I'm really sorry to offend you, but I looked for help and support from you and many others when I first caught wind of the minimal support of portriat in the N900. While you're a veteran, I never seemed to get any help from you or other old heads. This forum is not user-friendly, nor many of its members. I was directed by most of you guys, including you, to not just continue talking about it, but acting and doing something. I did take your advice, and it seems to be working quite well. I now have the support of the very talented mrojas, and I believe he will take the lead of this initiative going forward.

I commend thb for his work, but I wasn't aware of it, nor did you or anyone else mention it to the various new users looking for a solution. All we got was discouragement and ridicule. And now you want to make me into some bad guy for seeking the same ends as thb congruent and delayed of his efforts. I'll also say his solution is not the final end I was seeking, so I'll carry on as planned. I hope thb's work can be something I can build upon and improve. Isn't that the open source spirit?

I'm a voracious poster. I'm very involved in the mobile community, and I'm online 10+ hours a day, usually from my mobile, in probably 6 different forums along with this one. This is nothing new for me, so get used to me. I'm a user advocate, and I take on causes as I see fit on my own dime. I'm a known blogger and reviewer, but not a paid one.

The sites in my signature are my online homes, but I don't benefit financially from them. I'm not at liberty to discuss site revenue, but they are far from profitable, instead positioned as a resource funded by a close friend of the Nokia community. SF is a pillar of the Symbian community, and the home of the refined Symbian OS hacking measures. We intend to be the same for the Maemo community. Our site compliments this one, only with a more laid back family nature to our forums, and a younger base. I'm not the owner of either site, just a longtime contributor.

I see that the Maemo.org forums have a gap in communication, and we decided to start a forum at the request of our members dissatisfied with the level of support available here. Its great for developers, which teach me something new everyday, but horrible for new users. I will come here and engage these forums and take the information back to my community to share. I won't get rich, and it is back breaking work, but I do it because it is my nature to serve and assist. You should try it sometimes.

Um, I'm not offended... I just want to know why you feel that you are justified in cross posting and dumping in productive threads?

From what I gather from your responses is that:

1. I and others didn't help you when you asked.

2. This isn't a very user friendly forum.

3. Despite your being "online 10+ hours a day" you were not aware of a thread on a subject that you are advocating for.

and finaly...

4. "we decided to start a forum at the request of our members dissatisfied with the level of support available here".

You are right about one thing, I am an "old head" but it is a shame you seem to feel that is a bad thing.

In my book there is never justification for cross posting and thread crapping. Particularly on the scale that was witnessed recently.


...and as an "old head" I will keep bringing this up because that's what "old heads" do. :eek

That is, until there is at least some acknowledgment that thread crapping is unproductive in a forum and cross posting is considered bad form because traffic or post count is increased without adding any new content. Both of these behaviors also tend to piss people off.

And BTW... you don't even know me or what I have accomplished or you wouldn't have ended by telling me what to try. Do a little research, will ya?... Please!

I believe the simplest solutions are generally the best. So with regard to a main UI that supports rotations, I would suggest something like this:

- No portrait mode homescreens. Rather make the phone app the portrait mode "homescreen". This would retain the current (optional) "rotate while on homescreen to launch phone" mechanic. The current phone UI option for launching the phone by turning could be replaced with a general setting to enable rotation of the desktop and dashboard.

- The dashboard is a tricky thing, especially with a mix of portrait mode and landscape windows. A simple solution could be to use a "card-view" as on the pre, which only shows one full preview and two partial ones on each side (to be swiped). This wouldn't be nearly as useful as the landscape dashboard, but it would work well for one-handed task-switching.

The question remains, how to display landscape applications in a portrait mode dashboard? It's not as simple as to display a rotated image, keep in mind that portrait and landscape UIs have different titlebar locations, which don't show up on the thumbnails. Perhaps the "card-view" could actually display landscape windows in landscape orientation. It would look slightly chaotic, but it shouldn't be too bad actually.

P.S.: A big problem remains: What happens if you rotate the screen while on the dashboard? Do you wait until all applications have acquired their new orientation? This could take considerable time, but otherwise you would get broken thumbnails (at least on the landscape dashboard, which doesn't have a proper way to display portrait thumbnails).

@chris

I must just be a very easy person to get along with.

This forum / community was very welcoming to me, and has managed to help me with all of my problems.

I have a hard time believing that your users urged you to start a forum in response to how unfriendly / unhelpful this one was.

I think the regulars around here are great. In fact, there's only a very small handful of members that, when asked, I would say are jerks.

Also, mind you, I know far less about mobile devices than you do, of that I am sure.

I had never even heard of Maemo or Symbian or internet tablets before my laptop's mobo fried and I had to find a temporary replacement.



I just don't get the negative generalizations made about this community (most, it seems, from contributors to other tech sites)...
I'm too lazy for links right now, but yourself and ricky cadden to name two off the top of my head. (Not trying to start any sh*t, but it happened).

I'm just an end-user. But, I feel like I'm part of this community, and I try to help people with problems whenever I can (until I find a job anyway). So, by calling the community unhelpful or unfriendly, you are calling me unhelpful and unfriendly. And that hurts.

You forget when I first started trying to get support for ASR, you were there. You didn't point me to any resources, developers experienced in rotation solutions, or give me any advice other than "do something about it and don't just keep whining." Or does my memory not serve me well. I'll admit, I don't remember anyone, but I do remember seeing you everywhere, but not hearing one helpful word. I have gotten help and support from others, so I'm ok now, but it would've been nice to have someone give me an introduction to the who's how's and where's of this site.

I've been pretty vocal and present since the N900 announcements. I don't recall you mentioning anything helpful. Forgive me if I'm off base here. But I can name the helpful ones on one hand.

I don't spend all of my time here. I am an editor at two other sites, and keep up with my own forums. And with the bad design of this site, are you surprised I didn't see that thread? And do you think that solution is what I'm looking for? Did YOU point me to the site? I notice you've been in all of the threads I was "whining" in, so why didn't you say something if you knew about it?

I'm an alien here. I don't know my way around things, and have had to self start. Don't knock me, because I think I've done pretty well, considering. I've started my own brainstorm, gathered my "experts" and am working on a solution as we speak. I hope you'll join us instead of engaging me in ping pong on this thread. I'm not about all of this kid mess. Its really discouraging and childish. I got upset the other day, but I usually don't indulge in this type of crap.

This forum is oriented towards developers and seasoned users with Linux experience, but lacking in support for new users and former Symbian users. I'll fill that space and allow my users to share ideas there and here as well. We promote this site, even though its not where it needs to be yet. My goal is to get it there. Care to help?

I like it, but I don't see any mentoring or helpfulness from you in my experience. What is this reposting of the same picture supposed to do? When will you give me some useful advice in pertinence to ASR and getting a software project off the ground? Can you help me in any way in that regard? Because I'm probably older than you, and not into all of this back and forth. Exactly what do you want from me? Right now, you're wasting my time and yours.

I didn't know I was doing anything wrong. I did what I could to find the necessary talent I needed. Since you have a book on rules of posting, how do you suggest I may have acted? I would've made a thread, but they just get hijacked by haters, and its hard to get a thread noticed the way the site is designed.

And I wasn't thread crapping. I posted in threads mentioning rotation of the UI thinking developers with experience I could utilize in my ASR dreams would be there. Turns out I was right. In retrospect, I could've PM'd him, but I wanted more eyes than just those. Some may just be reading the thread and find interest.

I made one short post in each thread. No moderators have expressed any problem with it, just you. Are you a moderator? If so, just tell me the posting rules and move on.

So unless we agree, you'll keep pestering me and hijacking my thread? How childish. Maybe it IS productive, and others should try it until this forum is redesigned. And what you call cross posting I call networking. I only wished you were interested in seeing me make progress, not word boxing with me.

I don't get any rewards for posting. I'm just using the thread as a social tool to communicate with others of similar interest. Your badgering me is pissing me off, but I'm gonna let you make it. I have better things to do. What you've done in the past means diddley. What are you doing so helpful now, bro? Why not help me instead of being...whatever you call this??

So do you have anything to add to the ASR effort for Fremantle or not?

I appreciate your ideas. Could you submit these possible solutions to this brainstorm for others to vote on?
http://maemo.org/community/brainstor..._in_fremantle/

@chris

lemme get a login to maemo-freak, i want to see whats going on over there.

|||EDIT

Also, is there another forum skin available for symbian-freak? The color scheme hurts my brain.

|||EDIT2

Nvm, I guess thats just the main page... forum itself is good.

|||EDIT3

I LOOOVE the banned-users list on s-f. Why don't we have one of those??

we need this. this would make quick txting easier. we need this.

Note: I don't have a separate login for brainstorm yet. Hopefully I can get some time next week, but someone feel free to copy it over if it sounds useful.
Copied and pasted from the other thread:

One way to implement portrait mode via automatic screen rotation (ASR).
Have the phone rotate it and if it is too big to fit, then you have to scroll around (kinetic scrolling comes in useful here?). This will at least have the mode until there are "proper" portrait mode UIs. Those who don't want to make a UI can leave it if they want, their choice.

ASR should also be switchable on or off, and perhaps with an option for permanent portrait or permanent landscape (the default).

An example of this could perhaps be (simplistically):

on event change accelerometer_value
if accelerometer_flag= "OFF"
end if
elseif <program>_allows_ASR = "OFF"
end if
else if accelerometer_value = "Portrait"
then call <program>_UI_portrait
else call <program>_UI_landscape
end if

Ok this is very basic and I should get back to SQL statements... it's been years since I programmed in C++, this looks more like VB...!

Please do not throw offense at those who are not involved in your discussions here. If you have an issue with this forum, there is a "Report a Forum Bug" link on the right sidebar.

Thanks,
Tim