Windows Media Center (v4)

Today was a very lazy Sunday. In order to prevent the boredom from kicking in, I decided to pick up on from when I stopped developing version 4 of my remote for Windows Media Center. That’s when I realised it was exactly a year since I published version 3!

I didn’t like many things with my current version. Firstly, I didn’t like the shape or style of the buttons. Also I was all too aware that my ‘ergonomic’ controls didn’t favour the left-handed population, and I didn’t like it either.

So I’ve gone back a step. The layout of the buttons is similar to that in version 2, but they’re now spread out over two pages. You’ll also notice that my design is very ‘Metro’, similar to the Windows Phone interface. Personally I like it – there aren’t any sharp edges and it’s much cleaner.

       

Cool feature – in the Navigation screen, you’ll notice the back arrow in the top left corner. Now that’s a little hard to reach if you’re using your right thumb. Never fear though, you can still hit that button in that apparently blank area underneath the back button. Also, when you press the back button in the Playback screen, you’ll automatically be taken to the Navigation screen.

You’ll notice I’ve got a TV tab at the bottom. There’s nothing there at the moment, but I want to get a version out before adding the TV functionality. So version 4.0 will have a TV button but it won’t do anything. That’ll be fixed for 4.1. You should, however, be able to do a fair amount of TV tasks without the extra TV buttons.

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Windows Media Center (v3)

With version 3, the idea was to create a remote that, for at least the direction buttons, they would be easy to find without looking at the screen. Of course this is made more difficult because it's a touch screen, not a real remote with physical tactile buttons. The direction buttons are in the corner, and are sized based on the movement of my thumb.

The controls are placed in an arc, accessible using an outstretched thumb. This makes the remote very right-handed, but was essential with my specification in mind. Sorry for the remaining 15% of the population - if you can't cope with the new one, version 2 is still in the gallery :)

I now have a close button, which closes Media Center and the remote at the same time. I included this button so that you can successfully close the program. If you tried it using my previous remote's arrow keys, pressing another button on the remote will start Media Center again.

If you have any comments, suggestions, or downright abuse for me, please feel free to leave a comment. Thanks :)

This remote has now been superseded by version 4.

Windows Media Center (v2)

So this is version 2 of the WMC remote, where the buttons are positioned slightly differently, and have large masks so that if you hit near a button, it will still press. Quite convenient for the fact that these remotes aren't particularly tactile…

I believe it's possible to create multiple pages for these remotes, but I need to get through my first year at uni before I look in to that! For now, if you have any particular feature suggestions please do let me know (but don't make them too difficult!), and I'll look at making this remote cooler over the summer.

Windows Media Center (v1)

This is my first Jumi remote. I've put it here to make this blog look bigger, plus it might be interesting to look back on in the future =P

I already have newer versions of this remote, so look at the others :)