Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

I'd like to start a conversation about how best to present to the user how they can control rotation in various apps.

With the CSSU, rotation and portrait is becoming more and more common. Existing (open-source) Nokia apps are getting portrait mode programmed into them, and community apps are also being encouraged to add portrait mode.

But, there are some occasions when you don't want apps to rotate, and you want to lock them into landscape or portrait mode. At the moment, different apps present this option to the user in different ways. For example:

• SeriesFinale: Menu, Settings, Screen Rotation: Automatic, Portrait, Landscape
• gPodder: Menu, Settings, Display orientation: Automatic, Landscape, Portrait
• Nokia Phone app: Menu, Turning control, Display orientation: Portrait, Landscape, Automatic
• Microb: Menu, Options, Settings, Enable rotation tickbox
• Panucci: Menu: Automatic, Landscape, Portrait

It seems to me that it would be nice to be consistent, so that users could move between apps and still be able to quickly change rotation, without having to hunt through differently-named settings.

I don't know about anyone else, but I like it when the rotation control is easily and quickly accessible, so Panucci's method of having it directly in the menu is great, rather than having it hidden in a settings dialog. However, I realise that many apps cannot do that, as their menu is already crowded.

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...postcount=1369

For now, it's only Landscape / Auto orientation, but a portrait lock is planned.

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

how to put the media player to that status menu@@?
And there are auto orientation, will coming in next version CSSU?

thanks

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

And then you have apps like mine which Ctrl+o will either toggle between forced portrait/landscape mode or enable/disable auto-rotation, depending on the app.

More of a matter for CSSU but I tend to favor locked orientations because apps optimize for the new orientation or even do automatic reflow, slowing down rotations even more (fennec being the worst for me but even my own apps are annoying). This was brought up before (mailing list? bmo?) but it was decided it was a dev's responsibility. I did a first crack at it in my app but ran into problems. It'd be nice if there was a way for apps in the background to not get new window/desktop dimensions until they are activated (which could cause a rotation back so no reflow should be seen)

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

The way it should work is as follows:

1. It should be a control panel applet called 'Application Rotation' or something similar.

2. The applet should present the following selectable options:

a. "Allow the following applications to rotate" (whitelist)

b. "Allow all applications to rotate except for the following" (blacklist).

3. The applet should present a list of applications with add/remove options for the list where users can control what applications are in the list (possibly similar to AppMeFo).

KISS.

-DJ

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

Thanks MAG. A system-wide widget is a very interesting idea, and certainly would solve the problem of different apps presenting the setting to the user in different ways.

I worry slightly that a system-wide widget may not allow users to control rotation on a per-app basis. For example, maybe a particular app technically supports two different orientations, but the user prefers to lock that app into one orientation. In my case, I like to lock the Phone app into portrait (as that is how I like to hold the phone when using that app, and find the time it takes to rotate annoying if I accidentally change how I hold the phone), but I like to lock Microb into landscape (as I dislike the reduced functionality in portrait mode, and again, dislike it when it rotates accidentally).

Have you got plans to help in that kind of situation? Does the widget have an API that application developers can hook into?

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

Thanks Danny, that sounds like a good idea. It would be good if the user could quickly access a way to change the setting on the current (topmost) app. Maybe MAG's system area widget could store a setting per-app (assuming there's a way to find out what the topmost app is), which would modify the lists you mention. There could still be a control panel (i.e. Settings app) applet to allow an overview and editing of the different lists.

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

I like the idea, except that the "whitelist" is unnecessary - everything not on the blacklist would allow rotation.

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

For example with Fennec, I get frustrated when it rotates from landscape to portrait and back when I do not want to.

Re: Rotation control within apps - how best to present choice to user?
 

A whitelist works better since a blacklist would make the rotation flags that devs are setting redundant, thus breaking apps that the dev wants to show in a state on purpose.