📹 Creating a Custom User Interfaces in AVA OS 3

You can adjust the default user interfaces and even create whole new ones with AVA OS 3. Apple TV long press is special guest example in this AVA how-to.
 

Transcript

Opening

With AVA OS 3, you can customize any default slide.

Introduction

I’m demonstrating from the AVA companion app on Mac OS, but this works right from the touch screen of either model of AVA remote control.

Slides are the screens that show when you start a flow…or tap an Active Flow banner.

They’re called slides because…well, you can slide from one slide to another.

Each Slide has different controls for the current Flow.

Customize a Slide

You can customize any slide as you need by holding down anywhere on the background and then tapping “Edit Custom UI.”

I don’t need DIRECTV on my TV apps slide, so I can remove it.

I want Netflix at the top, so I press and hold the button to get a grip on it…

and then move it where I want.

Tap “Done” and it applies your work.

Create a Custom UI

Let’s explore a bit more.

Hold on the background again and “Edit Custom UI.”

You can edit any screen…

…but this screen…is your playground.

Click any of the footprints here and you get 3 options.

Widgets are compound controls, like directional pads and the Now Playing feature that the Apple TV driver has.

Commands are single actions you can send to any device.

Flows are sequences of commands for more complex operations.

Let’s look at Commands.

Here you can see that I can target any device in the project.

I’ll pick Apple TV because I want to use some commands that are not in the default slides.

Down in the Miscellaneous category, there are these press-and-hold commands that you can’t get to from the Cinema Remote’s dynamic keypad.

So I add them to the Custom UI slide…

Arrange the Custom UI

And now I can arrange them.

Remember to hold long enough to get a grip on them.

Customize Icons

Once arranged…this pencil icon lets you tailor each button to what you want.

I don’t want the device label on this button, so I toggle it off.

Then, I can apply a custom Label that makes sense for the client.

Next, change the icon.

A quick search for “Home” avoids a long search.

Then pick a color, if you want it to stand out.

But use colors sparingly. You can see from my example here that I probably went too far.

Re-order Slides

When editing the Custom UI, there’s a top-right menu that is worth exploring.

For example, “Edit Slides” lets me change the order of the slides.

I can make my custom slide the default after launching the Flow by putting it first.

Restoring Sanity

And one last thing…if you find that your customizations went way too far…

You can reset the Flow’s custom UI back to default from this menu…

Or you can restore the whole project from your last backup to get to any previous checkpoint.

Summary

That lets you go wild and make whatever crazy Custom UIs you want. Explore it a bit. Break things.

Just remember: most Flows have great defaults for your clients, so use custom UIs mainly to solve small gaps. There’s no value in reinventing the wheel.