Sunday, February 9, 2014

Automation of your digital photo frame


Recently I developed a number of automation options allowing to start a slideshow on your command. These features are premium only mostly because of the needed permissions. The same and more advanced setup's can be achieved by using another app as tasker or (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.autostart) autostart. Having the basic options in the app itself removes the need of these other apps.



The most important setting is if you want to start the slideshow when opening the app. This needs to be enabled together with the other options to start the slideshow directly, otherwise folder selection appears. This option is also available for the other versions of the app.
The possibilities to start the app are
* During device start automatically launch digital photo frame.
* At a certain start hour, launch the app (e.g. at 9 am)
* When charging starts or the device gets docked (e.g. you dock it in the office or at a visible place at home)

Disabling the start and end hour option is done by reverting to 0 hour 0 minutes.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Use your android tablet as digital photo frame

Instead of buying a separate digital photo frame it is possible to use your current android tablet or an old one that you still have lying around instead. Because the user interface of a tablet is a lot easier than of a digital photo frame, you can easier manipulate the device and have a lot more functionality. The only thing a tablet is missing is a kick stand to have your tablet in the right angle. Luckily you can buy that easily as accessory or have it included in a case.
This post describes the usage of different versions of the "digital photo frame" android app available in google play store and amazon app store.



Step 1 - Decide the source of your photos.
Your android device has limited local storage so being able to insert an SD card or USB is an interesting feature. All versions of digital photo frame allow local stored photos.
A first advantage is that an android devices has network access and thus allows more storage options than a digital photo frame without. If at home you can use a network share (of a NAS or pc) or a UPnP server. You will need Digital Photo Frame Slideshow in this case. If you store your photos centrally on the web, Flickr and Dropbox are supported using Digital Photo Frame Web. The premium version allows usage of all sources.

Step 2 - Check the slideshow options
By default the slideshow uses a fullscreen layout and randomly chooses transitions. Check out the different possibilities to personalize your slideshow.




Step 3 - Choose text shown during slideshow
Maybe you want to maximally see your photos or you might prefer to have more information displayed on screen. With a number of options you can choose what, where and how text is shown.


Step 4 - Actions during slideshow
You can change time between photos, layout and transition during the slideshow by swiping from the left side.



When clicking on a photo, the slideshow is paused and the current photo is shown. By sliding left or right the previous or next photo is shown.

Step 5 - Sit back and enjoy the slideshow