Weekly App Hack for 12-18 October: Exhibition Mode 25
Thu, 13 Oct 2011 6:22 pm EDT 
Last week, HP put out to the webOS developer world a challenge: design and submit an app in a week that will convert text to speech. Apart from the code, HP didn’t put any stipulations on how the app was to work. This week, while they’re judging the submissions from the previous week, they’re putting developers on notice again, this time putting forth an even more open-ended challenge: make something that uses Exhibition Mode.
Exhibition Mode is the passive display mode that a webOS devices (running 2.1 or higher) enters when placed on a Touchstone charger. The built-in options are merely a clock, calendar agenda, and photo slideshow. A small but growing number of apps utilize Exhibition on phones and the TouchPad for a number of things, from displaying the weather to sports scores to a little bit of everything (Glimpse and Flixi). The motivation for picking Exhibition Mode for this week’s App Hack was made pretty evident in the blog post announcement, calling it “one of the most under-appreciated features of webOS.” We can’t help but agree.
Source: HP webOS Developer Blog
25 Comments
It is underappreciated, underutilized and relatively unknown because of their own folly. To charge $80 to get access to a feature that differentiated your products from run of the mill devices should surely be high up in the missteps that HP and before that palm made when launching webos.
You don't have to have a touchstone to use exhibition. Just go to Exhibition app and click "Start Exhibition."
Great for charging the old fashion way too!
Yeah, and you don't have to pay $80 to access it either. You can get a phone Touchstone for $8 on Amazon, and they'll no doubt go down in price soon for the Touchpad.
Under $5 from VZW, free 2 day shipping... they might have finally sold out though
I just got my Touchstone for my TP today so I'm looking forward to seeing what developers come up with for this one. :)
It's good to see more than 1 article a day here again!
How about a hack which allows the calendar to be used in exhibition mode? Seems like a no brainer to me
Is there any mention of which Apps was submitted for the last Weekly App Hack, so we can look for them in the App Catalog?
don't quote me on this, but i've heard that the app catalogue has a bit of a backlog at the moment. if this is true it may take some time for them to come through...
Exhibition Mode apps are great and all, but what I'm missing are two fundamental features:
1. Have the screen switch off when idle (adjustable timer)
2. Tap on the screen to switch the screen back on (rather than needing to press the power or navigation button on the touchpad)
3. Have a setting to decide what sort of events can turn the screen on (if off) and what should not. Option (1) should apply, i.e. the screen should switch off again after the timer expires
These will make exhibition mode much more useful for me. What I find myself doing now is:
1. place the phone/touchpad on the dock
2. press the power button to switch off the screen
3. some notification bring up the screen on, so need to switch it off again
I believe there is a setting to disable notifications during screen lock.
How bot making exhibition mode (and newer versions of WebOS for that matter) available to all WebOS users.....nudge, nudge Mr. HP/Palm
Sadly, I've not be able to dip my feet in the webOS development pool yet so I'm just going to pitch an idea. Use the camera in Exhibition mode to see if someone is around, greet them with a message (textual or audible or both) asking them if they needed anything. Use speech recognition to choose which of the installed exhibition modules to show. Have a customized sensitivity or frequency of motion to avoid annoyance.
Would pay for app that turned OFF screen and allowed charging (Night Stand doesn't cut it). Came to website today specificly for that reason. Real bummer I can't use the charging stand the way I'd like to. I'd use exhibition mode if I had an extra TP in the living room. Not happy with it next to my bed. sigh
Can't you just press the power button? I dont have a touchstone, so I don't know exactly how it behaves.
Thanx Numanair, you may have improved my sleep.
After just one test last night. Airplane Mode plus Power button quick press seems to kill screen and still charge. Without Airplane Mode, new emails will reactivate screen (forums were not clear if this was 100% certain. I've verified only once). Not sure how this effects using as Alarm Clock.
Still, would love to control behavior from "Settings".
one solution i have to this problem is to close the cover of the touchpad's case :) not ideal...
When the TP is on the charging dock you can turn off the TP screen completely. All you have to do is hit the power button. (I hope this is what you were talking about)
Extending Nightstand to also turn off the backlight would be great. Screen should only be turned on for alarm, and nothing else.
Pls ad horizontal view!!!
Pfft, Exhibition mode under-appreciated? How about some Synergy plugins already? I know there are people dying for Facebook chat, and it wouldn't hurt to have Windows Live Messenger support either, among others...
NuttyBunny's working on the Pre 3 version... but would love to have an official version from HP, but probably that's not going to happen.
My favorite Exhibition Mode app has to be LCARS-Clock. It's geeky and useful!
I wish the Exhibition Mode portion of Baseball Live! had worked properly, haven't tried out Football Live! to see if it has the same issues.
Of course exhibition mode is compelling. The only thing left for the Pre is a bedside clock (yuck yuck). Seriously, I still miss WebOS, so I keep my pre by my bedside, and use my petulant android Photon for real work. A shame!
The other yuck I get is seeing all these dudes put Android on the TouchPad. Talk about bass-ackwards! If anyone can get WebOS on my Photon, I'd really like to hear about it. No keyboard makes that a challenge, but, as I recall, the WebOS Developers were the smartest in the WORLD!
Nice to be back and look around. Sad to see so many still hoping.
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