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New era of AMX controllers and touch panels
rrdbstudios
Posts: 160
Has anyone heard any news of the next thing coming...?
I see the G5 panels, but no new software or specific talks to how we'll be able to work with the new features such as applications residing within the TP.
I've heard talks of possibly a app store where applications could be hosted and sold similar to what many other companies have or are planning.
The last time I asked about changes to NLS studios, I was met with nothing is *really coming down the pipes major anytime soon, but that I will be very happy with things coming in the near future; unfortunately the near future has come and gown many times. I really want to see the next generation of controller, software, etc. I hope im not the only one feeling frustrated. Don't get me wrong I love the hardware and software I have to use daily from AMX and others, but with how quickly technology is evolving and the speeds and storage capabilities, we should be seeing something far superior. Not to mention the capability of the VxWorks OS internal to the Controllers.. it was used on the mars rover even, so I think it is quite capable of way more then it is now, plus it could be pushed to a hard realtime system with multi-threading!
I love Duet as well, but frankly I do want to see more resources, myself and many others im sure want to use this way more but dont have the time to invest in learning the ins and outs. I have made a few small modules, but havent had the time to really get in deep and make something worthy of Duets capabilities, if AMX had more documentation and maybe even some open advanced modules, we maybe able to learn and move forward with java development in the control environment.
Well I've exhausted my rant time, I just want to see something. I'm thankful for the great stuff we have, I want more though, as do my customers which frankly will not settle for anything but perfect and fortunately they have the budget, but we cant supply the hardware that will guarantee it. I apologize if any of this upsets anyone.
Please feel free to give thoughts in any form or another.
Respectfully,
Paul
I see the G5 panels, but no new software or specific talks to how we'll be able to work with the new features such as applications residing within the TP.
I've heard talks of possibly a app store where applications could be hosted and sold similar to what many other companies have or are planning.
The last time I asked about changes to NLS studios, I was met with nothing is *really coming down the pipes major anytime soon, but that I will be very happy with things coming in the near future; unfortunately the near future has come and gown many times. I really want to see the next generation of controller, software, etc. I hope im not the only one feeling frustrated. Don't get me wrong I love the hardware and software I have to use daily from AMX and others, but with how quickly technology is evolving and the speeds and storage capabilities, we should be seeing something far superior. Not to mention the capability of the VxWorks OS internal to the Controllers.. it was used on the mars rover even, so I think it is quite capable of way more then it is now, plus it could be pushed to a hard realtime system with multi-threading!
I love Duet as well, but frankly I do want to see more resources, myself and many others im sure want to use this way more but dont have the time to invest in learning the ins and outs. I have made a few small modules, but havent had the time to really get in deep and make something worthy of Duets capabilities, if AMX had more documentation and maybe even some open advanced modules, we maybe able to learn and move forward with java development in the control environment.
Well I've exhausted my rant time, I just want to see something. I'm thankful for the great stuff we have, I want more though, as do my customers which frankly will not settle for anything but perfect and fortunately they have the budget, but we cant supply the hardware that will guarantee it. I apologize if any of this upsets anyone.
Please feel free to give thoughts in any form or another.
Respectfully,
Paul
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I have seen mention of a TPD5 manual in specifications of these panels, but for now no reference nowhere on website about TPD5...
So we'll have to wait I guess
Ye know not of what ye ask. Multi-threaded real time system? It gives me a headache just thinking about programming it.
Paul
I have to agree. It's hard enough getting timing issue right as it is without everything happening at once. Maybe I'm just feeling lazy about it; there are ways to do it, but without some firmware support for some things (like automatic IP connection and error handling), it could be a real nightmare.
TP4 panel files are NOT compatible and have to be converted and will only convert if resolution is within the same aspect ratio or you will have some work to make it able to be converted. The applications will be from their app store. I took pictures of skype, accuweather, angry birds, the web browser and the calculator. The app window does scale, but if you go too small it screws up the buttons.
In TPD5 little things will be changing like no more icons, chameleon images will be treated differently... Also the touch panel API command sheet is totally new (the old ones will not work) and some features we can do now are being removed and other new ones are being added, but there will only be one way of doing things, where now there may be multiple ways to do the same thing. There will be vector imaging coming as well as alpha layers and other nice things. More image processing will be from within the TP and not the image files, so for instance, borders are rendered into the graphics files that are loaded into the TP4 file, now they will be rendered in realtime in the panel itself.
The panels are still linux driven and the android system is separate but on top.
There is also a cafe duet 2 coming, but to me it sounded more like a wizard for manufacturers to create duet. It will dump out and xml file that goes into an adstract duet file on some sort. He didnt go into much detail on the duet stuff.
There is a new IDE for TPD5 and for duet, he said its not eclipse based...
He did they are still working on the next generation of controller and programming and the language could still change, it has been mentioned it could go java even completely.. It sounds like a revamping of everything and moving forward into the future with completely new platforms which will not be reverse compatible.
Well see how true all this is though in the near future. I'm excited.. especially after my somewhat depressing post above.
EDIT:
also no change to the 500 page limit. And no word whether we'll be able to dynamically add content into the TPD file via programming; my thought is, I would love to be able to have my code handle everything, so the code either determines the resolution from some internal structure, or you pass it as a parameter in the code, but ultimately have it add content based on my own math when needed/wanted. A prime example of this is a game im making in a module, I want to just have the panel size sent to the module with the TP DEV and then the module builds the screen and you just play the game. ...in the past you could do this, but not currently that im aware of, or that AMX could tell me.
I'm the product manager for touch panels at AMX. I saw this thread and wanted to give everyone here a brief overview of the new G5 features and also some details on what's changing and what's staying the same from a programmer's perspective. AMX will be releasing a comprehensive document soon that details every new feature and command so I'll just be giving a cursory overview here.
What's new:
- Probably the most notable difference is the overall speed of the graphics. The G5 touch panels use a quad-core processor over the G4's single-core and are approximately seven times faster than the G4 series. This will translate into faster sub-page scrolling, graphics animations and the ability to stream two video streams simultaneously whereas you can currently only stream one video on G4 panels.
- Better gesture and touch response: You'll see an overall improvement in gesture responses. For example, panels and apps will slide out and follow your finger more intuitively, sub pages scroll more like an iPad or Android device.
- URL updating of touch panel pages: This is a really cool new feature. We've added a new NetLinx command (^WEBU) that will instruct the panel to go to a URL and pull its touch panel file from this location, making it easier to update your touch panel files for large deployments. So you can modify a TP5 file in one location and then rather than have to download the file to each panel separately, the touch panels can be instructed to go fetch the new file from the URL automatically. This feature will eventually be rolled into the Setup pages as an option as well.
- Apps: The G5 Series touch panels have the ability to run certain apps locally without the need for a master. Some of the apps that will ship with the first release are an HTML5 web browser, Skype, Email and DropBox. Many more apps will follow and we will be opening up the platform in the future to allow dealers to write their own apps and distribute these through an AMX App Store.
What's Staying the Same:
The good news is the development environment has not changed significantly. If you're comfortable working in TPDesign4, you should have no problems working in TPDesign5. Page design is essentially the same. There is a new menu item in the Panel menu called "Add Application Window" that lets you place apps on your panel pages similar to how you place buttons. You can specify the size of the app window and whether or not the app docks into one side of the panel or is a free floating re-sizable window. You also don't have to include apps in your panel pages if you don't need them. The apps are there to extend the panel functionality and give you more features. We take care of all of the multi-threading and multi-core aspects of running apps in conjunction with the dedicated control UI.
Under the Hood Changes:
- Deprecated commands: Probably the biggest change to G5 is that we have deprecated G2 and G3 command sets. If you use commands that are prefixed with the @ symbol, you'll need to change those to use an equivalent G4/G5 command (prefixed with a ^ symbol). In 90% of the cases it's a one-to-one mapping (Ex: @PPX becomes ^PPX). AMX will publish a document that lists every deprecated command and it's G4/G5 equivalent shortly.
- Converting TPDesign4 pages to TPDesign5 pages: There is a converter application in the TPDesign5 directory that will convert Modero X TPDesign4 files to the new TPDeisgn5 file format. It's not always perfect but it's pretty good. Also, you must use TPDesign5 for G5 panel files and TPDesign4 for Modero X G4 and Modero S G4 panel files. Both TPDesign4 and TPDesign5 can run concurrently on your PC.
- Handling unrecognized NetLinx commands: Currently, G4 panels and most AMX products do not respond to unrecognized NetLinx commands. G5 systems, however, will respond to unrecognized commands from the network with an error to help programmers better debug master/touch panel interactions. This should specifically help developers working with legacy systems that might be sending G2 or G3 commands to the G5 touch panels.
- Upgradeability: If you just bought a 20" G4 panel, you're not stuck with an obsolete unit. Any 7" and larger Modero X panel can be upgraded to a G5 touch panel with the purchase of a CPU Upgrade Kit, so you don't have to buy a brand new touch panel to get G5 functionality. You will need to send the panel to an AMX Authorized service to have the upgrade performed.
I hope this helps clarify some of the questions around the new G5 touch panels. We're very excited about the imminent release and just wait until you see what new features we plan to add in 2014.
Eric Neilson
Sr. Product Manager, User Interfaces
AMX
Also listbox's are going to become easier to implement, so all the new demo TP's will contact books, etc will now be able to be made without spending days to develop; we'll have to see if it is this easy though.
...lots of great new features coming, I am looking forward to playing with the new options. Keep them coming!
Do not like. This will make it much harder to reskin panel designs amongst other things by the sounds.
I hope this does not mean going from 1x button graphic per button size (and perhaps button state) + lots of individual action icons to individually created graphics for each button incorporating the background and icon for each state. Very time consuming.
That way leads Cr3stronness...
no this will not be changing, I specifically asked it.
Thanks for asking! The more people start using subpages, the more complaints AMX is going to start seeing about this. I had a field tech/engineer from AMX at a job with me and when he saw what is possible with subpages, he realized why a 500 limit is an issue. He could think of no other way around it without getting rid of subpages...obviously that was not a solution.
Hopefully enough programmers will see this as a problem and say something to their rep or support.
Thanks again for asking and the answer!
It does seem like it was an arbitrary decision. 500, not 512 or any other number. So I would think it could be changed easily enough. The limit should be based on how much memory you are going to have, not an arbitrary number. My current project has over 100 subpages, and I can certainly see with a more complex job you would hit the limit quite quickly, and then are basically screwed.
Paul
Oh you want these buttons 1px smaller? No problem, it'll only take me 3 days.
...Oh you meant to say 1px larger??
Been there, done that! ...now try it with multiple size panels that need graphics scaled! There were reasons for going this route though. Try using one subpage in multiple places at the same time, you cant! ...I had a video switcher page that used scrolling panes with each output. I wouldve liked to have [for example] a subpage for input 1, and reused it for every output column; which you can do, but it will not show the subpages (input buttons) properly. The subpage will go blank in any area you are not actively using it. Therefore I ended up with 32 of the exact same input subpage button, and changing their channel. This was hell, but I had no choice to main the functionality work the way the client wanted it to.
The G5 subpage implementation allows multiple views of the same subpage on the screen. This should save you a lot of work having to make numerous copies of subpages.
A new subpage feature that has been added is the ability to disable touch scrolling. With this enabled, you can still move subpages with send commands but not touch scrolling. Some of you may have seen this in the G5 demo where the Room Settings popup has buttons on the right to select various room controls and then the left part of the popup has a subpage viewer that will move different subpages into position based on the selection. However, if you try to move the subpage by scrolling it, it doesn't move. It's basically another way to get an animation effect.
All G5 popup animations are much smoother than G4 due to the new graphics engine.
One of my favorite new features is what we are calling collapsible popups. When enabled for a popup, in addition to showing and hiding a popup you can open or close it. The direction of motion can be specified along with the closed offset. A popup can be closed and still be partially visible. This makes it easy to simulate things like notification panes that can be expanded or collapsed.
I wouldn't expect much on the 500 page limit in the near future in either version of TPDesign. It is 500 pages, 500 popups and 500 subpages. Unfortunately it's not just a simple limit somewhere that you change. It's a part of the inherent code architecture and would be a large amount of work to change I'm told.
Even so, I think what you probably really would like to have are true easy to use scrolling listboxes. We have a plan for those in G5 but they will not be part of the initial release. Completing this feature for release would be a better use of engineering resources IMO.
Is this why we can’t copy more that one pop-up/subpage/page at once? This will be fixed in TPD5 right?
Also are there new borders/text effects?
Will TPD5 scale bitmaps? Any support for vector formats coming?
Can I delete all unused resources out of the resource manager at once?
Am I able to see subpages within a subpage button in TPD5 instead of a dotted box?
Does Zoom in TPD5 work without pixelating the page?
Do I still have to stripe the backgrounds on larger panels so the program will run at an acceptable speed?
Is there any layering or grouping system?
Is there a way of organising pop-ups / pages into folders without them being mutually exclusive?
Tech news groups often look up recent patents, trademarks, and FCC filings for companies like Google and Microsoft to see what may be in the pipeline. I started doing that from time to time for less-obsessed over companies like AMX.
I saw this patent some months ago (US8316343) and thought it was referring to the recently released Rapid Project Maker, but it now sounds like it may be describing this "Duet 2".
Also, have you noticed during boot of the v4 firmware, right before it loads the Duet modules, it starts the "App Manager" and then reports "AppLoader: no app jar bundle has been installed". If the Duet modules aren't the "apps", what will be? AMX has referred to apps being available for the G5 panels, but are there also going to be apps for the processors? Is that what Duet 2 is?
I guess we'll have to stay tuned...
TPD5 really feels like TPD4.4 to use, if it said TPD4 on the icon it would take a while before you even realised there are any changes.
Here are some changes I am happy about:
You can scale bitmaps in TPD5.
G5 panels have far superior processors so you don't need to cut a bitmap into multiple sections as was the case on the backgrounds of the MXT-1900 and 2000.
I too have been crossing my fingers hoping for the following features but alas they are not in the current build:
Ability to delete all unused resources out of the resource manager at once.
Grouping of buttons
Being able to disable mutually exclusive aspect of a popup group.
Driver Design is software where you enter strings to control a device (like using the signage serial protocol edittor) and it creates a driver file that you load onto the processor which is read by a Dynamic Device Driver module (or something similar).
AMX showed off Driver Design at ISE last year but then I never saw it again, even googling it returns nothing from official AMX sources except for a vague mention of it in the 2013 pocket guide.
Cafe Duet 2 is another iteration of Cafe Duet.
I know nothing of Cafe Duet 2 but love to speculate... libraries outside of the J2ME CDC sandbox for a new generation of hardware (please let me be right).
Before getting excited I suggest considering how long it usually takes from hearing rumours about a product to seeing it in full release.
What I would like to see is a more current version of Java, anything after 1.4 would make it a lot easier to use most of the code that is available online.
I looked up the WEBU command on the AMX-PI 2 and it said that it is for updating the firmware on a touch panel via a web url, nothing was mentioned about updating the touch panel gui file. what is the right answer here?
Thanks,
Javed