2010-09-20

New WEB GUI

The weakest spot of NetHomeServer is probably currently the GUI. The current WEB GUI works for configuration, but to be honest – it is kind of geeky (See Link).

So, I am currently working on the next generation of WEB GUI. WEB development is not one of my strong points, so the development goes painfully slow. The new GUI is more oriented towards operating the devices than configuration. There are two main views where the Items are presented, one classic “map”-view where the devices are represented on an image. The controls for each Item “pop up” as a small semi transparent window when the mouse moves over the device. See below:



The other view is a more strict portlet style view, where Items are organized after the room they are located in. See:



I intended the portlet view to be the main GUI and added the map view more for demo or show. The funny thing is that when I have tried them at home for a couple of weeks, I tend to use the map view most, it feels more natural to really point at the location than to remember what I called each lamp. The development is still very much work in progress, but now it works enough for me to try it in real use. One truth remains – GUI development is hard!