Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

Pretty cool that things are frozen and that the accelerated aspect of app development can happen. Here's hoping that some of the goddies make it to Mer in due time, and/or that I get a Maemo 5 powered device to play... er, help developers test with :D

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

You can still use standard Gtk menus with sub-menus, it is just not recommended.

Applications designed for the new UI guidelines are very slick, but you can still use all traditional Gtk elements to make ports easier. If something behaves in a totally incompatible way, then it has been implemented as a new Hildon widget instead of changing Gtk functionality. Dialogs are probably the biggest case of changed functionality, but they should generally still work ok without changes.

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

I suppose that most of the information is meant for all Maemo 5 devices, so its hard to figure out what may be coming in the near future. For instance under device orientation in interface guidleines it talks about " . . . progress indicators are only displayed in the landscape orientation. Apart from incoming calls, in this mode no other notifications are displayed on the screen. Instead, the other notifications are indicated by sound, vibration or LED." See http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/beta/hig/html/c113.html

Is this just general instructional language (for voip and other "calls") or specific language implying that soon a Maemo 5 device will be a phone?

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

So we still won't have fully functional portrait mode?

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

But that would be like what we have today when an application is not properly hildonized, like the menu would be horizontally arranged and take screen real estate all the time, even if not in use. - Right?

That's not what i meant by "port", that would be running it without (much of a) change.

By "port" i meant integrating the application into the overall look&feel of the target platform. That's gonna be tough with applications like Xchat or Pidgin. (A quick guess would be it's not gonna be tough, but completely impossible without a complete re-write...)

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

From what I've read it seems like there will be an "official" portrait mode -- but obviously some of the UI needs to be altered when switching modes.

For example, from the Hildon Human Interface Guidelines:

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

Are you suggesting that Xchat or Pidgin looked like integrated to Maemo before? I wouldn't say so, and yet thousands of users enjoyed them because they filled a gap.

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

Hold on. Today we had an SDK beta release, that will be a more solid beta in one month. "Beta SDK" refers to the platform components providing APIs and the SDK tool itself. But if you are talking about 'new devices brought to you' you need to take into account the components tied to the hardware that are not published in the SDK and the applications that are equally missing there.

This beta is out now because we (and you) wanted to give as much time as possible to application developers to have their software ready for the final release.

This beta is also out now because we (and you) wanted to support the Mer project aka Fremantle community edition for N800/N810 giving them as much time as possible to work.

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

Do you mind discussing those in any of the "What can we expect..." threads out there, or wherever else you prefer? This way we can keep this beta SDK thread on topic with the SDK itself. Remember that the Alpha SDK thread became a debate about the Cancel button and the Maemo 5 finger friendly UI for the most part.

Thank you.

Re: Maemo 5 Beta SDK out
 

Mhm... Actually yes, I always thought they were excellent examples of good ports, that's why I mentioned them in this context.

Anyway, forget those two:
My point was that it's getting even more difficult than it is today if you want to do it right. (And I hope developers want to do The Right Thing.)
The menus may be the most evident example: It'll not be enough to transfer them from horizontal to vertical and remove icons, you'll need to re-design the whole UI from scratch if the original application has more than 10 menu items and some sub-menus.

I also find it hard to understand why a the-device-formerly-known-as-an-internet-tablet has a more restricted UI than, say, my two cell phones with smaller screens and less powerful hardware. Doesn't matter, though, does it? I'll buy, I'll learn, I'll love. As before. ;)