Make it obvious which host is connected

[anohren]

I'm often in the situation where I think I'm controlling one instance while connected to another. Since the app supports unlimited number of hosts and quickly hides the hosts list when auto connecting I think there's good reason to make clear from a glance anywhere in the app which one you're connected to.

Here are some suggestions:

• Make it possible to select a specific color for a specific host and then colorize key UI elements (title bar? Gesture zone?) with it. Instant recognition of the situation when you think you're connected to purple but see green. Downside: bright green and red might give the wrong signal, so the list of available colors should be predefined.
• Use the host name as the title in the titlebar/navbar instead of e.g. a static "Remote Control" title (I think most people know it's a remote control 🙂). Downside is that other titles are more useful, so maybe a deeper navbar with two rows of text?
• Bonus: Make the above host name into a drop-down menu for quick host switching. I haven't used the iTunes remote iOS app for some time but I think I stole the idea from there.

Why swiping right and checking manually isn't a solution: I already think I'm connected to the right one (no other hosts exist in my mind) and have no reason or cue to check.

[wutschel]

Agreed, using colors for different UI elements is a good solution. I already did some prototyping months back (#839), but sadly the image hoster stopped service and I didn't keep the code. Basically, I placed a thin vertical colorized bar next to the selected server and in the navigation bar (iPhone, similar to the always visible connection status) or toolbar (iPad). This would allow to keep the titles, which I find useful in most screens.

A quick manual hack shows the basic idea:

[anohren]

I skimmed the open issues and I still missed that one? Sigh...

Yes, something like that might work.

As you say, the other titles are more useful, but that made me think that maybe the very screen that you're most likely to make this mistake on is the "Remote Control" screen, which could actually live without its title? Replacing only that title with the host name might go a long way.

On every other screen you're actually focusing on lists of content (instead of sending commands immediately), which is more likely to clue you in on that you're looking at the wrong thing.

[wutschel]

Could work on this a bit. A solution could look like shown in this video taken from iPhone simulator: video

Instead a vertical bar, I now went for a small colored box left of the global connection status item. The color can be chosen by user via the color picker (needs iOS 14).

[kambala-decapitator]

you could also color the server name in selected color

via the color picker (needs iOS 14)

for earlier versions you could show a list of pre-defined colors as a simple solution

[wutschel]

you could also color the server name in selected color

I tried this long time back and it looked awful, the old screenshots were lost though. Also, this would not work for the global info.

for earlier versions you could show a list of pre-defined colors as a simple solution

Maybe I will go back to pre-defined colors as this would ensure readability. But this is more work than just adding UIColorPickerViewController and its delegate.