litl Lab (RIA Unleashed: Boston 2010)
litl Lab by Ryan Canulla and Kathryn Rotondo
Not nearly enough hands on coding, especially since half of the session was devoted to their upcoming set-top box product but for which they didn't have a hardware demo.
Flash based SDK for developing channels. Each channel has three views: card (menu with optional slideshow), focus (mouse, keyboard support), and channel view (passive view, swipe type gestures only).
User can install multiple channel instances with different settings. Think weather widget with different zip codes all displayed at once.
Card view should have minimal animation but can reflect live data.
Focus view is the most details. Put ability to change channel options in this view and things like capturing username and passwords for remote data. Can configure a website and links that will launch in the litl chrome based browser.
Channel view should be designed for distance viewing. Think of it like a screen saver, very passive, but should be used for video and games since it provides the most screen real estate. For gestures in the view put most common in the middle (least likely, somewhat likely, most likely, somewhat likely, least likely).
Keep in mind the user can switch between the three views at any time. Be smart about what you do. Remember that data should update regularly but handle the fact that the network will come and go.
A channel can store properties in either shared properties (part of the channel, consider them public) (example same channel in marketplace with different defaults), device properties (specific to the device the channel is running on, consider them private) (example font size for webbook versus TV STB), or account properties (tied to your account, consider them protected) (example Facebook username and password).
New set-top box offering will have trackpad with slide out keyboard. Will offer gestures, accelerometers, microphone, and possibly webcam. For STB you need to worry about overscan, but the litl SDK will tell you usable dimensions when switching which view is active. Important to liquify your layout as STB dimensions will vary like crazy.