DFP roadblock with two ads of the same size - google-dfp

My company's site runs two ads on every page with the same size (head and foot banner). When we run roadblocks we want to be able to flight one creative to the head banner and a blank placeholder to the bottom banner. Is there any way to do this?
As far as we can tell the only targeting control we have is at the line-item level. So we can make a roadblock line-item that targets both head and foot ad-units and create two creatives for the line item. But, since the ad-units are the same size we can't seem to control which creative goes where.

Switch Rotate creatives to Weighted (in Line item settings) and give the creative that should be displayed in the first ad unit much higher weight.

Related

Hololens: how to render element visible only in AR, but not in mixed reality capture

I'm making a presentation of someone using the Hololens that is duplicated on a big screen. For duplication it uses the device portal's mixed reality capture option (live stream).
I need to render a tool tip to be visible only to the person with the Hololens - but invisible to the people watching it on the big screen.
From what I've seen, the only difference in rendering between the two is that I can render black on the live stream (if I omit rendering the alpha channel) with it being invisible on the Hololens due to the way it's screen works. This is unfortunately useless to me, as I need to show something to the Hololens viewer, not big screen viewers.
Any ideas on how can I make part of the content visible only to the hololens user?
I can't use spectator view due to other constraints (I need first person view).
Found a solution, not the best one possible, but usable.
I render the tooltip objects only to the right eye, as only the contents of the left eye are included in the live view.
For anyone wondering, in a shader, there is a magic value of unity_StereoEyeIndex that has the value 1 or 0, depending on the eye. To use this value, it first needs to be set up.
If anoyone has an idea how can I do this without sacrificing stereoscopy, I'll be happy to hear about it.

know object behind another object is fully visible

I have developed scratch card effect.I am stuck at logic of how can I know object got visible which is behind the scratch card image? So that I can show reward screen.
PS: with modifications in this link I able to work this scratch card effect in uGUI.
There are many ways you could go about this. Assuming you know the dimensions of the red "target image" that the user is trying to uncover, you could take a fixed number of samples from the area that the target is under. Once, say, 80% of those samples are transparent (i.e. the target is visible at those positions), you can consider the object visible and show the reward screen.
You can use GetPixel to get the individual samples from the scratch texture.

Game Center LEaderboard Questions

I am in the process of adding Game Center to one of my apps. What I would like to do is set up a leader board per "continent" (North America, South America, Asia, Europe, etc.).
Question 1: If I do this, does game center have the ability to show all results for all leader boards on one leader board? Meaning, I can allow users to see if they are top in their continent, but then also allow them to check their ranking overall. Possible?
Question 2: Since my app is Universal, is there a way to force the standard GC Leader board on the iPad to full screen? I have played around with the GKLeaderBoardViewController view.bounds and although this does allow me change the size, it still maintains the original border of the default size. Meaning, there is a square box around the middle of the view, but the data is actually expanded like it should be. (I wish I knew how to include pics here) Have also used the modelPresentationStyle but same results with the box around a smaller portion of the screen.
Finally, concerning both questions above, is it just better to create your own custom view? I was hoping to avoid this especially since the newer look from iOS 5 Leader boards are actually very nice.
Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.
Geo...
So yes the do allow for one main combined leader board. Just a matter of creating a combined one and adding the others as you see fit.
As for making Game Center full screen on the iPad, no response and luck with searches.
Geo...

"Slider" type label as seen on Facebook and AP Mobile News

Please pardon my lack of Photoshop skills, but I'm curious what type of strategy Apps like Facebook and AP Mobile News are using for the 'label slider' in their applications. Here's a quick snippet outlining what I'm talking about as I'm sure the name I'm labeling the utility as is being butchered: http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/57676/slider.jpg
Essentially the user can touch the label and glide it along the X axis. It has a smooth bounce effect also once it hits the edges. This gives quite a bit more real estate if you need to present more on the screen than what your portrait mode allows for and is thus very valuable.
Is it a matter of just creating a UILabel that's wider than the screen with a bit of Touch API + Core Animation? Would love insight on how to start tackling this thing.
You'll most likely want to use a UIScrollView, with a UILabel as its content view. Size the label appropriately to your content, and then set the contentSize property of the scrollview to that size.
I created a similar control, and it's much easier than you think. It's just a UIScrollView with a series of UIButtons added to it. You could use labels instead of buttons - just depends on the feel you want. I think Facebook is probably using labels for theirs.
In any case, you'll probably want to use a series of components rather than one component (which is what Ben suggested) in the event that you want to, say, style the "selected" label differently from the others. It also makes hit detection a little easier.
You get the bounce effect for free by default - you may have noticed that most scroll views in iPhone apps do the same thing. It can be turned off as well.

Things to consider when writing for touch screen?

I'm starting a new project which involves developing an interface for a machine that measures wedge and roundness of lenses and stores the information in a database and reports on it. There's a decent chance we're going to be putting a touch screen on this machine so that it doesn't need to have a mouse or keyboard...
I don't have any experience developing for full size touch screens, so I'm looking for advice/tips/info from you guys...
I can imagine you want to make the elements a little larger than normal... space buttons out a bit more.... things like that... anyone have anything else to add?
A few things to consider:
You need to account for parallax error when touching controls. Basically, the user may touch the screen above or below your actual control and therefore miss the control. This is a combination of the size of the control (eg you can have the active area larger than visual control to allow the user to miss and still activate the control), the viewing angle of the user (which you may or may not be able to predict/control) and the type of touch screen you're using. If you know where the user will be placed relative to the screen when using it, you can usually accommodate this with appropriate calibration.
Depending on the type of touch screen, you may need to ensure that your users aren't wearing gloves or using an implement other than their fingers (eg the end of a pen) to touch the screen. Some screens (eg those depending on conductance) don't respond well to anything other than flesh and blood.
Avoid using double clicks because it can be very hard for users to reliably double click a control. This can be partly mitigated if you've got experienced/trained users working in a fairly controlled environment where they're used to the screens.
Linked to the above, if you are using double clicks, you may find the double click activated when the user only wants to single click. This is because it's very easy for the user's finger to bounce slightly on touching the screen and, depending on how sensitive the double click settings are, trigger a double rather than a single click. For this and the previous reason, we always disable double clicks and only use single clicks (or similar single activation controls).
However big you think you need to make the controls to allow for touch activation, they almost certainly need to be bigger still. Make sure you test the interface with real users in the real deployment environment (or as close to it as you can get). For example, we deployed some screens with nice big buttons you couldn't miss only to find that the control room was unheated and that the users were wearing thick gloves in the middle of winter, making their fingers way bigger than we had allowed for.
Don't put any controls near the edges of the screen - it's very hard to get your finger into the edges (particularly if the screen has a deep bezel) and a slight calibration problem can easily shift the control too close to the edge to use. Standard menus and scroll bars are a good example of controls that can be very tricky to use on a touch screen and you should either avoid them (which is preferable - they're not good for touch screens) or replicate them with jumbo equivalents.
Remember that the user's hand will be over the screen, obscuring some of the screen and controls (typically those below where the user is touching, but it depends on the position of the user relative to the screen). Don't put instructions or indicators where the user's hand or arm will obscure them when trying to use the control they relate to (eg typically put them above rather than below the control).
Depending on the environment, make sure your touch screen is suitably proofed against dust, damp, grease etc and make sure it's easy to clean without damaging it. You wouldn't believe the slime that can quickly accumulate on a touch screen in an industrial or public setting.
The other obvious one is that there's no equivalent of pointer 'hover'. Not that that affects many apps though.
If you decide to put in analog controls (scrollbars, rotation widgets, etc) be sure to put in a digital control also. Some companies think that a touch screen means perfect control over something with your fingers. In real life, this translates to minutes of frustration trying to fix a number that's just a little off.
The most obvious thing is that everything on the GUI needs to be big enough for a fingertip to hit, which is sometimes bigger than you think.
As has been mentioned, there's really no way for a right-click action to happen. Also, double-clicking can be tricky with a fingertip on a touch screen.
The other major thing is that you'll want to create a on-screen keyboard that pops up for text entry and an on-screen numpad for number only fields.
I wrote my own set of controls for a POS application designed specifically to be touchscreen friendly.
Remember to allow enough real estate for stubby fingers and talons. In our application the users can have these manicures that necessitate them to use the pad of their finger instead of the tip. This means that you need to allow more space for activation areas than you would normally consider in any other type of application.
I would also recommend that you accommodate yourself as a programmer from a testing standpoint and from the point of view that things change and there may need to be a keyboard/mouse attached to a non-touch workstation. I cannot tell you how many times I went to touch my flat panel LCD expecting something to happen, before remembering that I had to use the mouse.
Make sure to read your basic UI principles like Fitz law (The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target).
Also consider whether or not the device is stationary or not when it is in use (e.g., like a palmpilot or iphone), research shows that you must accomodate that into your design.
The larger gui elements is the major thing. But it applies to all elements, scroll bars, tabs and even text fields.
The other major thing that I can think of, it's hard for the user to right click. So things that require a right click should be avoided, context menus are the only thing that comes to mind at the moment.
The other responses are pretty good, but are you totally sure that a touch screen would actually be easier to use? There are a lot of devices where a touch screen actually makes them much harder to use, not easier. The main problem is that you can't use the device when you're not looking at it. If users are going to be doing a lot of repetitive actions, a keyboard could be a lot more efficient.
Also, a touch screen might be a lot harder to use by someone with a disability, if you think there's even a small chance that could happen.
Even though this is quite old now, I found it to still be useful, as a starting point for design considerations.
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/tsdesigngl/index.htm
If you've not already done so, have a look at some of the documentation available for developers on mobile platforms, eg Windows Mobile, iPhone.