Page Link Nightmares

Hi, all - its been a while since my last confesssion ...

Project - Create a Touchscreen to control AV, along with the other usual stuff.
Scope - 3 Zones,
Zone 1 - 7 Sources
Zone 2 - 5 Sources
Zone 3 - 6 Sources

How do I manage which page I'm on, and what my last page status was.

E.G.
I press the AV button on my home page, I am linked to a AV home Page, I select Zone 1, I power on this zone to see my sources, I select DVD. I then want to go to Zone 2, I power on this Zone, I select TV .... Hmmm I want to go back to Zone 1. I press the Zone 1 Button .... ????

How do I know how to go back to Zone 1 Source DVD ??? (just remember this needs to be dynamic, as I could have left zone 1 in any of its 7 sources)

Then I want to turn some lights off, I go back to the main page of my project. Turn them off, then go back to my AV page, Hit the AV button, where am I sent ... hmm the inital AV home page, but I left the AV section, from Zone 1, Source DVD - how come I didnt go back there ???

I have pondered on this for a while, I've got programmers block ...

Please help

 

Colour or Black and White touch screen?

 

Hi Richo,

Home Gate ... V3.3.0.0

Cheers ...

 

Richo,

I'll send you my HomeGate file if that helps ...

Cheers ..

PS: its over 2MB

 

I am somewhat confused by the post, as I cannot imagine why you want such a complex interface (probably me not understanding what you want to do)
- but having just finished a new Homegate interface last night, I still have it fresh in my mind...

The BACK page button is your friend - that allows you to back out. One step, but you could link it to a page that then had timeout 0 secs to another Back command (double jump, from 1 click).

But in this case you need to jump BACK "twice" or more times - but there is no way to know how many steps, as you are inferring that you might jump around to many many other places before you chose to go back somewhere...

Maybe it sounds like a dumb question - But why not just have some buttons to directly access each Zone Menu ?

My question is why would you necessarily WANT to go back there? What I mean by that is that how would you know (in advance) where in the menu structure you wanted to go back to (in this particular occasion)?

You could save the last few pages in variables, but how on earth could you know which particular page you wanted to go back to? Wouldn't it be easier just to have tabs or whatever so instead of all that complication you just click whatever Source in whatever Zone you wanted to directly access?

I just killed a Homegate interface that had complex multi-level menus like you described. I reduced the number of pages by about 80% and got MORE info actually on there ! But it took a lot of thought to plan it out. Why did I re-do it... because it drove everyone crazy having to go 3 levels deep to make anything happen !

I probably didn't help much with that post - can you better explain why you NEED to go bacl to Zone 1 Source 5 or whatever...

Cheers, John

 

Ok, I'm gonna lash out, becuase I dont usually get responses like this one John.

FYI - This is quite a simple technique, in other Touchscreen solutions, namingly AMX or Crestron. It is not a complicated layout, and there are many reasons why I would want to do this ...

The back page button in this case, is not of ANY great help - BTW Ask any serious touchscreen programmer, and they will express the BACK button, is the roots of all evil !!! - not used or recomended to be used, by any top level Crestron programmers - wait until you guys start setting up, Multiple touchscreens for a single project, come talk to me about the back button then ...

Yes, I know what you mean, but then I would have a cluttered screen, and that makes for poor Touchscreen programming, a good layout is very important, your idea has just populated the screen with too many buttons.

You didnt understand my example - I dont want to know in advance where in the menu structure I want to go back to. If I move from one Zone to another then back to the zone I originated from, I and most clients would expect to be back in the Source that was selected for that particualr original zone.

Tell me more about this, this sounds like a solution !!!

I would rather use logic, to control my page links ...

I thought I cleared that up, you go back to the page you left that particular zone in ... tell me, if that is not clear ...

Simply, NO, too cluttered .... We want a simple layout.

Once again, this is not complicated, its actually very user friendly ... think of it like a matrix, I dont have 3 levels deep ... just to get anything done ...

I'm sorry If I cant explain it any better .... please dont be offended by my responses ...

 

No problems. Should be easy. Use the logic engine to control your navigation. "Project|Edit Logic" menu item.

I must admit to not having done this myself, but I pretty sure there is the hooks in the logic engine to change pages.

 

PDF Search - Link, Pagelink - result nothing

Hi, Richo

I have Searched through the PDF Manual, can't find anything ...

Ok, Just found it, Under -> Other - ShowPage Procedure - Pg94

ShowPage - now who would of thought it would be called that ...

Thanks ...

 

Excellent. Let us know ho you go. I do like the idea of contextual display per zone based on source as it will simplify the user interface. I'm keen to see what you come up with.

 

richy

I'm not offended and hope you weren't offended by my questions, but it sure seems like you were. Remember that in a forum like this you are throwing out your question to a vast range of people. People like me don't have the faintest clue what you are trying to acheive, your skill level, whatever.... we can only work on what you specifically typed in your post. I have no way of knowing that you are trying to emulate a Creston function, or whatever you have in mind...

So, whilst the question is perfectly clear for you - even after re-reading it I still can't really work out what you are trying to achieve

From the first post, I read it like this :

You are in A (Main Menu) and you go thru B (Zone) and go to C (source). Then you go to D (new Zone) and then to E (another source). So to get back from E to C, you just go back twice. That is easy to acheive, using a double-back button (fake back-bumper page).

If you want to store which Source you left EVERY Zone, then you just declare a variable for each Zone. Since each page is a source, and each zone is separate, it's easy to do. For example, the page for Zone1Source2 never changes. So all you need to do is store a global variable every time a source page is selected... eg: Zone1source = "2". If you later chose Source 3 in Zone 1, then that page would over-write the same Var with Zone1source = "1"

Then - when you want to go back to last page that was accessed within Zone1 - all you need to do is read back what the value of that variable is, and do an IF THEN ELSE on which page to select. You can store the pages themselves in an Array, or in separate Var's

Anyway, what would I know - I'll just leave you to work it out for yourself

John

 

That will never work, and I'll prove it, once you see the project. When I mean never work, I mean practically ... functionally it will work fine ...

See, now thats a response, well done - and now with the ShowPage function, it all possible ... just gonna take me a little more time than first anticipated.

The last comment, I didn't need ...

No hard feelings John, I just dont like the "What would you want to do that for" and "why not just do this" attitude ... its not needed on this forum ...

We are all here to help eachother ...