an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

Hi guys, i m not Able to code but i have had an idea, maybe stupid but maybe not and i would share it with you all, especially with developers. I Like the idea of live tile of Windows Phone, i Like the os infact, but what i really want is an european open System, so sailfish is my favourite. I think that live tile or widget allow User to see what is going up with a single glance. So i suppose that it would be possible to convert the real multitasking instance on home in a live tile..so i suppose it has only to be an app wich keep going on ( easy For Sailfish) and some times update to show to you news or something else. The cover of the app it would be the real app to open ( maybe in automatic way like with situation) and then let going on behind..obiviusly with adapted text in Order to show information to User.

What do you think about it?

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

Yeah, unfortunately, at least for Sailfish the idea of widgets (aka "live tiles" on WP) is remarkably unpopular for some reason. :( I brought this up a while back on TJC, but got shot down pretty hard...

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

No one has expressed that better than this guy:

https://together.jolla.com/question/...#post-id-84716

Interestingky, when Jolla copies some really bad things from Android/iOS (e.g. having to create an account to access the appstore), that is suddenly OK and you get shot down for pointing that out.

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

Isn't a cover displaying 'live' information better than the limitations of 'live tiles' in WP? In WP you _need_ to have a server which the apps connect to every 30min (or more, this is the minimum) to fetch the new things to display, most of live covers display live in SFOS, just check network monitor app (sadly doesn't work from glance view, but cover of terminal does update live even in that). Why do we need central server where you have to update the data every half an hour? When you can fetch the data live? Isn't it better???

(the only problem is people probably don't expect their app in 'minimized' state to still chug bandwidth and use processor a lot, which realtime tiles do, no problem with displaying graphics in covers - just check the czech weather app Medard, no problem with having couple of entries rolled around as network monitor shows you can update it, so what's missing?)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

For me, the issue is not in the details of how the minimized app is implemented (and yeah, I can imagine that WP does some crazy stuff), but more the simple existence of a flexible way to display multiple tasks on a single screen. There are some tasks that simply don't need to take up the whole screen to work; for these, it can be extremely convenient to park them all together in a single display.

In Sailfish, you cannot design an app to work with less than the full size of the screen. Instead, you get the chance to create an additional "cover" for the app, which may take up 1/4 or 1/9 of the screen, and may have one or two switches for I/O. Neither the user nor the designer can control the size or placement of these covers, and the user must keep the full-screen version of the app running at all times in order to maintain the existence of the cover. This just seems incredibly awkward if you actually wish to use the miniaturized interface for any serious work...

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

Patches? You can put whatever you want there, the multitask screen works for this like network switcher, which doesn't have full screen window at all and is only a widget for turning 2g-3g-4g.
You can't expect jolla to abandon multitask view, patch it if you wish and see a good function for it, but it breaks the whole idea. Patch out the multitask view with weather on top, news in middle and you lose what makes the phone great, multitasking,this part is essential in the UI, but noone stops you from having a patch that kills half of it by extra widgets (already happened in the events view, multi-view is already patchable to force 2x2/3x3 and endless scroll mode (removing limit) so doable). Then add extra application task manager which everyone will go to to actually switch between apps.

Are you sure? Gave you two examples of covers that update live, while being in low-usage state at the time.

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

MeeCast also has a "widget" that updates (almost) in real time. But a real widget does more than just passively display some information. A real widget offers full interaction. Not zero like the "widgets" you mention. No two actions like Jolla's covers. Full interaction. I hear there is a media control widget that offers more than two actions but I also hear it uses some unsupported patching and does not work for some users.

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

Noone stops you from having widget that has buttons. You can patch out the whole area as you wish (weather widget in events is now even Jolla supported, try entering your state, x button appears (just open junk twitter account for that), there is interaction, make it n900 or android like as you wish, don't expect jolla to help you with that as it is totally opposite their concept though)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

??? You can't "put" anything there; you run apps, and their covers just magically show up somewhere in there without your intervention.

Yes, sure, you can "patch" the system to work differently than this; but that's kind of beside the point. :)

And I don't. I'm just saying that the current multitask view is too limiting; not everything fits cleanly into the "fullscreen + cover" UI idiom. (And of course, there are always dozens of low-level programs running on any Linux machine, which are not given any mention at all in the Sailfish "multitask view". So this is already not a true view of everything running on the device. I don't see why Jolla couldn't keep the existing app mechanism for full-screen apps, and add another for widget-like apps.)

Sure, Jolla apps do (and should!) minimize their activity as much as possible while only showing their cover. But you can't really create an app that is just a cover. (And yeah, the cover UI is so limiting, there really isn't any point to doing something like that anyway...)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

https://openrepos.net/content/penguin/radio-switcher

This app IS only a cover, you swipe left or right between 3 options and click on it to allow swipe-kill. Yes you can!

(edit: yes WE can?)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

I stand corrected! You CAN create an app that is just a cover that appears at some random location on the multitasking screen and allows you to flip two switches! How utterly amazing! ;)

(And yeah, I gotta wonder how they've perverted the Sailfish UI to avoid allowing their app to be displayed in full-screen mode...)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

It's open source (or if not just check it's qml code this IS open source for sure as modified it to my liking). It pretty much is a widget, incorrectly previously named it network switcher, yeah it acts as any other not used in a while program sliding like on imageboard page, but:
2.0 no more sliding (and I'm not sure it is a great idea, maybe on tablet), so you can run it and then move that live cover (this is what the thread is all about) to bottom left to stay there (it displays network strength values live, unlike any WP live tile(edited from: cover) btw :D)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

so if i don't get wrong its possibile actually to make a live cover wich show not only white text on trasparency cover, or as usually a minization of the full app page, but even a live cover wich show a completely other set of information? for e.g to have a live cover of an app of news wich show the latest news in an cover with a coloured or transparent area and text setted like you want (in practise i mean a wp live tile)??

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

Yup, pretty much, Medard is an example of app with graphical image on the cover, for the news pic, plenty of apps display live updates. You'd probably have to patch homescreen to prevent it being placed 'randomly' (very likely such patch that stops 'sliding' is already existing), sadly don't think you can increase size that much, but there was patch forcing bigger covers (2x2) so this could also be useful. Sadly patching that much is a bit of an inconvenience and probably not how an app 'should' work/behave, but maybe some way on the tablet you could patch half of of the screen for such widgets and leave the rest for multitasking (you also get interaction possibility, like dismiss this news item by swiping left, go next by swiping right etc so with no time limitation as on WP would make it even better)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

i will try medard, there is any news app like that? it would bhe great

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

The amount of patching needed really makes it not an app that would combine all features. If someone writes an app for say bbc, with live updates, you could apply above mentioned patches (or write them) to behave like a live tile, still not sure if placing it on the multitask view is the correct way to go, check meecast widget/plugin for lockscreen, this would seem like a better place for such thing (at least in my usage case I switch between apps more often than would glance on new snippets of info)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

WHat do you refer to? i would rahter have them on multitasking view because it recalls concept of tiles. maybe locking sliding of cover.
However i think that it is a feature that could be implemented in order to let system have all possibilities others os have. Ok,is open, but something build by default it is ever better than patching. For e g take situation, it gives you instrument and you can combine it for you use. I start on boot calendar and other stuff that i use like clipboard to remeber tasks.

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

WP has multitask (lol) view in totally different place if you noticed, by cluttering multitask view you make it harder to switch between apps, which is best part of jolla. In WP live tiles are on the primary app drawer view, so maybe better to have those 'widgets' tiles hidden on left or right sideswipe like the partner space (depending on handedness)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

Hmm. I personally believe that the existing multitasking view is already overloaded with too many widget-like features; loading it down with yet more widget-y stuff will just make it even harder to use as a way to view and control the running full-sized apps. It'd be better to segregate widgets into their own display.

Also, I should say that I've been struggling myself to get news data into a widget-sized interface on the N900. It's just not comfortable to read sentences and paragraphs of text on a postage-stamp-sized section of screen; news can really use a full-screen display. In my opinion, the existing Sailfish mechanism is perfectly suitable for this sort of task: you could use the cover to display the first few words of the most recent headline (with perhaps some icon if it is breaking news), and have the user bring up the full-screen display to read the details. (Weather should work the same way -- show the minimal details for the current location on the cover, along with a warning icon if bad weather is on the way, and have the user open the full-screen display for the details...)

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

Partner space could be used for that, being right handed 99.9% of my swipes are from right edge, leaving left one for something like glance for latest update(not even full text, could be '(3)' new updates indicator), or even repatch it that swipe from left always brings the widgets event view), after plugging jolla at work swipe from left to have constantly updating news/weather/alerts, this could be quite nice and not interfere with multitasking

Re: an idea for new app- widget or live tile like for Sailfish and meego
 

The lock screen on Jolla is ill suited for anything serious like e.g. news that takes more than a split second to read. The reason being that the lock screen times out too soon. The weather widget is just about at the edge of usability. Now because Sailfish does not have the concept of a desktop, the only place left is the home screen. Unfortunately that has its own drawbacks: as mentioned above, as well as the fact that home screen covers move around willy-nilly and you can't pin them.

Displaying a lot of info in a small space is possible if you do it properly. But yeah, no or very little text. Pictograms only, with only a few letters and/or numbers. An excellent example of how it should be done is the Foreca weather widget on the N900. There are other weather widgets but none of them comes close. Sailfish covers are a nice idea in theory, but they waste so much space that they are next to useless. Using the same example of a weather widget, all weather apps I tried on Sailfish show the weather info for only one day in their cover - in a space four times larger than the Foreca widget uses to display the weather info for five days.