Author Topic: Event and Tournament Photographers desire KIOSK mode  (Read 3655 times)

Offline Tony Panzica

  • Newcomer
  • *
  • Posts: 9
  • Professional Photographer since 1995
    • View Profile
Event and Tournament Photographers desire KIOSK mode
« on: July 08, 2012, 07:36:19 PM »
I think it would be awesome to develop a way for a photographer to make PM a KIOSK, whereby you simplify the software to only allow images to be seen.  I have used PM since switching from PC AC/DC 8-9 years ago.  I have a network of mac's for customers to preview the images.  It happens almost for every single customer whereby they click something they know nothing about, then click on something else.  Soon enough each of the workstations on the network is down as the software was closed or minimized, or zoomed in.  So many people are not Mac literate.  I know I have talked to Jerry about this several times over the past few years.  Recently, it seems to be getting worse.  I have even resorted to placing tape over the corner buttons to stop people from inadvertently clicking.  But this is really pathetic...  I have a friend who is a developer who has looked it.  He has said it would actually be pretty simple to do. I am sure those at Camera Bits are rolling on the floor now! 

I know there are many shooters out there who use PM exclusively like I do for this type of work.  We simply have a person monitor users to fix the software after every user.  A complete waste of time.  I am looking forward to the new 5.  Thanks...
tonypanzica@gmail.com
http://www.actionphotos.net
Tony Panzica
tonypanzica@gmail.com
http://www.actionphotos.net

Offline Tony Hall

  • Member
  • **
  • Posts: 78
    • View Profile
    • Tony Hall Photography
Re: Event and Tournament Photographers desire KIOSK mode
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2012, 12:03:07 AM »
Just a quick thought, before my morning coffee - so feel free to ignore!

One thing you can currently do is: View > Hide Toolbar, this will remove all the toolbar buttons etc. If you also hide the Navigator & Favorites panels this may help with customers' errant clicking.

If PM5 were to support full-screen mode (feature of MacOS 10.7), and has already been requested by someone else, these two combined would give you almost a full kiosk mode. I have no clue how much work it would be to have PM5 support this, but I wonder if it would be easier, as it's already a core function of 10.7+, than to write code for a specific kiosk mode. Obviously this doesn't help PC users and those still on MacOS prior to 10.7.

Just a thought.

Cheers,
Tony

Edit:
Here's a link to Apple's Developer library about implementing the full-screen mode.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2012, 12:47:13 AM by Tony Hall »

Offline Tony Panzica

  • Newcomer
  • *
  • Posts: 9
  • Professional Photographer since 1995
    • View Profile
Re: Event and Tournament Photographers desire KIOSK mode
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2012, 10:26:21 AM »
I have been doing this.  Totally eliminating those buttons does not stop things from going nutty.  There needs to be a dumb version, where parents and kids can easily navigate the folders and images in each folder.  I actually had a friend develop an Intranet/WiFi based program to do it.  It was very quirky and unreliable.  It will take a company like CB to get it right.  I only wish they had the will to take this into a different direction. 
Tony Panzica
tonypanzica@gmail.com
http://www.actionphotos.net

Offline Tony Panzica

  • Newcomer
  • *
  • Posts: 9
  • Professional Photographer since 1995
    • View Profile
Re: Event and Tournament Photographers desire KIOSK mode
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2012, 12:50:51 PM »
What if you added a way to sign into PM 5.0 and allow certain permissions?  You could turn off certain buttons and menus creating a KIOSK version?  Would this work?

How many shooters out there are interested in a KIOSK version?
Tony Panzica
tonypanzica@gmail.com
http://www.actionphotos.net

Offline Tony Panzica

  • Newcomer
  • *
  • Posts: 9
  • Professional Photographer since 1995
    • View Profile
Re: Event and Tournament Photographers desire KIOSK mode
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2012, 12:53:41 PM »
For Kirk...

Mac OS X, 10.6.8
Hardware Overview:
  Model Name:   Mac Pro
  Model Identifier:   MacPro3,1
  Processor Name:   Quad-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed:   2.8 GHz
  Number Of Processors:   2
  Total Number Of Cores:   8
  L2 Cache (per processor):   12 MB
  Memory:   8 GB
  Bus Speed:   1.6 GHz
Tony Panzica
tonypanzica@gmail.com
http://www.actionphotos.net

Offline Kirk Baker

  • Senior Software Engineer
  • Camera Bits Staff
  • Superhero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 24730
    • View Profile
    • Camera Bits, Inc.
Re: Event and Tournament Photographers desire KIOSK mode
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2012, 01:08:45 PM »
What if you added a way to sign into PM 5.0 and allow certain permissions?  You could turn off certain buttons and menus creating a KIOSK version?  Would this work?

How many shooters out there are interested in a KIOSK version?

That's what we'd like to know.  At this point though even if thousands said they wanted it, Kiosk mode would have to wait until after PM5 + Catalog.

-Kirk

Offline Tony Panzica

  • Newcomer
  • *
  • Posts: 9
  • Professional Photographer since 1995
    • View Profile
Re: Event and Tournament Photographers desire KIOSK mode
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2012, 03:31:58 PM »
That fine.  Thanks for the reply.  May kids played ice hockey all over the USA and Canada.  Most of the tournament shooters use PM.  I am sure there are event shooters out there as well.  Too bad you have no survey data, or q&a when they buy to see what type of user they are.  I know you are heavy into press.  At least you know about it.  I would even pay per license, per computer if you guys developed it.  Sportshooter.com would be a good place to see how many shooters use PM.  I think you will be surprised!  When you take a serious look at this, please contact me. Thanks...
Tony Panzica
tonypanzica@gmail.com
http://www.actionphotos.net