Using Magic Window
top ↑The Menu Bar
Touch the screen a single time to show or hide the menu bar. From the menu bar you can access all of Magic Window's features. The menu bar will automatically hide itself if it hasn't been touched for 16 seconds.
Browsing Scenes
Press the "Scenes" button on the menu bar to access the scene browser. From the scene browser you can browse through and launch all of the scenes in Magic Window. To launch a scene from the scene browser simply tap the scene thumbnail or name. Swipe up and down to browse the full list.
Magic Window includes 20 scenes of which 3 are built into the app and the remaining 17 are available as free downloads. For more information on downloads and how they work see the downloads section.
The scene browser includes a favorites feature that allows you to mark and browse your favorite scenes. Press the heart button next to a scene to make it a favorite. To browse only favorites touch the favorites button in the lower-left hand corner of the scene browser.
The scene browser also includes a shuffle feature that will randomly shuffle the scenes. Tapping the shuffle button allows you to select between shuffling all scenes, shuffling only favorites, or disabling shuffle.
Settings
Press the "Settings" button to access Magic Window settings.
General settings includes options for showing the clock, title, and weather and setting their transparency. It also includes a setting keep the display on while playing (default) or allow it to turn off with iOS Auto-Lock.
Sound settings includes options for turning on and off ambient sounds and setting their volume. It also includes the "Mute on Lock" setting which controls whether ambient sounds should stop playing when your device is locked.
Speed Control
Press the "Speed" button to set the speed of the scene. Speed control is only available for downloaded and built-in scenes. If a scene has not been downloaded the download button will show instead of the speed button allowing you to download the scene. For more information on downloads see the downloads section.
Pressing the speed button brings up the speed slider. The speed slider allows you to control the speed and direction of the scene. Move the slider to the right to play the scene forward faster. Move the slider to the left to play the scene backwards faster. Position the slider towards the center to play the scene slowly.
Weather
Press the "Weather" button to display the full weather forecast. Once you have set your location, you can also tap on the weather display in the upper left to show weather.
The first time you press weather you will be prompted for your location. You can let Magic Window find the nearest weather station automatically or search for a station by city name, zip code, or address.
Note on micro-climates: Magic Window uses weather data provided by Weather Underground that includes micro-climate support. To get the weather closest to your exact location use either the automatic location look up or search for your exact address. If you search by city name or zip code the station you will receive will be the closest to the center of that area. You can browse the exact locations of the personal weather stations that provide the data at http://wunderground.com/.
Note on international units: Magic Window will automatically select between fahrenheit and celsius based on your device's locale. You can change this setting from the forecast view. Wind speed is currently only supported in miles per hour. We will support other units in a future release.
Night Mode
Press the "Night" button to turn Magic Window into Night Mode. Night Mode is a specially designed interface for using Magic Window at night and on your nightstand. Night Mode provides access to the alarm clock, sleep timer and flashlight. For more information on Night Mode jump ahead to Using Night Mode.
Interacting with Scenes
Magic Window scenes are interactive and their position can be controlled using touch gestures. Only built-in and downloaded scenes can be controlled with touch gestures.
Touch and hold your finger on the screen and slide to the left to move forward through time. Sliding to the right moves backward through time.
Using Night Mode
top ↑Night mode is a full interface for using Magic window at night. It includes a wide range of features and options designed to give you the best possible experience when using Magic Window at night or on a nightstand.
Alarm Clock
The alarm clock allows you to wake up to Magic Window scenes every day. Press the "Wake Alarm" button in Night Mode to configure the alarm.
Important! For the alarm clock to function properly you must keep Magic Window running. Magic Window will continue to run when you lock your device, but not when you switch to another application.
To set the alarm first choose the time you want to wake up. You can then choose the scene and alarm sound you want to wake up to. The sound selector includes an independent volume setting for the alarm volume. This is the volume that the alarm will play at reguardless of the volume you have set the app too.
The scene and sound can be changed after the alarm is set, but not the alarm time. To change the alarm time once the alarm is started you need to stop the alarm first.
By default the alarm will offer you the option to snooze when it goes off. You can disable this by turning off the snooze switch on the alarm.
The Alarm Clock supports iOS4 local notifications. This means that if you close Magic Window you will still receive a notification when the alarm goes off. However the notification will not sound if your ringer switch is off and will only play for 30 seconds. This is only a back-up - the proper way to use the alarm is to keep Magic Window running.
Sleep Timer
The Sleep Timer allows you to fall asleep to Magic Window scenes every night. It is designed to be used with the Alarm Clock. Press the "Sleep Timer" button in Night Mode to configure the timer.
To use the Sleep Timer choose the length of time you want the timer to run and press start timer. To go to sleep now set the timer to 0 minutes.
When the Sleep Timer goes off it fades out audio and stops scene playback.
The Sleep Timer includes an option to keep the display on after going to sleep. This should only be used when your device is plugged in. If the device is not plugged in Magic Window will turn off the screen when your battery level is below 30%.
Volume and Brightness
Night Mode includes volume and brightness controls that let you set the brightness of the display and the volume of the scene while in Night Mode. The volume setting in Night Mode is independent of the volume setting in Settings. This allows you to choose one volume for night use and one volume for day use.
The master volume is controlled by the volume buttons on your device.
The master brightness of the screen can be set by launching the Settings app and selecting the Brightness section.
Flashlight (iPhone/iPod Touch Only)
Magic Window on iPhone includes a handy flashlight. To use it simply press the "Flashlight" button in Night Mode. If you are using an iPhone 4 your camera flash will be used as the flashlight. On iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch the screen will illuminate at full brightness.
Disclaimer: Using the flashlight on iPhone 4 for an extended period of time will drain the battery.
Wallpaper
top ↑iOS does not support living wallpaper or animated wallpapers, so Magic Window can not be used as your device's wallpaper. However you can take screenshots of Magic Window scenes and use them as wallpaper.
To take a screenshot of a Magic Window scene first load the scene you want and navigate it to the frame you want to capture. To turn off the title, weather, and clock change those settings to HIDE in general settings.
Press and hold the HOME button and then PRESS AND RELEASE the LOCK button. If you do this correctly the screen will flash and you will hear a camera sound. A shot of the current scene will be placed in your "Camera Roll" on iPhone or "Saved Pictures" on iPad.
You may be limited to taking one screenshot per session in the app. To take another screenshot lock and unlock your device.
We will offer a better way to use Magic Window snapshots as wallpaper in a future release.
Troubleshooting Downloads
top ↑If the downloads are failing we can understand the frustration. We're here to help you. Please read through this section and if you still can not successfully download the scenes please contact us at support@magicwindowapp.com.
What is happening?
1. The download starts but no progress is made
If the download progress bar displays but does not move (or barely moves) the issue is likely with your network connection. Try the following steps:
- Make sure WiFi is turned on and connected to a WiFi network. WiFi settings are available in the "Settings" application on your iPad.
- Use Safari on your iPad to browse to a website to confirm the network is up. Try visiting http://www.apple.com/ and see if the Apple home page is displayed.
- If Safari doesn't work, try the following:
- Turn off and back on your iPad
- Confirm that WiFi is on and connected
- Launch Safari and ensure you can visit http://www.apple.com/
- Launch Magic Window and try downloading again
- If you are still having problems, we suggest you try downloading on a different WiFi network. Visit a coffee shop, library, or friend's house and try it there. You can also review the following Apple knowledge base articles:
- iPad: Issues connecting to WiFi Networks
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3304 - iPad: Troubleshooting WiFi networks and connections
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3237
2. The download starts but always fails while in progress
If the download starts but regularly fails it is likely due to interference on your WiFi network. There may be a cordless phone or other device interfering with your network. The easiest solution is to try the downloads on another WiFi network. Visit a coffee shop, library, or friend's house and try it there.
3. The download works but is slow
If the download is very slow it is likely due to the speed of your network connection or network interference. To improve speed, try bringing your iPad closer to your WiFi access point.
Magic Window downloads are hosted on Amazon CloudFront which is one of the fastest and most reliable services for hosting downloads internationally. When it comes to speed, the servers are not an issue.
Download Disk Space
top ↑Magic Window scenes are large because they contain a massive number of photos. For all 20 scenes you will need almost 1.7GB of free disk space on your iPad. We know that is asking a lot, so we've added features to Magic Window to help you manage the downloaded scenes.
- You can delete any scene you have downloaded from the scene browser
- You can redownload scenes as many times as you want
- The amount of disk space taken by a download is displayed in the scene browser
If your iPad is using the "fill with music" feature of iTunes it may have less than 500MB available in a normal case. If you are getting errors saying your iPad is low on disk space, we recommend disabling this option and removing some music or media and then re-attempting your downloads. Once you have the scenes downloaded you can re-enable the fill with music feature.
Issues Upgrading from 1.x
top ↑If you are an old school Magic Window user we appreciate your support. We've done everything we can to ensure a smooth upgrade from 1.x to 2.0.
Missing Scenes
In Magic Window 2 we removed five scenes that were found in Magic Window 1. However if you are upgrading from Magic Window 1 you will still have access to those scenes. If you for some reason delete Magic Window or install it from iTunes on another device it will not contain the old scenes.
To re-enable the old scenes ON IOS4+ ONLY open Safari and enter the URL "magicwindow://legacy". Magic Window will launch and the old scenes will be unlocked. If Magic Window was already running in the background you will need to restart it to view the scenes. On iOS4 this means closing the app from the multi-task menu or restarting your device.
Cross-fade missing in some scenes
You may notice that new scenes that are downloaded included a cross-fade while scenes you previously downloaded do not. This is because we have re-processed the scenes since Magic Window 1.
To download the new version of a scene with the cross-fade included simply DELETE the existing scene from the scene browser and DOWNLOAD it again.
Restoring Magic Window to a new device
Magic Window for iPhone 3GS uses a different set of content than Magic Window for iPad for iPhone 4. If you get a new iPhone that has a different resolution display and restore Magic Window to it from iTunes you will receive an alert in Magic Window reporting that settings need to be reset. If you do not reset the settings, you will be using downloads of the wrong scale and will NOT see RETINA quality images on the iPhone 4.
Power Consumption
top ↑When Magic Window is running at fast speeds it can quickly consume battery power. If you are using Magic Window on your desk or nightstand we recommend you have it connected to power at all times.
To prevent draining your battery we have built a power manager that automatically monitors the battery and turns off the display when it is below 30%. If Magic Window is plugged in the display will always stay on.
To disable the Magic Window power manager and instead use the iOS Auto-Lock timer press Settings on the Menu Bar and select General Settings. Scroll to the bottom of settings and you will find an option to keep the display on. Disable this option and the Magic Window power manager will be disabled.
The sleep timer will also turn off the display to save power overnight. This can be disabled by using the "Keep display on" switch on the Sleep Timer setup screen.
Support and Feedback
top ↑If you are in need of further assistance please send e-mail to support@magicwindowapp.com. Please include a short description of the problem you are experiencing in the e-mail. We also love to hear suggestions about how the app can be improved. Thank you. Magic Window loves you.
Frequently Asked Questions
top ↑1. Why are dow nloads required? Why can't they be included with the app?
Downloads make it possible for us to bring you more and more new Magic Window scenes over time. They also greatly reduce the size of updates (by over 1GB) and allow you to manage the amount of disk space Magic Window uses.
2. Will downloads work over 3G?
The downloads are too large to transfer over the 3G network. WiFi is the only way to complete downloads.
3. Can I download multiple scenes at the same time?
Yes, you can queue as many downloads as you'd like at once. Only one download will run at a time, but when that download finishes it will automatically start the next one in the queue.
4. Can I view and change scenes while downloading?
Yes, downloads run in the background. You can view scenes, change scenes, and start other downloads at the same time. You may notice a slight slow-down in the scene while downloads are running.
5. Can I load the scenes through iTunes?
Not currently, though it is something we are looking into.
6. Why are some of the scenes choppy?
Magic Window includes previews for scenes that need to be downloaded. If you haven't downloaded the scene you will be shown the preview which is a little choppy.
You may also experience some choppiness when the application first starts up and while downloading and viewing scenes at the same time.
7. Why can't I delete some of the scenes?
Four scenes in Magic Window are built into the app and can not be deleted. We included these built-in scenes in Magic Window so that people without immediate access to a WiFi network would be able to view some scenes without downloads.
8. What does Auto-reverse do?
Auto-reverse changes the direction of the scene whenever it reaches an end (start or finish.) So if the scene is playing forward and it reaches the end it will start playing backwards. This eliminates the sometimes jumpy transition between the end and beginning of the scene.
9. What is Quick View?
Quick View is simply a fast way to launch your favorite scenes. You can select what scenes are displayed in the Quick View by selecting "Browse More Scenes" from the scene menu and pressing "Add To Quick View" or "Remove From Quick View" next to each scene.
10. I have an idea for Magic Window. Who should I contact?
We're always excited to get feedback and ideas from people using Magic Window. Send us e-mail at contact@magicwindowapp.com with any ideas or other feedback you may have.