With App Stores all the rage on a variety of devices, imagine what we could do if Kaleidescape ever enabled some basic extensions and hooks for outside developers.
It will almost assuredly never happen, as our community is FAR too small to support any outside development, and Kaleidescape is incredibly sensitive to anyone messing with the UI, but I'll wish anyway... just for fun and discussion purposes.
Wouldn't it be great to have simple hooks to the UI where users (developers) could add in some other basic functions or display elements? Users could then browse optional modules available from Kaleidescape or outside developers or users to change or enhance the UI in some basic ways.
Some examples:
Just a few simple examples. I'm not proposing that all of those are right for all users, but a little app-store like interface could allow optional modules like that for those users that wanted them.
And who knows what other clever things some of us might be able to create...
Well, we can dream can't we?
It will almost assuredly never happen, as our community is FAR too small to support any outside development, and Kaleidescape is incredibly sensitive to anyone messing with the UI, but I'll wish anyway... just for fun and discussion purposes.
Wouldn't it be great to have simple hooks to the UI where users (developers) could add in some other basic functions or display elements? Users could then browse optional modules available from Kaleidescape or outside developers or users to change or enhance the UI in some basic ways.
Some examples:
- "IMDB Info" - add this module and on any movie detail screen you can click to bring up the full IMDB data on a movie.
- "Rotten Tomatoes" - add this, and you'll quickly see the Rotten Tomatoes rating for the selected movie, along with selections from the most relevant reviewers, just like you get on the website and the new iphone app.
- "Common Sense Media" - display a movie's extended parental guidelines from Common Sense Media. (already requested elsewhere, to no avail)
- Twitter module - add this module, enter your Twitter credentials, and allow Kaleidescape to post messages like "Josh loaded Inglorious Basterds", "Josh watched District 9"
- "User Reviews" - add this, and you get to add your own star-ratings and comments to any movie in your collection that will then be displayed in the details screen in the future.
- "Dealer Help / Upgrade" - add this module and the users can quickly ping the dealer to request help on their system... Dealer gets a snapshot of the current configuration and remaining space and can email back an offer for additional storage, another player, or have the details to help solve a customer issue.
- "Report Metadata Error" - with this module enabled, a user to quickly let the MovieGuide team know of an error in the metadata of a movie or album.
- "Alternate Audio Tracks" - add this module to allow you to name the alternate audio tracks (e.g. "Director's commentary track: Steven Spielberg") and share those named tracks with other users. (also previously requested as a stand-alone enhancement, also to no avail)
Just a few simple examples. I'm not proposing that all of those are right for all users, but a little app-store like interface could allow optional modules like that for those users that wanted them.
And who knows what other clever things some of us might be able to create...
Well, we can dream can't we?