Tag Archives: widgets

23Feb / 2012

Video: Upcoming widget changes

I’m making many changes in the next release of Mizuu and widgets will be no exception. Say goodbye to limitations and having to choose between limited layouts and fixed amounts of videos. The new widgets build upon the current design and adds direct access to your entire video library right in the widgets. I’ve made a short video below to demo the changes and compare it with the current implementation. It’s shot on my phone, so apologizes for the low quality. Still a work in progress, but it’ll give you an idea:

The cascading widget will also be updated and will be capable of showing your entire library.

Future versions of Mizuu will likely build even more features upon these changes - i.e. the option of choosing a widget based on your favorites or perhaps a certain genre.

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20Nov / 2011

Why was the old widget removed?

If you’ve updated to version 1.7.4, you’ll know that the “old” scrollable widget has been removed from this update. A few of you have been asking about this and want to get it back, but I’d like to tell you why it’s been removed.

The scrollable widget was capable of showing up to 20 movies in total, so if someone had 40 movies in their library only the first half of them would show up in the widget. Naturally, this doesn’t work for all users - it’s okay for those with less than 20 movies, but that’s about how far that goes.

Why not just increase the movie limit, you ask? Well, 20 was already too much. You see, the widget has to load all the images in the device memory - with 20 bitmap images that’s roughly 10 megabytes or about a fifth of the available RAM for each application. If the users decides to add another widget, they’ll take up a total of 40 percent of the available RAM, and that doesn’t leave enough RAM for the rest of Mizuu, potentially causing crashes and other unpleasant “features”.

These are many other issues with the old widget, but these are the two main issues. I honestly cannot believe why Google designed the widget that way, as it seems incredibly stupid. They should at least have provided the option of loading images when they’re needed and not just all at once. That would have been a much better solution.

Some of you have been asking to get the old widget back, and I’m sorry to say that it’s not going to happen. The issues I’ve pointed out in this post are simply too serious and I don’t want anything in the application that eats up so much memory.

The purpose of the application widgets was never to work as a substitute for the main movie overview. The widgets were meant to showcase all your content at random. I love finding movies that I’d completely forgot about and the widgets are there to do just that.

I am obviously going to work on the new widgets - they’re in no way finished. The design will be updated, functionality will be added and I’ll also have to do some changes to make it work on Ice Cream Sandwich handsets. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know - I know that the new widgets don’t look as good as the old one, so I’m really interested in changing that.

Update: Check out the much improved widgets in version 1.7.4.1: http://mizuu.tv/bug-fix-update-ready/

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19Nov / 2011

Here’s the TV show widget!

A quick sneak peek! The update is coming this weekend - lots of changes in a minor release! The new widget default size is 3×3 “blocks” and you can naturally change the size of the widgets as you please.

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11Oct / 2011

Widgets - the explanation

Some have been asking why the latest version of Mizuu doesn’t come with a widget for TV shows and some have been asking why there’s a 20 movie limit on the current widget. The explanation is a bit technical, but I’ll do my best:

All tablet devices are equipped with RAM - some may have more or less than others, but it’s usually around 1 GB. RAM is also known as ‘work memory’, as it’s used for the operating system and the applications currently running. In Android 3.0, applications - by default - can access a maximum of 48 megabytes RAM. This may sound like a lot, but when you’re dealing with lots of bitmap files (i.e. the cover art work in Mizuu), that’ll quickly run up. There are ways to access more memory, but this is not recommended and will slow down the app. That’s why it’s very important that developers manage the available memory in the best possible ways. I’m far from an expert Android developer, and I’ve still got areas that can be improved, and I think widgets is one of them.

The current Mizuu widget loads up to 20 images at launch, and keeps all the images in memory. This takes up quite a bit of the available memory for Mizuu - roughly 20 percent. This means that the application itself is now down to 80 percent of the available RAM. If I were to add a TV show widget based on the same widget format, Mizuu would potentially be down to 60 percent of the available memory. That’s not a whole lot.

That’s why I’ve been thinking about various sorts of widgets, that can improve the memory issues and hopefully provide users with the functionality they want.

One of the widgets I’ve been thinking about creating is one that shows a total of 5 or 7 covers at a time and continuously swaps out cover art every 10 or 15 seconds. There’ll also be a refresh button to manually update all the covers with some new ones. This option will be good for performance, and should allow users to get a cool widget that’s capable of showing all the content with only minimal user interaction - it’s easier than having to go through lots of movies in the style of the current widget.

Above you’ll find a mockup of the widget I am likely going to create. Your thoughts are very welcome. I’ve also added a screenshot of the widget on a tablet device at the very top of this post. The left widget is the current one, and the one on the right is the concept one.

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What’s Mizuu?

Mizuu is a movie and TV show management application for Android devices.

This blog is about the development of the application and a way for users to put their feedback out in the open.

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What users say

Gooooooood! Works really great. — Matthias Gerold

Great layout and features. Really nice way to collect and organize your movies and tv-shows. Like the UI a lot. — Ermias

Fantastic app. If you are looking for the best media center app for Android 3.0+, look no further. — Doug

Should be 10 out of 5! This app defines what an app should be on Honeycomb, it is the kind of thing that makes having a tablet awesome! Also, the developer was fantastic in helping me resolve a problem, he responded within minutes (seconds?) of me sending him an email. Buy this app and tell your friends to do the same, you won't regret it! — amruthwo

Great app - Works great on both my Galaxy Nexus and my Galaxy tab 10.1 — Jens

Wonderful - Xbmc for Android! — Andreas

Great. A great app with a motivated developer and very frequent updates. Superb interface — Thibaut

The best at what it does. Haven't yet found an app similar to this, for me it's the best one at what it does. Of course there are still things that could be added, but the application is being worked upon heavily and the developer listens and responds to questions or requests very quickly, so I'm sure it'll get even better. Definitely five stars from me :) — Natan Žabkar

Best app on my Xoom. The greatest app for honeycomb. This is a must have. — Gomez

OUTSTANDING APP!!!!!!! This app really ROCKS! I love everything about it and can't wait to see what's coming. The developer helped me out via email when I was having setup issues and had my problem fixed in no time. Best Customer Service Award goes out to Michell. — Laurence

Excellent! Solid, well designed app, great customer support, a true gem! — Steve

Amazing App. Great app!! I thought I would get just another normal poorly programmed app this one is awesome! I highly recommend it! — Marc

This app is stupendous and is a must have for any movie/tv buffs or people who store content locally. Good work! — Daniel

Sweet app Excellent app. Well worth buying if you watch movies on your tablet. — John

Really good. Makes my crap thumbnails look like gold. — Matthew

Wow, I'm truly amazed!! Would recommend this app to anyone and everyone — Nevall

Awesome!! I have a media PC running XBMC and was looking for a similiar setup for my tablet when I found this. As far as I'm concerned this is one of the best apps I have. Works great and looks fantastic. Theres not another video library that even comes close. — Wosto

Excellent App! This is a great looking and very functional movies and tv organising app. Thank you for the good support and regular new features and updates. — Kenneth

Fantastic! A fantastic and great looking app. Works really well, and with the upcoming changes in 1.8 with DLNA support will undoubtedly become even better. Works great on the Transformer Prime running ICS. — Spiros

great Been waiting for an app like this for managing media on my tablet since I got it — Matt

Best App For Managing Movies and TV Shows. The interface is intuitive and fast. Adding movie/show information is automatic and relatively accurate. The developer is quick to respond to emails and eager to ensure customers needs are met. Well worth the price! Great app and a great dev. — James

How movies should look! I was disappointed with the android native movie application. Where is the cover-art? The movie/tv information? This app is what the android movie application should have been and more. It linked everything in my movie library with no issues. The app looks great too! Awesome! Great Work! — DavidGuy

Best paid app I purchased I had the free version for 15 minutes before I upgraded. Updates are often and good. — festmaster

I love this app. Had it about a month now and wouldnt live without it. Great job! — Mr Bear

This app has come a long way in a short amount of time. Its matured into an XBMC style interface to showcase my movies/TV shows beautifully and easily. Great app! — Patrick

One of the prime Honeyomb apps. It's an amazing feat that a lone developer can do better work than most dev teams. I've followed this guy since his beta on XDA, and look at him and his app now. Perfectly showcases Android's ability to provide indie devs to show their talent by offering powerful tools and near-complete freedom to generate an incredible app such as this. Excellent support, fast and accurate movie/TV listing, beautiful interface, support for multiple codecs. Highly recommended. — JJ

Truly Amazing — Joris

Excellent App. This app is great for portable movie watching! Worth every penny once you name your files correctly. I highly recommend this app, but for playing the videos use MX player! Keep up the great work on developing this app! — Demetrius

Essential for Entertainment. Love this app so much! — Ram

The best movie/tv library app for android. Very beautiful and user friendly library app for your movies and television shows. Looks especially great on tablets or high resolution smartphones. — Christarius

Awesome Movie app on Prime. Works amazing, love the box art and look of this app. I point this to my cifs network drive mount on my transformer Prime and have my terabyte hard drive media right on my tablet! Great job dev! — W. Scott

Great app. By far my favorite app on my ASUS Transformer! Love the info on each movie when you touch the movie poster. Gives options to watch trailer on YouTube, read reviews and play movie. Works great on my HDTV!! — Lou

Awesome app! Loving this app on my tab, beautiful & fast UI. Great support from dev! — Johanna

Exactly what I was looking for and a bit more..... All the video players I've tried on my Lenovo K1 Ideapad just give you an ugly list with a screenshots of the video files. This separates movies and TV shows, adds cover art and uses IMDb for reviews and backdrops. When you hit play just select your favorite video player as default and you're set. — SaDiin

Fantastic. A truly awesome app for showcasing movies. Who wants to use a file browser, when your mp4 videos can be represented by large, beautiful photos with integrated information? Plus, frequent updates. Keep up the great work. — Gregor

Best Movie Manager. It's like having Boxee on my tablet! Mizuu makes browsing my movie collection fast and easy. I love the layout and the ability to use my favorite movie player. It is visually appealing and it works like it should. A great app indeed! — akkidy

Amazing!!! Looks great on my Transformer Prime!!! — Shawn

Five stars for constant updates....this app has come a long way — Darish

Perfect AAA — Roaster

Great. Working great on galaxy nexus. — Jassim

Best video app ever. This app really shows how great android is. TV shows support works even better than movies. Such an amazing developer — Tom

Relly nice A cool GUI and fully featured xbm like for tablets. — macgyver

Beautiful! I've dreamed of an app like this. — Khaled

Beautiful looking and highly functional! Great looking app, automatically found and stored all my show info, downloaded posters and summaries. I contacted the developer and got a very quick and helpful response. — Michael

Great app. Easily one of my favorite apps on my Xoom. Very nice app. — Luke

a must buy. an awesome app. the dev is also very responsive — Joseph