Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

There are some issues with colours on scratchbox, it should look better on a device. E.g. the turquoise you see, is actually lime green...

Closing dialogs by tapping outside their area (which is dimmed) provides by far the biggest possible click target. Putting a visible X somewhere would only distract from that, and it takes just a few seconds to learn, then it feels completely natural. I bet you also learned that you can close menus on your desktop by clicking somewhere else. :)

lcuk: The X in the background is getting dimmed like the rest of the inactive background, and tapping anywhere on that space will only close the dialog of course.

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

What would be really nice is if you could easily multitask between diablo apps and fremantle apps on top of Mer on a N8x0. sweet! :D

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

kanishou,

does the dialog close when you press escape?

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

I'm not kanishou of course, but I hope so. But then, do we know for sure that the new hardware will have Esc buttons?

Clicking outside of dialogs to make them close may take a little getting used to, but I'm coming around to the idea. As long as it's consistent in the UI then it should be relatively learnable. Other than Canola, are there other UIs that cancel dialogs like that?

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

I noticed that the Mer dialogs (based, I guess, on the first SDK?) don't have any visible way to close them either, and pressing the Esc key on my N800 closes them just fine.

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

Yes, thanks, but I think those are already planned... There are visual hints related to dimming (and i think even an icon in the upper right corner), they're probably not yet implemented to the alpha.

We naturally did do user testing with this new dialog style, and there wasn't any major problems in regards to closing.

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

you probably wanted to say "...and they showed a vast improvement in usability in regards to closing."
nokia wouldn't change things if users had only minor problems with the new way, would they?

;)

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

Well no, it's not a "vast improvement in usability". I think it's a nice improvement over the previous style that requires you to aim and hit a small target. Tapping outside is a large-to-huge target. Also it frees up space and clears up the screen. There will be a visual effect making this target even clearer.

Perhaps at some other day I might have more humour for comments like this, but today I kind of don't get the positive side of complaining over everything.

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

vast or nice, it's what i meant: your original comment made it sound like yes, it was a problem in the UI testing, but only a minor one so nobody cared. now your saying that it's an improvement, and my guess was that this is what you wanted to express in the first place.

sorry if my bitterness shines through here too much. i tried to hide it because i know there's a lot of people who are proud of what they released. (and they are right, i can tell there's a lot of us who like it.)

i still hope that in the end, on the actual hardware, with proper theming and with the missing pieces added, i will get used to it.

Re: Maemo 5 Alpha SDK released
 

From all I have read, this is supposed to be a very open project. As such there was a pre-Aipha, and the current Alpha release, and eventually a Beta release.

I don't think anyone is complaining, only offering as I would expect (not complaints) constructive criticism and a variety of opinions as a result of these releases.

I have made changes to my own programs that I felt improved them only to find out that the majority of endusers didn't understand or "get" the changes. This resulted in reversing some of these to avoid headaches and complaints from the endusers. Sure they would have eventually gotten used to them, but at what cost?

Perhaps if Nokia were a little more forthcoming with details, some of the questions/criticisms/complaints would be headed off. On the other hand, I'm sure that there would be a whole crop of other issues.