Support
All support resources for our products. Here you can find answers to frequently asked questions, discuss with other users, recover a lost license code or file a support request.
Forum closed
This forum was closed and turned into an archive effective April 21, 2018. It is no longer possible to create new topics or reply to existing topics.

Thanks everyone for all the great questions and contributions over the years.

Please use the Contact form to get in touch.

Remote Buddy Forum

Overview 

AuthorThread
User

03.05.2007 06:03:04
great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Some humble suggestions: the RB menu is way too complicated. When I hit menu it brings up the screen showing me which application is being controlled, and what each button does on the remote. I have to press another button to get around to doing anything useful, like go to the menu I've set up in my profile. What if I already know what the buttons do? That screen is superfluous; there should be an option in the preferences to turn it off and go straight to the main menu.

Also: in the 'menu' preference screen, if I hit the 'plus' under my profile, it creates a folder that I can rename. That folder then appears in my menu. But I can only put elements and actions from the left side into that folder. Why not allow users to point that folder to a real folder... then they could set up their own smart folders in the finder and use them as they see fit, rather than rely on the few available on the left.

Likewise: in the 'behaviours' tab, I can create a custom action to be assigned to a button press; but in the 'menu' tab I cannot. Why? (It now occurs to me that this issue may well encompass the last one.)

Finally, and this is maybe quibbling, but I'll mention it anyway: the iTunes music browser is very nice, but iTunes now does movies, TV shows and podcasts, among other things... the RB music browser seems based on iTunes 4, with only artist, album, playlist, track. It would be nice if the browser worked with these other media as well as music. 

These entries from the FAQ may be relevant to this topic:

Behaviours
Configuration
Hardware - Apple® Remote
Hardware - Harmony® Smart Control
User

03.05.2007 06:42:38
Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
I'll answer my own question: I think I need to play around with the behaviour contruction kit to deal with some of these issues... 
User

03.05.2007 15:24:01
Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Hello Silas,

thanks for asking. Please find my comments below.

Some humble suggestions: the RB menu is way too complicated. When 
I hit menu it brings up the screen showing me which application is 
being controlled, and what each button does on the remote. I have 
to press another button to get around to doing anything useful, 
like go to the menu I've set up in my profile. What if I already 
know what the buttons do? That screen is superfluous; there should 
be an option in the preferences to turn it off and go straight to 
the main menu.

 
Except for a few Behaviours, including the Default Behaviour, 
additional functionality for the respectively running app is provided 
through the menu. I feel it's of greater use to have these handy 
immediately instead of having to go to the application's Behaviour 
submenu each and every time. The way it is now allows for greater 
flexibility as you don't even have to have an entry for the 
respective Behaviour in your menu and you still can access its 
contextual items. I'm considering an option to jump straight to the 
main menu, though, for those that want this functionality.

Also: in the 'menu' preference screen, if I hit the 'plus' under 
my profile, it creates a folder that I can rename. That folder then 
appears in my menu. But I can only put elements and actions from 
the left side into that folder. Why not allow users to point that 
folder to a real folder... then they could set up their own smart 
folders in the finder and use them as they see fit, rather than 
rely on the few available on the left.

 
This functionality exists. You can drag and drop items from the 
Finder, Path Finder, etc. to Remote Buddy and it'll allow you to 
browse / launch them.

Likewise: in the 'behaviours' tab, I can create a custom action to 
be assigned to a button press; but in the 'menu' tab I cannot. 
Why? (It now occurs to me that this issue may well encompass the 
last one.)

 
You can create an action in the BCK, check its "globally available" 
checkbox and then select it from the Miscellaneous category in the 
Menu configuration section.

Finally, and this is maybe quibbling, but I'll mention it anyway: 
the iTunes music browser is very nice, but iTunes now does movies, 
TV shows and podcasts, among other things... the RB music browser 
seems based on iTunes 4, with only artist, album, playlist, track. 
It would be nice if the browser worked with these other media as 
well as music.

 
You should be able to find these under "Playlists".

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

06.05.2007 00:50:44
Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Thanks for the info. Just regarding the iTunes music browser: I know there are playlists, but there are problems with this approach:

1) The playlists are a few button-presses deep in the menu hierarchy. This is not only an inconvenience, but it also doesn't match the way we think about browsing media. We usually know what we want to watch or listen to before we even pick up a remote control. Why browse through music playlists to find a movie, when we knew from the beginning that we wanted to watch a movie and not listen to music? It's not very intuitive.

2) The TV Shows playlist simply lists every episode of every TV show, in one long list. This is very inconvenient, especially with the slowdown experienced as the picture previews on the left load (maybe there should be an option to turn that off, BTW). It would be nice of the you could browse by show, then by season, and then by episode.

Still, quibbling aside, congratulations on a great app. As I get to know more about it, I continue to be more and more impressed. 

User

07.05.2007 14:27:01
Re: Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Hello Silas,

not much to discuss here, because:

1) You're right.

2) You're right, too.

I'll see what can be done in future releases.

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

08.05.2007 14:46:23
Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Ha ha!

I'll sasy this, you're about the most responsive developer I've ever seen. Good work! 

User

09.05.2007 18:44:02
Re: Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Thanks :-)

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

09.05.2007 20:20:07
Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
"I'm considering an option to jump straight to the 
main menu, though, for those that want this functionality."

Felix, 
Not sure if this has been requested much but I'd also like to see that as an option for the future. BTW - Thanks for a great app!

-EJ 

User

11.05.2007 19:29:02
Re: Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
It's being asked for every now and then - and I really want to 
include it ;-)

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

12.05.2007 23:18:17
Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
 
I'm considering an option to jump straight to the main menu, though, for those that want this functionality.

 
Another observation, and another humble suggestion: I noticed that when you dismiss the RB menu and later call it back up, it opens to the same place it was when dismissed. So say you use the music browser to play an album and then dismiss the menu. If you later want to browse to another artist/album, you have to dig your way back up the the music browser to proceed. Likewise to change the song's rating, quit the behavior, etc. It might be more convenient (for some users anyway) to always go straight to the iTunes behavior menu... just as it might be more convenient for other users to always go straight to the main menu (as discussed above).

So if there is to be a user-specifiable option in this regard in a future release, it would be ideal to have three options: 1) go to the main menu; 2) go to the current behavior's menu; and 3) go to the last open menu.

That, combined with a user option to dismiss the RB menu automatically when performing actions, would make the program very flexible and easily customized to a particular user's needs. 

User

14.05.2007 15:54:10
Re: Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Thanks for the idea.

In fact, action 1) and 2) are what my idea to solve this "problem" 
once and for all already included. 3) is a very nice addition, though!

Best regards, 
Felix 

User

15.05.2007 00:24:45
Re: great, but...
View

This posting is older than 6 months and can contain outdated information.
Interesting - I only included 3) because it's what Remote Buddy already does right now. I personally see 1) and 2) as the best choices... but I suppose 3) does round things out.