Thread: Fennec Alpha 1
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allnameswereout is offline allnameswereout
2009-03-10 , 17:15
Posts: 3,397 | Thanked: 1,212 times | Joined on Jul 2008 @ Netherlands
#93
The Fennec people do have different goals for non-touchscreen and touchscreen:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/UI/D...NonTouchScreen
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/UI/Designs/TouchScreen

Clearly, the usage paterns are different.

For example:

The Touch Screen UI design has the following goals:
* 1-2 taps for most frequent activities
* Finger taps -- no stylus required
* Familiar (to desktop users) where possible
* Intuitive

The design proposals described below attempt to meet all these goals.

[...]
Originally Posted by benny1967 View Post
What's this thing I have then? It sure is a mobile PC, and it sure has N800 printed on it), WebKit, Gecko, SSH.... you could start 34 threads with all this.
What is Hildon then? The point here is that applications must be ported to the platform. You can conveniently just run all Linux/ARM applications on a handheld like this. For normal users however, this is impractical. They want to a good UI. And some would actually pay for some applications and features too.

All I wanted to say is that I see nothing in Fennec that is specifically designed for mobile use (whatever "mobile use" may be in this context).
That much is clear. You do not appear to see why the UI paradigm on a mobile device is different than on a PC. You're also an apparent fan of the stylus. As such, I'm not surprised you aren't able to see the benefits of Fennec.

I see a browser with basically no UI at all that requires an explanation on how to use the most basic functions (back, enter URI, ...).
The UI is different than Mozilla Firefox or MicroB I give you that. If you first time in your life use GNOME, Windows 95, Windows 3.11, MacOSX, FVWM, S60 you must learn the interface and the way you interact with it. That is normal. That such requires an explanation is also normal. If you'd read the manual (text, and video) you'd figure out pretty quickly how the thing works.

I can understand which type of users wants such a browser. And I predict that these users may eventually want such a browser on their desktops, too, because why they want it has nothing to do with mobile use.
Hmm. We'll see. I don't want Safari mobile or Opera Mini on my desktop.

Oh, and I don't like it, because it doesn't meet my demands.
True. But if a browser like this was default?

(Which isn't a crime, nobody said it was made specifically for me.)
1) Maemo 5 will be optimized for finger usage
2) Fremantle, and even more so Harmattan, will be be by default catering to the normal user.
3) We'll see WebKit or Gecko for mobile devices more actively developed, including UI. On S60 we see S60browser. On iPhone OS we see Safari mobile. Both use WebKit. And then we have Gecko as well. You can be sure these 2 are the big players, together with IE and Presto (Opera).
4) Techies will be able to mod the thing. Hack stylus into it, for example. Or make sure they can copy/paste. Print. View source code. And create other bindings. Hopefully via XUL extensions. Then no recompiles are necessary. These are simple things which Apple doesn't allow and actively makes sure it is impossible. And that is exactly why software liek Fennec and corporations like Nokia have a place in this market. They're more liberal, less limiting. Because keep in mind we're talking about default settings and default functionality here.

(Next week I'll be testing Weave. It currently isn't easy to set up on N810 this will be fixed next week.)
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