feature requests / thoughts

[Andrew Radke]

Hi Ray,

Our OpenSprinkler arrived today and I must say we are very impressed with it. After a few hours with it we have a few thoughts and possible feature requests. None of them are really big issues though.

• Could you implement an extra number in the firmware version after the minor number since it is hard otherwise to tell where within v1.8 we are. E.g. 1.8.3
  
• When adding a program an "every day" option would be very nice to save the extra clicks for every day.
  
• When selecting stations in a program it would be nice to have the option to be able to set a duration for each station rather than just for all of them (this can obviously be achieved by adding more programs at the moment).
  

The everyday choice would reduce user friction. The individual station durations is a feature of professional timers but they generally can't do 32 programs which the OpenSprinkler allows as a way around it.

Thanks,

Andrew

[Ray]

Hi Andrew,

Very good suggestions. See my comments below:

On Thursday, September 27, 2012 2:37:37 AM UTC-4, Andrew Radke wrote:

Hi Ray,

Our OpenSprinkler arrived today and I must say we are very impressed with it. After a few hours with it we have a few thoughts and possible feature requests. None of them are really big issues though.

• Could you implement an extra number in the firmware version after the minor number since it is hard otherwise to tell where within v1.8 we are. E.g. 1.8.3
  

Yes I agree. 

• When adding a program an "every day" option would be very nice to save the extra clicks for every day.
  

This should be easy to do in external Javascript. In fact, I just went ahead and added it. If you refresh your webpage you should see on the add/modify program page, there is a Select All and Select None button (unless if you are using your own copy of Javascripts). 

• When selecting stations in a program it would be nice to have the option to be able to set a duration for each station rather than just for all of them (this can obviously be achieved by adding more programs at the moment).
  

I made the conscious decision to use the current scheme. The reason is mainly to save the eeprom space required to store all these data. If I allow each station to have a different water time within a program, I will have to reserve a lot of space to store the data, especially if there are many extension boards. In most cases you can group stations into subsets that have the same water time within each subset. So I decided to go with the current scheme. 

Of course I should say that I imposed a somewhat unfortunate restriction to fit everything in the internal eeprom (which has only 1KB size). If I allow using the external eeprom the space problem should be gone. Unfortunately in the 1.4u DIY version I removed external eeprom to make space for DS1307, so those users do not have external eeprom anymore. 

[garygid]

Consider augmenting the Hover to show a "tool tip" function by making the item titles
active to a touch, to show the same helpful information.

If you do that in the Java scripts, then those with touch screens will be
able to tap the item title and see the occasionally much-needed information.

[Ray]

Ok, will consider that. The tooltips are really for first-time users who haven't had time to read the user manual. Once you've read the user manual, it's not like you have to check the tooltip over and over again,.

[garygid]

These tips are most useful when demonstrating my OpenSprinkler
system to potential new customers. They are all first-time users,
and this extra attention to detail will help impress them, I believe.

Also, many users might not access the infrequently used parts of
their OpenSprinkler system for many months, and having the definitions
immediately available online is a splendid help when one has forgotten
the details. And, it costs so little to add this online help.

Of course, you, the maker, cannot forget the details, even when you
want to, to get a better night's sleep!!! (grin)