Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

how do you right click without a long click?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I like the ability of a long click to represent a right mouse click. As a former product designer (and thus heavy user of parametric modeling tools such as SolidWorks) I am a big, BIG evangelist for context-sensitive UI approaches. Hide what the user doesn't need, and bring up what he/she does need based mainly on current context. Beautiful. Reduction of used real estate, reduction of clicks, win for the happy user.

I don't see a better way for right clicks to be emulated on the tablets, unless one considers combining touch with a hardware button press-- and I just don't see that as better. But to each his own.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I, for one, will welcome consistency!

There are places and times for both finger and stylus. Unfortunately, I found I can never just use my finger, I have to dig out the stylus, even at the most awkward times... "(finger tap, finger tap..) excuse me, just gotta... oompf... shift my stuff around so I can free up an extra hand and get the stylus out so I can tap that tiny little menu item / scroll bar / button ..."

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I don't. :(
I use the stylus for browsing. The current browser simply won't work with fingers.
But I wouldn't mind it being more finger-friendly.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

one could say that context sensitive is one short step up from keyboard shortcuts. at least thats how it seems to be with windows users.

also, as the menu is something you dont see, if you forget about testing whats there, you may miss a feature or more (happened to me with mauku).

then there is the issue of screen sensitivity. if find myself unable to maintain consistent pressure long enough for the menu to come up. often i end up having accidental double-clicks because of that.

this also happened when im dragging things around. either i rest the stylus or finger on the screen with just enough pressure to read it as a click and drag, or i cant maintain the pressure thru the drag and get a unwanted event (like say the files ending up in the wrong dir, mail opening when i want to multiselect, or just having to start over).

then there is trying to hit a small target while getting that menu to appear. bothersome like nothing else when you want to open up a link in a different page. specifically forums or similar that hide links behind small graphical elements.

with a mouse one can drag over to see the hand, then right click. no such thing with the stylus or finger. you only really know if you hit based on the border (but that can be so small as to be hidden under the stylus tip), or the content of the menu.

sure, i could zoom the page. but that takes time, and it will have to be zoomed back out ones the next page opens up so that i can read the full page without having to scroll sideways (i could turn on "fit to page", but that makes the page rendering take even longer then it usually do with all the ajaxy bling that pages have these days).

its a bit of damned if one do, damned if one dont...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Too much analysis leads to paralysis. :p

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

heh, there may funnily enough be some truth to that...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

You bet there is. I'm the analytical type by nature (and occasionally by career). A former manager had to constantly warn me against "analysis paralysis"-- and he was mostly on target. So I constantly force myself to apply an 80/20 rule to any endeavor, and you know what? It's usually appropriate. ;)

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I wonder if the average user ever thinks of the UI we have as being inconsistent or crappy or anything else than "the way it should be".

Sometimes I think we're just a bunch of very, very strange people - and in no way representative of the real world out there ;)

(I mean... come on! Would any normal user register on a forum and discuss user interface design???)

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Oh my God. Oh my God!

I should change my font or at least increase letter spacing. Or think of something else quickly. This is a C and an L close together, not a D!

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

lmao, that macle my clay...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I'm with you on that. I think a possible solution would be a Wacom (or equivalent) digitizer and a capacitive multi-touch sensor; to limit power draw from the active digitizer, it can be turned off when the stylus is stowed.

I have a combo resistive/digitizer on my tx2000, and it's quite nice to work on; replacing the resistive with multi-touch would be great as it would make two-thumbing easier.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

those that "dont care" are better known as sheeple ;)

but seriously, the silent majority probably makes do with what they have at hand. it may even be that they dont install additional software, or even upgrade the firmware...

thats one of the pet issues with reviews of things like the recent netbooks. the tester, being probably a knowledgeable windows user, keeps saying that while the product is ok out of the box, installing stuff is a hassle.

but i wonder how many really install software. mostly it seems to be that ones you go beyond the media player codecs and the office pack, non-gamers or people with work related needs dont seem to install that much.

and if they do its probably so rarely that they grab the nearest geek to do it for them, or at least be on standby while its done in case of some weird event. and for those users, anything can be considered weird...

i think that the more one think of something as static ones its on hardware, the closer one gets to how it will be used.

hell, i wonder how many non-geeks would like to own a remote control that have its button layout change depending on what its controlling at the moment.

and then take that concept and scale it maybe 100-1000 times to get you smartphone, pda, tablet or computer.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

that would be how the dell convertible is equipped iirc...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!

Thanks to Benny, now I gotta show this thread to the wife...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Why not both methods? I want to right click combining a hardware button press with touch when I'm holding the NIT with left hand and touching the screen with right hand. That would be much more practical IMO. One doesn't exclude the other.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Eh??

So now the tablet has to figure out which hand you are holding it with??? :confused:

But you're right... you could have an "always on" Power+C l ick = Right C l ick or Long C L ick = right C l ick ...

:D :D

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

You can never be too careful, you could end up looking like a real click.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Hey.. stop clicking around... "This is serious thread!" :mad:


;)

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Not necessarily. It's enough if both methods are available all the time ;)

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

or nokia could mirror the controls on the other side off the screen ;)

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Gah... I'm so late for the fun :)

Okay, I've always imagined a context-sensitive finger-friendly interface. For instance - imagine you have a fullscreen browser without any toolbars or scrollbars. You drag somewhere on the page and scroll. Or you can click close to the right/left edge where a scrollbar is supposed to be and a biiig scrollbar appears (over the page, without re-layout, maybe transparent) - you scroll and after you get your finger up, the scrollbar disappears. You click on the bottom edge and you've got a toolbar the same way - do what you want, press a button and it is gone. How does that sounds as a finger friendly not wasting space interface? :)

I can say the same but the other way round - old and well established desktop technologies are ***** to program a new and usable interface, which doesn't fit in the old frame (and the mobile interfaces certainly are not). GTK+ for sure, didn't try QT yet, but i bet it also has its quirks. The technologies are moving for the better, adopting CSS for styling, but until that happens, we will enjoy crap GUIs, 'cause you're unable to do better without going to the roots (like lcuk does).

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

With the long click the way it's implemented right now, I find inconsistent behavior. Half the time when I take my finger off the screen so I can read the menu it's bringing up, the menu disappears.

So I ask, why does a context sensitive UI have to be activated by a long click? Why not a short click? Isn't the whole process of clicking on an object within an application indicating "Hey I want to do something with this"?

As for the stylus debate, anyone ever try using a stylus while driving? Windows Mobile 5.0 tried to force me to with its tiny interface, so I had to get good at being precise with my fingers and it sucked big time. Please don't force people to use the stylus to use your interface, and please give people the choice of using the stylus, it can't be that hard.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

You may think you're a radical, but you've basically just described the Newton UI.

Well, except for the multitaps. That's just plain silly.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Totally liking your proposal Bundyo! Though instead of invisible points to click at I'd give users the option of transluscent clickable elements or at least force them through a tutorial the first time they start it up so the learning curve isn't as steep. I definitely like the idea of the user interface floating above the application when needed instead of constraining its usable space.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Tutorial is maybe better, translucent elements will probably get in the way. At least in my way :)

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Qolled! :p

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

No, you. :p

And of course I'm a radical. I advocate techniques from dead devices.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

The current interface is perfectly usable. Cmon, it's ridiculous to make people believe it's unusable now that there's 3 years of proof that it works perfectly well. OS2008 was a small step backwards compared to 2006 and 2007, but its still OK and theres nothing fundamentally wrong with it.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Cripes all this complaining, and claims of "unuseability", you'd think you could pick one of these things up used for like $20.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

No, i don't mean that GTK+ interfaces are unusable, however they have some limitations that make them quite hard to get how you want them. Styling widgets for one. Transparency is another.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Well, my N800 is right now insisting that its keyboard is extended, and refuses to pop up the virtual keyboard. I found the fix, but I'm just tired of the whole thing and going back to Bora/OS2007 as soon as I get home tonight.

This meant I couldn't search for a password I needed in the server room. I can't have the device randomly going out to lunch like this, when I'm depending on it.

I want cut'n'paste back for gtk.CellRendererText, or at least a usuable workaround. There's also bugs with the "Edited" signal, meaning you can lose the data you just typed in.

I also discovered today that it's no longer smart enough to keep the ListView row in view when it pops up the keyboard, so you end up typing in the blind. Nice.

I'm probably never upgrading the OS on it again, unless the forum just absolutely falls all over itself saying how wonderful it is... or I get a 2nd crash-n-burn device from somewhere for free.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Boot from SD? That's what I do.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I'm still baffled why you removed your Palm-alike apps from your website. Revenge?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

No, actually, I was reorging my repository and trying to figure out how to support different versions for the different OSes w/o cluttering things up with tons of links. Then I got sidetracked with all the bugfixes and forgot it was down. I guess I'll just go back to the original way I did it.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I guess I should confess actually I lost the source to the original page too, and I had to retrieve it from Google cache. Yup, that red thing is my face, it is...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Didn't it cost more money to REMOVE them if it was already there?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

You think adding a few #ifdefs costs more than testing an extra feature, particularly one dependent on pressure calibration, which varies by device?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I'm already holding the tablet with my left hand, since that's where the directional and other buttons are located, and my forefinger lays across the top. If there were a shift-like function button along the top the way we already have +, - and maximize buttons that could be pressed while tapping to get right-clicks, that would seem convenient. Maybe the already existing trio of keys up there could be used that way if you tap WHILE you're pressing one of them (not tappnig lets them behave as normal)?

The other thing that I keep wishing for is a scroll wheel. If there were an Intellimouse style scroll wheel on that vast and unused right side of the screen--that would be VERY convenient for those times when I'm reading down a web page, RSS feeds or eBooks (where I'd probably not have the stylus out anyway).

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Which brings up another thought. Why isn't there a pressure calibration in the touchscreen calibration tool? That would solve that problem too.. so they can just pump out the devices instruct users (upon first boot) to use the stylus to touch these points to calibrate the touch screen... then, when done, also press a couple of boxes in the middle of the screen to calibrate the pressure for finger use?