maemo.org - Talk - Fennec Alpha 1

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Re: Fennec Alpha 1

You can also consider Skype or some different sort of communication. Seems this one is rather slow for you. :D

Re: Fennec Alpha 1

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bundyo (Post 270209)

You can also consider Skype or some different sort of communication. Seems this one is rather slow for you. :D

sooo... you want to talk me into using a proprietary system on an open device. is that it? did you come here to have me explain to you in 1001 words why skype is evil and should never have been even an option on the tablets? :D

(Oh, and I don't like it, because it doesn't meet my demands.)

Re: Fennec Alpha 1

The Fennec people do have different goals for non-touchscreen and touchscreen:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/UI/D...NonTouchScreen
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/UI/Designs/TouchScreen

Clearly, the usage paterns are different.

For example:

Quote:

The Touch Screen UI design has the following goals:
* 1-2 taps for most frequent activities
* Finger taps -- no stylus required
* Familiar (to desktop users) where possible
* Intuitive

The design proposals described below attempt to meet all these goals.

[...]

Quote:

Originally Posted by benny1967 (Post 270146)

What's this thing I have then? It sure is a mobile PC, and it sure has N800 printed on it), WebKit, Gecko, SSH.... you could start 34 threads with all this.

What is Hildon then? The point here is that applications must be ported to the platform. You can conveniently just run all Linux/ARM applications on a handheld like this. For normal users however, this is impractical. They want to a good UI. And some would actually pay for some applications and features too.

Quote:

All I wanted to say is that I see nothing in Fennec that is specifically designed for mobile use (whatever "mobile use" may be in this context).

That much is clear. You do not appear to see why the UI paradigm on a mobile device is different than on a PC. You're also an apparent fan of the stylus. As such, I'm not surprised you aren't able to see the benefits of Fennec.

Quote:

I see a browser with basically no UI at all that requires an explanation on how to use the most basic functions (back, enter URI, ...).

The UI is different than Mozilla Firefox or MicroB I give you that. If you first time in your life use GNOME, Windows 95, Windows 3.11, MacOSX, FVWM, S60 you must learn the interface and the way you interact with it. That is normal. That such requires an explanation is also normal. If you'd read the manual (text, and video) you'd figure out pretty quickly how the thing works.

Quote:

I can understand which type of users wants such a browser. And I predict that these users may eventually want such a browser on their desktops, too, because why they want it has nothing to do with mobile use.

Hmm. We'll see. I don't want Safari mobile or Opera Mini on my desktop.

Quote:

Oh, and I don't like it, because it doesn't meet my demands.

True. But if a browser like this was default?

Quote:

(Which isn't a crime, nobody said it was made specifically for me.)

1) Maemo 5 will be optimized for finger usage
2) Fremantle, and even more so Harmattan, will be be by default catering to the normal user.
3) We'll see WebKit or Gecko for mobile devices more actively developed, including UI. On S60 we see S60browser. On iPhone OS we see Safari mobile. Both use WebKit. And then we have Gecko as well. You can be sure these 2 are the big players, together with IE and Presto (Opera).
4) Techies will be able to mod the thing. Hack stylus into it, for example. Or make sure they can copy/paste. Print. View source code. And create other bindings. Hopefully via XUL extensions. Then no recompiles are necessary. These are simple things which Apple doesn't allow and actively makes sure it is impossible. And that is exactly why software liek Fennec and corporations like Nokia have a place in this market. They're more liberal, less limiting. Because keep in mind we're talking about default settings and default functionality here.

(Next week I'll be testing Weave. It currently isn't easy to set up on N810 this will be fixed next week.)

Re: Fennec Alpha 1

Quote:

Originally Posted by allnameswereout (Post 270020)

With intended audience I refer to people who do not wish to mimic their desktop browser experience on their mobile device. Instead, they will use the pros and cons of the mobile device and adapt the mobile browser to that.
...
Back in the 90s we had some of the above restrictions but we usually simply used thin clients, and we had synchronisation with LDAP. Microsoft won the browser war and didn't implement LDAP in their browser.

[Disclaimer: I'm not trying to fan any flames or anything. I haven't tried fennec yet, but I'm interested in it]

I'm one of those "open everything in a new tab" people. Back in the 90's, I was using a 486SX notebook with 32MB of RAM, a 640x480 greyscale screen and a 19200 bps modem. I regularly had 10-20 tabs open in Opera. (They weren't called tabs back then; they were called MDI windows - but it was the same idea).

Using tabs is actually a very good way to compensate for limited network and CPU resources. Go to Google, open the first 10 links in the background and then click next. Then switch to each window as it renders.

Obviously, web pages were a lot smaller back then, too. But I've got more memory in my n810 than I did in that old notebook. :)

I think that interfaces optimized for small devices are great. And they should definitely be optimized for the common use cases. But truly great user interfaces are deep: they only look simple on the surface. They reveal more to the user as the user learns more about the application.

Gestures are a great way of hiding more advanced features. A gesture for "open page in new tab in the background" is invisible, so it doesn't confuse new users.

Michael