[Web Interface Addon] wTouch - Web Based Gesture Remote Control
#1
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Greeting,

I hope this thread can be used for discussion, comment, suggestion and support for add-on web interface wTouch.

Basic idea: wTouch is gesture based remote control for XBMC.

I prefer gesture based for remote on touch based devices, as we lost the feel of physical button. We could not just feel where is the center button, then move finger for arrows, we need to see the devices to tap the right point. With gesture based remote, we does not need to care where we start to touch and were end, just how we move our finger.

Since version 0.4, I implement new gesture based on gyroscope in iOS devices.
Tap the screen and hold and move/rotate the device in front of your TV.
Pausing media while it play is so easy, just put the device up-side-down with screen facing your table.
When the device turned back, it will automatically play the media
Gyroscope based gesture only supported on iPhone 4/4s, iPod Touch 4th Generation, and iPad 2.

Pre-requisite:
  • You need to have at least XBMC 11 Eden beta.
  • Webkit based browser with touch capability, like iOS and Android (partial function work).
    I'm never test it under Android

Installation:
  1. Make sure that you have at least XBMC 11 Eden Beta or later.
  2. On XBMC goto Setting -> Network -> Services
  3. Make sure to check "Allow control of XBMC via HTTP"
  4. You can leave the default setting for port, username, password
  5. Enter on "Web interface"
  6. Select "Get More..."
  7. Select "wTouch" (Or other addons that you want to install)
  8. Select Install
  9. Open safari on iPhone/iPod Touch, browse to http://(yourip):8080/
  10. Tap on (+) sign and select, to Home Screen, and put desired icon name.
    This will give the webapp as full screen, no more url bar, no bottom tool bar.

Usage:
Press the help button on the app for more usage Big Grin
Basically, you just need to swipe up,down,left,right,tap, tap+hold.
There is 2 additional gesture that I define myself:
  • Swipe Left then Right (as one touch) mimicking Escape Key
  • Swipe Right then Left (as one touch) mimicking Tab Key
If there are any media played, there is Media Info Panel on the bottom bar. You can tap on it to show Player Control on XBMC
On device that support gyroscope, you can just tap,hold, and moving your device to make the up,down,left,right,
and also while have media played, put the device up-side-down (screen face to bottom), it will pause the media until turned up.


Downside
  • You have to know your XBMC IP address/name at first.
    As we could not use the ZeroConf/Bonjour for auto discovery in mobile safari.
  • If you have more than 1 XBMC machine, you may have multiple same icon on your home screen.

Official news site:
http://peprasetya.blogspot.com/search/label/wTouch

Thank you
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#2
interesting........

I will give that a try this week-end for sure.

Subscribed Smile
Hardware: Revo 3610 + SSD - Harmony 700 Remote
Software: XBMCBuntu Gotham - Sickbeard - SabNZBd+

Image
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#3
I installed this yesterday and it works pretty good. The back key on the on screen keyboard to erase text doesn't seem to work. Otherwise it's pretty slick.
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#4
I have this installed and enabled, but i still get the default web interface. How can you select the default web interface if you have multiple enabled?
Edit-- I found it in setting under network
XBMC.MyLibrary (add anything to the library)
ForTheLibrary (Argus TV & XBMC Library PVR Integration)
SageTV & XBMC PVR Integration
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#5
I installed this and tried on my Dell Streak (Android 1.6) & iPod Touch iOS 4...

Menu navigation is fast on both UNTIL it need to pull data like albums, movies, etc from XBMC then is it is VERY slow

For Android, needs navigation buttons like iOS has


one thought... you might want to team up with the AWX web UI, it is doing quite well, works nicely, and having the collaboration might make a single great Web UI supporting Safari, Android, and PC (Firefox, etc).
I'm not an expert but I play one at work.
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#6
Livin Wrote:Menu navigation is fast on both UNTIL it need to pull data like albums, movies, etc from XBMC then is it is VERY slow

Yes it might be slow, as all images for covert art are downloaded on the fly. It might also depend on the memory of the device and browser performance. Cover art are downloaded as big as provided by XBMC and resized by the browser.

In big libraries, this will make problem with device that have low memory.

Livin Wrote:For Android, needs navigation buttons like iOS has

I'm not understand for this. Buttons should be there as I do not detect the device/os type.
What i'm afraid that, there might slight incompatibility on tge webkit that used by android 1.6 in Dell Streak


Livin Wrote:one thought... you might want to team up with the AWX web UI, it is doing quite well, works nicely, and having the collaboration might make a single great Web UI supporting Safari, Android, and PC (Firefox, etc).

So far i see a different Target fiw AWX, as it means design for desktop browser with mouse interface. wTouch primarily work as a remote when you in front of your TV with XBMC. There is media browser for additional feature

But I will try AWX in near future and see what can I do on both project.
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#7
Hi, this looks very sweet. Got it working within 3 minutes. I was wondering if you could have a look at the possibility of having it behind a reverse proxy. I use Apache2. I have allready set up sabnzbd, deluge and the old webinterface. But running wtouch behind it breaks the webinterface. The button in the top left corner changes when clicking the Video, Movies buttons. But the buttons itself won't change with it. Let me know if i can be any help.
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#8
konti Wrote:I was wondering if you could have a look at the possibility of having it behind a reverse proxy. I use Apache2. I have allready set up sabnzbd, deluge and the old webinterface. But running wtouch behind it breaks the webinterface. The button in the top left corner changes when clicking the Video, Movies buttons. But the buttons itself won't change with it. Let me know if i can be any help.

Could you be more detail on your configuration?
How you configure your apache2?
Where is your wTouch installation (under apache2 or XBMC)?

So far, I put relative path to get images to be more flexible, but you may need put slash '/' char on the end of the url.

E.G. If you instal wTouch under apache with subdirectory wtouch, then you may need to access on your browser with:
http://ipaddress:8080/wtouch/

if you use "http://ipaddress:8080/wtouch" the relative path images will lead to different directory as needed.
And you may need careful if you use mod_proxy under apache. I do not have sample case on this.
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#9
I use the modproxy module in apache2.

This is my config:
Code:
<Location /xbmc>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
ProxyPass http://192.168.1.251:8080
ProxyPassReverse http://192.168.1.251:8080
ProxyPassReverseCookieDomain 127.0.0.1 localhost
ProxyPassReverseCookiePath / /xbmc/
</Location>

The CookieePath part i copied from my Deluge config. Just to be sure. But this can just as wel be unnecessary.
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#10
Konti,
Sorry, just able to response and test as I just reinstall fresh apache2 in my linux machine.


did you config to proxy some XBMC general directory:

PHP Code:
<Location /xbmcCmds/>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
ProxyPass http
://127.0.0.1:8080/xbmcCmds/
</Location>

<
Location /jsonrpc>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
ProxyPass http
://127.0.0.1:8080/jsonrpc
</Location>

<
Location /vfs>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
ProxyPass http
://127.0.0.1:8080/vfs
</Location>

<
Location /thumb>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
ProxyPass http
://127.0.0.1:8080/thumb
</Location

I'm trying to figure it out, overall it should be fine if you access to:
http://(IPAddress)/xbmc/

don't just use http://(IPAddress)/xbmc as it would not make for the relative path that used in wTouch. (the last slash is important)

One things that still not work using the modproxy is the Browse Genre in Music Library. I'm still not sure what is wrong, but the feature is using old HTTP_API (xbmcCmds) with query music database command. So in this case the url send is quite complex and it might glitch with the mod proxy
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#11
That i can't browse by genre is no problem. My guess is this will also be brought to the JSON api. So it will work eventually.
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#12
There is onle small isue left. The screen gestures don't work or aren't getting through the apache proxy.
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#13
konti Wrote:There is onle small isue left. The screen gestures don't work or aren't getting through the apache proxy.

HHmm, then I'm really have no idea. As On my test the gesture is work, just only left the Genre issue.

Or try change the proxy for xmbcCmds as
Code:
<Location /xbmcCmds>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8080/xbmcCmds
</Location>
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#14
Got it working in a few minutes on the Blackberry Torch 9800. Running Dharma beta 4, installed through add-ons browser.

Very cool, the only thing I can't figure out is how to do back/previous/7 seconds back, not implemented or am I just missing it?
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#15
Using xbmc dharma beta 4 on win7 I can't even connect to the url Sad I am trying from ipod touch.
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[Web Interface Addon] wTouch - Web Based Gesture Remote Control0