Dev Call notes
1/18/08

Present: Clayton, Joshua, Eric, Tim, Lou

Clayton -
Is working on the template fixes we gave him before the break. He will post whatever work he has completed by the end of the day today so that we can begin testing them out. Work on the Commentary, Slider, Media Focus, and Phone Dial, and Exploration Entry screens are higher priority than others because they are being used in the Elixr project.

Clayton had questions about the behavior that some templates should have as he works to finalize them. We discussed some of these behaviors:

Issue: When a still image and a movie are both assigned to the same slot (e.g. main image area on the left side of the commentary screen) how should the two behave together?

Decision:
the image should act as poster image for the movie, meaning the image should appear in the place and size of the movie before the movie is played and when the movie is stopped.
if movie is paused, the movie should continue to be displayed
If movie is stopped, then the image should show and movie should rewind
The dimentions of the still image should be constrained by the movie dimensions
Only the movie tumbstone data needs to be provided to the user and accessibility functions, not the image data since it is only functioning as a poster for the movie.

Issue: Movie Autoplay
Should movies autoplay when they load?

Decision:
When there is more than one thing for a user to do at that moment, they user should have control over when the movie starts playing. For instance on the Aspects screen, when a user clicks one of the thumbnails, they get both text they can read and a movie to play, so they should have a choice about which they do first. The movie should not autoplay.

But on a screen like a full screen media playback, where the only activity on the screen is to play to the movie, it's ok for the movie to autostart.

Joshua was concerned that any autoplay of movies would be a violation of rules of accessibility. I checked this with CDL's accessibility person (Kristin) and she said that as long as the user is clear that what they are clicking will start the movie, then she thought this was ok (in essence, clicking on a thumbnail can be the same as clicking on the "play" button if this is clear to the user).

Issue: Commentary Screen Video playback
Where does a commentary screen playback videos that are activated by clicking on the thrubmails on the right? And once one of those videos is played, how does the screen get "restored" to it's original state?

Answer:
SFMOMA has them play in the position of the main image on the left of the screen. When a thumbnail is clicked, the video loads and begins to play. Clicking on another thumbnail loads and autoplays another video. Clicking stop rewinds the video but does not reset the screen to it's original state.
See example: http://www.sfmoma.org/msoma/artists/hamilton.html

Other ideas for playing back videos on the Commentary screen:
Play videos on a layer above the current screen? Joshua
Play on a separate screen.
Adding a highlight on the thumbnail while the video is playing would help the user keep track of what video they are watching.
A transparent highlight that connects the thumbnail and the video playing might make this even clearer.
Adding a CloseBox in the video area or a "done" button to the playback control area might be a good way to "restore" the screen when the user is done with a video.

Here is what the group decided:
For the time being, make the Commentary template function like the SFMOMA example and add a highlight to the Thumbnail on the right for the video playing
Autoplay for a video loaded from a thumbnail on the right is ok
Restore screen when video is done playing automatically
Restore screen when stop button is clicked

Functions to consider adding in the future:
Add a separate "close" or "done" button that restores the screen
Add a highlight that visually connects the thumbnail with the video playing

Issue: Where do we put a title on the zoom screen?
Although a desire has been expressed to have consistent title and subtitle areas on all templates, where can we fit this on the zoom screen without compromising the size of the image display area unacceptably?

Decision:
We don't see a way to do this, and for some screens, a title may not be needed because it's clear where the user has gone and what is there. We propose that following screens are exempted from the Title/subtitle standardization:

zoom
swf playback
Full-screen media focus
full screen image


Clayton said that here are other behavior situations he needs direction on. He will make notes about these as he works through the templates and ask for another call next to discuss if this is needed. Otherwise, we'll discuss on the next regular call.

Clayton said he is merging all the video and audio functions which are now separate, into a "package."

Clayton also said he thinks we need a system of how to release templates.

Joshua said the compilation problem he was having with 2.1 fixed. He is now dealing with a bug where metadata for images is not working.

Clayton asked for help getting 2.1 installed on either Windows or Mac OS from Joshua.