Player
From MB Wiki
The MotionBased Player is currently in Beta, and not available for viewing all Activities.
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Known Limitations
- The Player is only being offered for viewing random activities while we work through some performance enhancements.
- Cadence is not being served up on the live system at this time due to system performance limitations.
- "Play" mode in Safari appears to be jumpy on the map. The marker doesn't move as fluidly as it should. A workaround is to use the keyboard controls of the player to advance the track.
- "Play" mode does not simulate speed, but rather just jumps from point to point pausing equal time which doesn't represent what actually happened.
- The route line on Google Maps has a reduced resolution and looks choppy. Google Maps has a limitation of 500 points or less (observed, not documented). The marker will actually follow the trackpoints as produced by the device and will be found to land off the line at times.
- Double-Clicking on a table column divider will cause the mouse to not let go of the divider.
- The chart is actually showing the measurement for each trackpoint and not using the total time values for the x-axis. In other words, if there is varying duration between trackpoints (as there usually is) then the chart will not be a good representation of this variation. It assumes there is a fixed duration between trackpoints. This is a high-priority fix.
- No ability to plot Distance on the x-axis. (yet)
- Cached versions of the previous release of the Player may appear for people that previewed on the test site. Consider clearing your browser cache to resolve this issue which is best identified by not having buttons similar to those pictured below.
- Unfortunately Linux is not yet supported. You can view the player, but the map will not display. Blame Macromedia/Adobe. Version 8 of the Flash Player introduced the Javascript->Flash communication that we're using. Since they haven't yet released a player for Linux there isn't a whole lot we can do. They do have a team working on the player for 9. You can check out their blog at http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/. Hopefully they'll keep their Beta 9 promise and release by the end of the year.
Software Requirements
- Macromedia Flash Version 8+
- Internet Explorer, Firefox (Mac and Windows), and Safari 2 are all supported
- Due to lack of Flash 8 support in Linux, unfortunately the Player will not display the map in Linux
Controls
Due to temporary limitations of the Player you will not be offered the option with every Activity. If you see this tab on an Activity then you have the Player available for that Activity. Click on the tab and experience the Beta version of our newest feature.
Player Controls
The Player controls work like a regular media player, simple and clean.
The Play button functions as both the play and pause button.
Click your mouse one the slider arrow to use the slider to jump around the track.
Upon reaching the end of the track, the Player will stop. Hitting the play button again will start the track over.
The drop downs below the chart control what information is displayed on the nearest y-axis.
The plus/minus icon to the top-right of the chart expands/contracts the chart.
Expanding the chart hides the player controls, so to expose them again, contract the chart by clicking on the minus symbol (where the plus was previously located).
You can follow the numbers in the in the chart detail shown below.
If the player was playing, it will continue to play. The keyboard shortcuts (below) will allow you to control the player in this mode.
You can control the width of a column on the data grid by dragging the edge of the column. Double click on a column to hide it. To retrieve hidden columns you have to refresh the page.
Map Controls
In addition to the regular Google Maps controls (pan/zoom/map type) there are 2 new buttons, Small and Large. The player starts out in Small mode with the map zoomed in and centered on the track. The large button will expand the map and zoom in enough so the full track is visible. You can use these buttons to recenter and re-zoom the map on the track.
Clicking on a point near the track will cause the player to seek, or jump, to that point and pause. On a slow system you will notice a pause as the calculation is done.
Keyboard Shortcuts
- x,p = pause/play
- right/left = forward/back 1 point
- ctrl-right/left or pg-up/down = forward/back at the play speed
- ctrl-up/down or home/end = first/last point
- a or [ = open y-axis1 menu
- s or ] = open y-axis 2 menu
- 0-9 controls the playback speed
- +/- inc/dec the playback speed
Features Coming Soon
- Preferences for your preferred columns and default lines in the chart
- Plot (Anything) vs. Distance in the x-axis
- Add cadence
- Matching the colors of the measurements in the charts of the dashboard
- Allow for the distance to match the device or MotionBased calculated distance
- Display better line resolution on the maps (currently limited to 500 points or less)
- Display higher resolution in the charts and plot using the value, not the trackpoint index
- Dot Racing with all the good stats and functions of the player (unlike the previous SVG Dot Racing implementation)
- Analyzer - Tabular display of segment details from laps, splits, custom segments, hills, etc
- Editor - Ignore, modify any measurement of any point along your activity = No more bad data
