ServiiDroid (Android Console) - Get it on Google Play

[will]

Another fairly significant milestone. ServiiDroid has now been downloaded by 10,000 unique users since I released it 3 and a half months ago and it still has an average rating of just above 4.9/5

[zip]

show off

[Xmantium]

Excellent news! Can't wait to use it on my pre-ordered Samsung Galaxy S3 Superphone!

Have thought of doing Android widgets for ServiioDroid?

[will]

What would you want them to display/do?

[Xmantium]

What would you want them to display/do?

Mainly Refresh Library
Display last file added, this is first thing I check in the morning cos I have Sickbeard auto downloading my content.

I understand the api only shows last file added, Zip have you got any plans to show maybe the last 5 or 10
Sunday night is the best US TV show night!

[will]

I can certainly add buttons to refresh the library and to refresh all online sources. I guess I could do last file added, but it would take up quite a bit of space. Create an issue on bitbucket, and if you really want it you could even sketch out some very basic layout concepts for the different sizes that you would like.

@zip is there a way to force a refresh of all online sources in one go? Or would I have to make a seperate request for every online source?

Yes I would also like access to the last 10 via the standard API. Although once I get the main parts of ServiiGo done, l'll have a go at making a scrollable widget for ServiiGo that shows the videos in the last added vitrual folder along with their thumbnails.

[zip]

@zip is there a way to force a refresh of all online sources in one go?

No, what do you need it for?

[Xmantium]

I will do, think widgets are more popular on tablets than phones
Since ICS came out they have a widgets drawer, possibly to get more devs making more widgets

My wife is asking will you make an iPhone ServiiDroid!?
Although Marks Web UI works perfectly on the iPad, it's very tiny on her iPhone 4S.
iOS users tend to pay for apps so I'm sure you'll recoup development costs
Don't need to buy a Mac when you can dual boot OS X on your PC

[will]

No, what do you need it for?

Was just wondering/think of possible uses for a widget.

My wife is asking will you make an iPhone ServiiDroid!?
Although Marks Web UI works perfectly on the iPad, it's very tiny on her iPhone 4S.
iOS users tend to pay for apps so I'm sure you'll recoup development costs
Don't need to buy a Mac when you can dual boot OS X on your PC

Its pretty unlikely that I would tbh, not any time soon.

Depends what you call development costs, e.g. it cost me £17 for the android developer account, which i've almost made back from donations, however unless I count the time I have spent on development (which is quite siginificant) as free, I wouldn't be able to recope the development costs considering the size of the target audiance. For iOS it is I think $100 for the developer account + I would need OS X and even if I went the hackintosh way, which is questionable at best, it is a pain everytime you want to update. Once that is over I would need to learn objective C (which I guess wouldn't take that long) and apples SDK, and then I could start writing it which would still take me just as long as it did for the original app due to the completely different framework/the fact I am not familure with iOS apps so would be spending a lot of time researching what the best practice is.

[Xmantium]

Completely understandable points, I do think there will be more users than Android.
And of course thanks for the work you put in on ServiiDroid.

BTW does ServiioDroid support Homestream? Since its a lightweight build of Serviio.

[will]

I'm not ruling it out, and if I did want to do app development to make some money then yes it problably would be worth the initial outlay, but right now my work load from my PhD and job is too variable and developing for one platform in my free time is more than enough.
I have however just looked into objective C and XCode, and it doesn't look too bad, but the problem with apps like ServiiDroid that just consume webservicies is that most of the code is UI related, which means you basically re-write it from scatch.


The version on google play doesn't because Homesteam advertises itself as version 1.0 (when it is really 0.6.2 - online sources) so ServiiDroid expects the new Serviio 1.0 features. Pester sony and I'll make it compatiable for them

[will]

I've uploaded an update to google play. The main focus of this is support for new features found in Serviio 1.0 Beta 3 (therefore beta 1/2 aren't supported any more).

Zip has very kindly put an entry in the API so that I (and other 3rd party devs) can store a PIN for protecting changes. I haven't implemented that just yet, but will do in the next release along with any adjustments to the access groups based on feedback. At the moment I'm planning on asking for the PIN (if you enable it) if you change a device from limited to unrestriction, or if you mark a folder as being avilable to limited devices. There is scope to extend it to requie a PIN on the first connect/every connect if people want it. Anyway, have a think and tell me how you want it to work.

I'll hold off on uploading the translations for a little bit until i've finalised how it all works.

  Code:

==== 1.5 ====
*Fixed #65: New files added displays on two lines
*Fixed FC if an invalid string is entered into the ServiiDB search box
*Added [Serviio 1.0] Enable/disable devices
*Added [Serviio 1.0] Manage access groups
*Added [Serviio 1.0] Set default quality for the media browser
*Serviio 1.0 Beta 1 & Beta 2 are no longer supported


[will]

I've had a think about using a PIN and I can do one of the following:

Option 1: When the user first makes a change to access groups, ask the user:
Protect changes to access groups from ServiiDroid using a PIN:

  Code:

*No
*Yes


Option 2: When the user first connects to a server, ask the user:
Protect access to your server from ServiiDroid by requiring a PIN:

  Code:

*Never
*When connecting from a new device for the first time, and when changing access groups
*Everytime you connect


Each time they connect from a new device, they will have to re-answer the question for that device, and selecting never will turn off the PIN for all devices by removing it from serviio.

I think the second option is a bit over the top, although a few users have asked for it. With that in mind, I think option 1 is proably the best, but I would like feedback on this as it isn't a feature i'm going to be using, at least not for a while yet.
Both options have the problem of how do I let the user reset the PIN if they forget it.

[Xmantium]

Have you had many requests for PIN protecting ServiiDroid?

I personally would not use this feature.
if a child did manage to get my phone, they'll most probably play Angry Birds

That is another issue of resetting PIN
Since Access groups and Remote access is only available as a PRO versions, why not keep it the same?

[will]

For protecting ServiiDroid, just one or two, however lots of people have asked to PIN protect folder content, but I will wait for the 1.0 release when people who want it start to use it before I implement it.

At the moment i'm more interested in how the access group info is displayed, e.g. I show in the list of devices if it the device is not in the default mode (as it set to limited access), should I show the access group regardless of what it is, would you like to also see this sort of info on the list of online sources/shared folders etc... Could the wording when you change it be impoved etc..

[Xmantium]

On "Devices" tab i think it lists the devices fine the way it is, i can clearly see which devices are limited
What would be cool, in beween the + icon and refresh icon, theres an eye logo
http://julien.coron.free.fr/my_icons/48/eye-logo.png
It has the options "All", "No Restrictions", "Limited"
This ofcourse can be expanded when zip eventually has user groups such as "kids" on is later build

On "Shared folders" and "Online sources"
Remove the word "Options", most users should know by now what those icons represent
Move the icons where "Options" was.
On the right indicate if the content is limited

Also can the "Remote Settings" display the user value without having to go into it
Example
"User password" to "User Password: Not Set" or ""User Password: LoveUsingServiio"
and same for preffered quality

[will]

On "Devices" tab i think it lists the devices fine the way it is, i can clearly see which devices are limited
What would be cool, in beween the + icon and refresh icon, theres an eye logo
http://julien.coron.free.fr/my_icons/48/eye-logo.png
It has the options "All", "No Restrictions", "Limited"
This ofcourse can be expanded when zip eventually has user groups such as "kids" on is later build

But how would that be expanded later on? The user will add their own access groups (rather than serviio having extra pre defined ones), so I won't be able to pick standard icons to show.

On "Shared folders" and "Online sources"
Remove the word "Options", most users should know by now what those icons represent
Move the icons where "Options" was.
On the right indicate if the content is limited

Forgot I still hadn't done that. The only problem with listing the access groups is that for sources you will have multiple access groups, so it could soon get messy, also translated versions of the access groups could be quite long, so won't fit on one row. Maybe show a +Limited Access with the + indicating it is in addition to the no restriction group. I'm just trying to design it so that it doesn't leave a big gap in the UI for people on newer/older versions without having lots of alternative code.

Also can the "Remote Settings" display the user value without having to go into it
Example
"User password" to "User Password: Not Set" or ""User Password: LoveUsingServiio"
and same for preffered quality

OK, might take a little while, I wrote a framework that wraps around the android preference system, I simply give the java object from the server, and the type of preference, and it sets it up (or hides it if it doesn't exist etc) , adds the value, retrives the value when you press save, and handles rotation to make it very easy to support multiple versions of serviio and easy to add new preferences. At the moment that framework doesn't support dynamic subtitles, put I can certainly add it, but it won't be until I've done the next ServiiGo beta with audio support.

[will]

Just a warning for serviio beta testers, if you try and set the access groups when creating a new source the app will crash, i've fixed this and will release an update at some point this weekend depending on if I get time to add some other improvements.

[will]

I got fedup with the wiki on bitbucket so I've hacked together a site based on the first half decent free css template I could find. At the moment its just the same content that was on the wiki, in the future i'll add some more stuff though.

http://willlunniss.bitbucket.org/serviidroid/

[zip]

looks nice