can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Man, if I had looked at an N800 with this GUI, I would have left it on the shelf.

What's up with the menus you can view from the Google mapping satellites? Is there anything you can do to fix that? I'm so ****ing tired of scrolling, after just one day, I don't know what to do...

I need 4 running program icons, can I get that back?

Can I get rid of the useless and stupid two default contact/web icons?

I could write a better GUI blind drunk with half a bottle of Tequila left. Where's the sources to Nokia's version of Matchbox?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

The best you can do with the contact / web / applications icons is rearrange them in Settings -> Control Panel -> Panels.

With regards to your first point, one would be hard-pressed to find a sheet detailing either the N800 or the N810 without seeing the GUI. However, if you have an N800, you may want to make sure you have the latest version of the OS. Check About Product under the control panel as well. Latest version is OS2008 4.2008.30-2.

Not sure what you mean with the menus from "Google mapping satellites". Do you mean Google Maps?!

You could try zooming out on the browser (Flash content and images zoom, too), or entering fullscreen mode.

"I need 4 running program icons, can I get that back?" Eh?!
If you mean the window list on the left, then I do not believe so. However, the icon on the bottom left corner can be clicked, which will open a more useful menu with open windows and detail about notifications.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

w00t, someone who will hopefully bring back some bora niceness.

For a full reference:

Matchbox:
Bora:
http://repository.maemo.org/pool/bor...-osso15.tar.gz
http://repository.maemo.org/pool/bor...osso6.2.tar.gz

Diablo:
http://repository.maemo.org/pool/dia...-osso18.tar.gz
http://repository.maemo.org/pool/dia...9-osso6.tar.gz

That's just the matchbox.

What you really want though is the hildon-desktop:

Bora (it's called maemo-af-desktop in bora):
http://repository.maemo.org/pool/bor...99.25-1.tar.gz

Diablo:
http://repository.maemo.org/pool/dia....0.18-1.tar.gz

Here is also the source code for the plugin settings control panel:
http://repository.maemo.org/pool/dia....0.10-1.tar.gz

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

As you're a developer of some interesting programs (interesting for me, that is), could I perchance point you to the Pandora community? The main link is in my .sig.

It's probably still a bit early to start (the only Pandora we've seen sofar was a prototype on a German TV show; it should be with customers mid-november), but I've been pondering about linking your PIMs to e.g. SIAG Office, which should have hooks to external scripting languages.

PS: What happened to your site? You know, the one with the Python applications?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Go on. http://tabletui.wordpress.com . You're very welcome there to post some better examples of UI. Tequila's optional :)
You know, mostly everyone can declare that he can make better UI for whatever with one foot without two fingers and with closed eyes, but most of them are just talking.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Well, I don't have any hands-on experience with OS2008 yet, but all the pictures I've seen looks ugly to me, compared to OS2007. It looks childish toyish, and everything is huge, which is probably to make it 'finger friendly', which I don't care for at all. The stylus/finger detection mechanism in OS2007 works well for those few situations where a larger click area is welcome. The changes I want for the UI in OS2007 are all about getting _more_ information into the display, not less.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

But I would have reservation to go to that version after more than 398+ posts and http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=23132

I will stay away from it, for the time being. And I also measured the speed of chinook and diablo, and got some interesting results, http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...257#post217257 thread #5,
"To make clones, takes 9 min for an N810 to make clones and under similar conditions, takes only 2.5 min to make on N800. This is only to make clones, nothing to do with web browser/bootup/shutdown. but it is interesting."


bun

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I'd assume he refers to those ridiculously overweight icons in the main menus (applications, contacts, internet) that force you to keep scrolling all day long because they dont have room for more than 5 entries to be displayed at the same time. (same fore the RSS reader applet and in a way for the oversized scroll bars that take away waaay too much space...)

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

There are lots of things wrong with the usability (and themability) of Maemo IMO. Most issues basically have been there since OS2007 (or even earlier). So I doubt if the next OS wil radically improve things.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that noticed that and thought exactly that! When I used OS2007 and it switch between stylus menu and finger menu, it was actually pretty impressive and one of the selling points to some of the people I've talked to was that the Nokia tablets know the difference between a stylus pressing a point and a finger blotting out a portion of screen. It felt like I was deprived of a very important detail and feature when OS2008 removed that.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Actually, Fremantle is slated to have quite a bit of UI work.

For whatever it's worth, it's probably not worth your time hacking in Matchbox as Nokia is moving to X.org for Fremantle, so who knows what might be happening with the WM.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

****! and the Diablo thread has more than 478+ posts!!! I WOULDN'T UPGRADE TO THAT, EITHER!!!! http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=21233

:rolleyes:

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

hmm, lets just hope that nokia dont turn this into a remake of ms longhorn (we all know how that ended).

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

As for Diablo, yes, it's not one to go to yet. I've seen way too many problems with it, and downgraded from it myself after suffering through many of those. As for the UI stuff, I can help with that as I'm a part time UI designer. I can't code in the languages required to build the UI's, but I can help with the actual design and layout elements, as that's where I typically focus most of my time.

As for good UI designs, I like this one for the wireless icon in the status bar:
http://tabletui.wordpress.com/2008/0...ready-to-surf/

That example really is nice, and aside from a few minor changes to the icons (for easier viewing of the variations), I think it's a good idea. I also suggested a few other UI improvements to the wireless interface in another thread. If someone wants me to, I can do some mockups so you can see the changes I've suggested.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

If anything, Nokia has stated future iterations of the OS will be even more finger "friendly" (i.e., more crappier, according to the OP). Then again, you knew that already, so why not just say it?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

It won't solve all your problems, but Personal Menu will solve some of the issues you speak of (you will still have huge icons).

If you have a better GUI, I know I'd like to see it (seriously, I am an old Newton guy, and it was way slow, but had a great UI).

Craig...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Yes, it will be much more finger friendly than the OS2008.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

bad news. :(

after all, the "finger friendliness" was what started this thread IIRC.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

No big icons here with Personal Menu...

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/j...rsonalMenu.jpg

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Yes, I wonder why Nokia thinks that a "finger friendly" UI must be "stylus and space unfriendly".

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Because, obviously, the iPhone is G*d and has to be copied ad nauseam.

I wonder if Nokia will sink so low as to "equip" the N900 with a capacitive touchscreen. That would really be the icing on the dung-flavoured cake.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

"I could write a better GUI blind drunk with half a bottle of Tequila left. "

So, where is it? Have you finished yet?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I know I'll be beaten to death here for this, but to be honest, I always thought the user interface on the tablets was really good. (that was before menus and scrollbars became large.)

there's nothing *really* wrong with it, except that in OS2008 its inconsistent and wastes a lot of space.

only a little cleaning would make it close to perfect.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

So basically it needs a little more consistency in it's waste of space?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I like it, with the following exceptions:

- Titlebars? These seem a little out of place. I understand a menu target needs to be somewhere but it's pretty hard to forget what app you're working in. Use the space for more status icons!
- Modality inconsistencies. When you have the little status box saying "connected to..." and another that says "launching..." and another saying "updating..." why are they all stacked on top of each other? Shouldn't they be like GTalk or Growl and start at the bottom of the previous one, so you can actually read them? Better yet, why are they modal at all? I find it very weird.
- Non-movable windows. Add the hack to get movable windows and the default stuff all falls apart and originates somewhere off the top left of the visible screen. I'd love to run something like DAs on Maemo apps. A mini-calculator or stopwatch over top of a document.
- Native rotation! I'll betcha this is coming soon.

I like the increased finger-friendliness... it often translates to user-friendliness, because it forces the developers to simplify the presentation more, and think a bit more about UI guidelines. I'm still wondering where the best finger-friendly todo list is...

Other than that, it's not bad. I like it.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

So what exactly is that? (not having seen a JesusPhone)

I've always been impressed with the N800 touchscreen since I went through 5 Palm TX and 3 Palm Vx touchscreens, where they started wanting daily then hourly recalibrations, then finally refused to recalibrate at all.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Wikipedia is your friend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen

As a sidenote: The N8x0's screen can go off too. I've had mine go haywire twice already, fortunately never permanently. Interestingly, my 770's screen has been rock steady.

Why I like resistive touchscreens (the non-iPhone type)? They can be operated with a stylus and appear to be more precise than capacitive screens(this might actually not be the case, but as long as capacitive screens can only be manipulated by big fat digits, who's to tell?).

I do know calibration hell. Right now I have a Siemens SimPad SL4 that's stuck in a calibration loop. It's probably time to kick Wince off the thing and Linux on...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I hope the revisions to the UI include removing the tap and hold mechanism for simulating right clicking. This is one feature of the current UI that drives me nuts, because it's so inconsistent and I have to try several times to get it too work. Not only that, but frequently the menu shows up where your finger or stylus are obstructing your view of the menu. It'd be great if the menus just popped up when you select the item, and in a place where they won't be obstructed from view.

I also agree with the comment that titlebars are unneccesary. Again, they seem to be a vestigial carryover from desktop UIs. This would free up more space for status bar icons.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Whoops! I swear that it was September last month.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Yes... but more importantly... what YEAR? :rolleyes:

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Oh, man, I love that feature. When I had a Palm TX, I always wished more applications would take advantage of that...

BTW, I'm also extremely impressed with the N8X0's touchscreen. After 4 Palm TX's failing from 'Digitizer Drift' or 'Dead Spots'' it is certainly a relief.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I think OS2008 is a significant improvement over 2007... which was an improvement over 2006... which was an improvement over 2005. More to come.

And it's funny how half the users scream for more finger-friendliness while the other half protests against it. Damn... if only all people could be pleased, all the time (cue famous Louis Armstrong song). :rolleyes:

I like finger friendliness... but I would PREFER a rollback to CONTEXT friendliness...

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

'You're the Tops!"? "Bess, You is my Woman Now"? Oh, I know, "A Fine Romance"! Yeah that one actually fits well.

Personally I'm happy to see strong feelings from both sides. Sometimes some peoples' preferences can be buried in a tumult of one-sided complaints.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Agreed with troublemaker sentiment.

But you fail on the song. Come on, Snoo! "What a Wonderful World"! ;)

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Why not let the user set to stylus mode or finger mode? Bring back the finger/stylus recognition in case the user is using the other input method on occasion, but set the scrollbars, icon layout, etc., based on the mode setting. Seems common sense, right?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

^ what he said

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

I agree with Texrat, overall I like os2008. I think the ideal solution would be to make a finger oriented UI and a stylus oriented UI and the user would have a setting to choose which they like to use. In some situations I like using finger, but more often than not I use stylus.


edit, mullf beat me to it.

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Hey, instead of waiting for Nokia to get its head out of its own keester (yeah, right) why don't we help (read: coerce ;)) fiferboy integrate finger detection into Personal Menu?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

Can he be bribed?

Re: can the '08 GUI be ANY crappier?
 

A touchscreen that cannot be used be an ordinary stylus (or pen or whatever is at hands), but only registers a special stylus-like device or bare fingers. From a usability point of view, it's absurd.