OK, as part of the justification for replacing my N800 next year when the ol tax refund comes in (thinking N810, but hoping there might be an even more upgraded model), is that I can repurpose the N800 as a media player for my middle daughter who is handicapped.

Is there any interface or skin for the N800 that would let me put up a menu of videos that she could just click on to play? Preferably something where she couldn't accidentally drop back to the main screen and then start banging keys and ending up in other apps.

Thanks in advance!

MediaBox should do this. It has a UI that is well usable with fingers, shows a scrollable strip of thumbnail images for all your videos, and plays them with a single click.
While you can drop back to the main screen, this is not in a way so that you hit it by accident.

Looks good. I'm installing it as we speak. Don't suppose there's a way to make it start up automatically when the N800 boots?

Which brings up the other question - with the new Maemo 5 sdk getting released, any clue as to when the OMAP3 device will become available? Hopefully about the same time I get my refund

Well, leave it to my daughter to find ways to break an app. Not that she does it on purpose, but she doesn't have good fine motor skills.

MediaBox still lets you drop into the MPlayer OSD menu. It also does nothing to disable the hardware key on front so that if you pick the N800 up without watching carefully (or are switching hands), you can drop out of the app fairly easily. Also if you fast forward past the end of a clip, you get a MediaBox window inside the MediaBox window (though it does straighten itself out eventually).

Worst of these is the front device button that lets you jump back to the Home page. Once there, you need to be fairly dexterous to click the small icon to reopen the MediaBox application.

Any app that handles this better? Any way to configure the device to ignore that hardware key? Any way to configure MPlayer to not show the OSD menu?

Sorry for all the questions, but the daughter is kind of happy to have a media player she can actually control. We've tried some MP3 players before, but she couldn't accurately manipulate the keys or scroll wheels. Suspect an iPod Touch might be better for her issues, but there's a price tag on that which would prevent Dad from getting himself something later

You can start mplayer with the option "-osdlevel 0" so the OSD won't be shown. I don't know whether you can configure MediaBox to starts mplayer with that option, though.

Actually, MediaBox already starts mplayer with this option. Maybe mplayer on maemo ignores it?

MediaBox can use the osso-media-player as an alternative backend for playing videos, but this is not yet configurable in version 0.95. This would make the OSD go away.

For the hardware buttons and the button in the lower left corner, it's possible to implement a kiosk-mode where these are locked. This is not a problem.
I'm planning on releasing version 0.96 soon, anyway.

Is it hard for your daughter to scroll through the videos and press on one to play it? The area where one has to press is quite small, so this could be a problem. In that case i could enlarge the area and maybe activate scrolling when pressing the upper/lower border of the screen.

Oh yes, please! Kinetic scrolling is such an inefficient fad*, I would LOVE to see such a change for good!

Herzlichen Dank :-)
-Tom

*It's much easier and needs less activity and coordination to simply press a up/down scrollbutton. Less fashionable, but much more usable...

who says it has to be one or the other?

They come in different events and can be handled as required

liqbase includes both kinetic and paged viewing on its book reader.

Ideally, pressing anywhere on the icon on the left would start it playing. I understand that would be very confusing with the current scrolling mechanism. She seems to be doing ok with the current scrolling setup because even when she overshoots, she can get back to where she wants.

To be honest, neither of us are sure what she's doing that keeps causing the OSD to come up. I "suspect" it's her habit of wanting to skip parts she's seen already or is tired of watching again, and then hitting things wrong.

For the keys, the keys on the top of the unit (Volume, Power, and Full Screen) should stay enabled. The ones on the front of the unit should be configurable to be off or not, with the default being off. For most folks that's probably no big deal, but the number of times I've handed her the unit and hit the button myself as I do so, or vice versa, convinces me that's a BIG problem for handicapped folks in general, and probably an issue with kids if other folks "hand down" their N800 when they upgrade.

Even the current version is much better than the default player, and my daughter and I are both quite appreciative of the work so far! We do look forward to your next version though!