really slick animated wallpaper. With the dock, start menu removed and the animated wallpaper it looks very professional - like a PS4. The dock is controlled by my logitech harmony remote, sending to a flirc usb IR receiver on my PC (the harmony is mapped to keyboard so just left/right/enter).

As is it works great, you just have to know what icon you were last on.

What I kind of thought of was maybe a second "Keyboard Activation" animation option. So you can still have the mouse-over affects and have the keyboard available as an option. If you start with the keyboard and go left and leave it on icon 2, but then mouse hovers over icon3 then the mouse should take over and clear the keyboard animation and do the mouse over animation for icon 3.

Thanks, appreciate you looking into this. I do believe there is a userbase who would love this sort of functionality, and it really doesn't exist yet.


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 12:55 am 
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I've added a video to kind of show how I use it now and how I'd like to use it. All the icons on the bar are actually AutoHotKey scripts. Like Kodi, if its not running then launch it, but if its open, activate and maximize it. Same with chrome, big box and steam. The headset one toggles default audio devices between my audio receiver and headphones, and default monitor toggles default monitors. If anyone is interested in those scripts I'd be happy to share them.

Video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5y1NyNdxys


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 1:11 am 
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It's funny to see how we're basically doing the same thing (and both with FLIRC)!
I wrote my thing in Autoit and it listens for keys to take action such as toggling between PowerDVD and Kodi!

Kind of the same logic as you but as a single running exe!

Nexus would be literally perfect if "properly" useable with arrow keys!!!


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 8:15 pm 
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drswaity wrote:


Thanks for the video! It's always a pleasure seeing how others use the software.

Anyway, just to let you guys know you're in luck: just fixed the broken dock keyboard support and made sure it is now working properly, as well as playing the non-magnify mouse over animations.

Pressing the ESC key will un-magnify the dock or close any open sub-dock (yes, you can use the keyboard to open sub-docks too, even the Weather Forecast system sub-dock).

Auto-repeat now works too, which makes it faster to select a particular icon in the dock via the arrow keys.

There should be a new beta soon, so make sure 'Notify me of beta (test) versions' is enabled in the Advanced tab of Preferences.

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Jorge Coelho
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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:12 pm 
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Wow... That was fast!
Can't wait to try it...

Thanks!


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:26 am 
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Thanks so much for checking this out so fast. Pretty impressive how fast your turn around time is, and how actively you check your forums - and email ;)

I just put in an order for Winstep Xtreme, I know for my purposes I'm just after the free Nexus dock but really appreciate your work on this.


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Thu Feb 08, 2018 5:38 pm 
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Thanks for the support, much appreciated! :)

Let me know what you think of Xtreme (the good and the bad) if you do get to install it (you should) - who knows, it might actually grow on you. :wink:

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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:20 pm 
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Week-end is here! Home Theatre time!
Any chance we might see this Beta today? Tomorrow?
If not, have an ETA?

Thanks again!


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 Post subject: Re: Nexus Feature Request: Keyboard Select Trigger Icon Anim
PostPosted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:34 pm 
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Wrapping up some lose ends on the NextSTART component of Winstep Xtreme as we speak. :D

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