Confused

[calzone]

Some points of confusion I have that I'm not sure are simply settings I can change or if it's just the way Wifibooth works and I have to live with them:

• When I take photos with Wifibooth they collect in the gallery waiting for something to be done with them (print I assume). I'd like to be able to delete photos from this queue. Don't see a way to do so.
  -- [EDIT] -- ok, I found the way to delete photos from the gallery. Question resolved.
• I'm pretty sure I don't want to require that the attendees compose their printouts. A traditional phototbooth takes several pictures and prints out two identical 2x6 strips containing all four photos. It looks like Wifibooth takes the pictures and then expects a user to take over and decide what to do with them and how to lay them out. I can see where that is a really nice feature, but I would only want that in very rare circumstances.
  -- [EDIT] -- I found that I can dictate the layout for an event. Question resolved.
• On a related note… I don't want attendees playing with Wifibooth and looking at other people's photos from before or poking around and changing settings. Wifibooth seems to just automatically go from the picture taking screen to the gallery which just invites such exploratory behavior from attendees and it's easy for anyone to change screens.
• And still on that same note, if people don't like the pictures they just took, I'd prefer they could do them over. Instead of sending users to the gallery, it seems to me that Wifibooth should take the photos, compose them according to how I set it up to be composed (or provide alternative pre-defined "templates" I've created for them to choose from) and display the proposed printout to the user… at which point they could tap "reject" — which would delete the originals and allow them to do over, or "accept" which would print them out and save the originals and then instantly load the camera screen again for them to take more photos or leave the booth to the next group.
  -- [EDIT] -- sort of resolved… I found out I can dictate the layout (not sure if I can set various layouts to choose from though) and I found out I can keep people from staying in the gallery for too long by invoking the "All" mode (not sure I understand why it's called "all" or what the alternate modes mean) which then brings them right back to the camera after they view their layout. But there's still the potential for poking at the screen and doing something else… and there's no way to reject the photos (although they could just toss the prints in the trash and take new ones… so not a huge deal).
• There's a confusing moment where nothing happens after the photos are taken (there's a circular progress indicator being drawn but it's not that obvious in spite of its size)… attendees have to wait for the photos to download to the iPad (presumably what's happening?) and get put into the layout. And then on top of that they'll have to wait for the printer to print them after that. Seems like a pretty long wait overall. If there was at least text saying "Hold on while we prepare your prints…" followed by "Here you go… your prints are printing now" it might help?

One final note… because the communication with the camera seems to be so slow, it means the live view screen can take a long time to load. Sometimes it doesn't load at all and I need to go back and forth from the gallery back to the live view screen. It seems to sometimes display an old live view instead of a true live view (when testing it I stepped away and my image stayed there forever)… other times it just hangs and nothing is displayed.
-- [EDIT] -- it's slow and choppy still, but I seem to have gotten past the "sticky" old live view problem. No idea how but it hasn't come back in a while now. However, there's still sometimes a lag of nothing showing up on screen when going from Gallery back to Camera… and of course, there's still the problem that live view is so slow as to be worse for posing than having no live view at all (it fools you into thinking your pose is one thing when it's another… and it seems like the photo gets captured slightly after the feedback that makes you think it got captured.

[tim]

Looks like you’ve solved most of your issues here. The one setting it doesn’t sound like you have found yet, is Event Settings -> Gallery -> Only show most recent photos. Turn that on and people will only be able to see THEIR photos, not photos taken before.

Re the slow camera response, please see my reply on your other thread, let’s chat about that there

[calzone]

Is there anyway to streamline and really dumb-down the user interaction experience?

This is the flow I follow as a user as of right now:

1. Enter booth and see iPad
2. Press the button to take the pictures
3. Wait for a 2 second delay after each picture before the next countdown starts (instead of just starting the countdown for the next photo immediately)
4. After last picture is taken, wait 15 seconds or longer while the app displays a mostly blank screen with a pink dot (until it suddenly turns into a progress circle… I think it would be better to "lie" and show the circle being drawn regardless of progress and stall it out if necessary right at 90%… or show the classic spinning wheel)
5. Gallery loads. Nothing is printed. You just sit there and look at the pictures
6. Camera view returns. If you want a printout, you have to go back to the gallery manually
7. Now you have to select your pictures. Only three were taken and the event is set up to print two copies of three… so why do I have to choose anything? Yet it allows me to perplexingly also choose "illegal" combinations of just two images per strip or (if I had more images in the gallery from a previous session) more than can actually fit in the layout.
8. Ok, I selected my pictures. Now what? Oh… there are two collages shown at the bottom. Am I supposed to tap one? Again, I set up the event to do two sets of three. Why is there an option to print out three full-size photos?
9. Ok, I tapped the 2 strips of 3 collage… now what? Oh, I have to tap "done"
10. Yet another dialogue comes up asking me to print and how many copies
11. Finally, my printouts come out

I'd prefer a base flow like this:

1. Enter booth and see iPad
2. Tap button to initiate pictures
3. countdown for first picture, flash, no delay, countdown for second picture, flash, no delay, countdown for third picture, flash
4. composed photos are displayed to the user while the printer prints out the photos (optional: give user opportunity to confirm or decline/redo)
5. iPad returns to camera view
6. user picks up printouts and leaves

Is there anyway to get to a flow like that?

-- [EDIT]--
Steps 5 - 10 above in the first flow above seem to have been largely mitigated once I realized that the test event I ended up in did not have the printer already connected (my other test event did have it connected and I assumed the printer connection would persist). After connecting the printer, it seems to mostly jump straight to printing after the progress circle step… however, there is a weird flash on the screen showing a print dialogue that does go away.

That leaves the progress circle delay as my main concern, with the post picture taking delay as a secondary concern.

[tim]

Hi again,

Re the delays you mention as steps 3 & 4, and the progress circle delay: this is not normal, and that's not what I experience when I use a Canon camera. I suspect it relates to your wifi setup - i'll wait to hear back from you about that (ie. on the other thread, here, or wherever).

Re connecting printers: AirPrint printers are remembered and auto-connected when they're found. Other printers (DNP, FTP etc) must be connected each time you start the app.