Copied from my previous posting: http://slashdot.org/palm/
(see original posting for reasons to use that page)

That's why they call it Fre, er, Dismantle.

As I recall, it is NOT the default. You have to choose it if you want to use it.

I have an example: I like to check scores on espn mobile (http://m.espn.go.com/wireless/index), and without FWTV and zooming, the site is unreadable. I tried custom CSS, but not even setting the font size on the body tag changes everything.

I also use FTW a lot in order to read web sites comfortably without straining my eyes. If another function will do a similar job in the next tablet and easily, than it is fine. But otherwise better keep the function and improve it. For instance: why should FTW be forced on all windows? I would rather have one browser window with and another without.

Also, what about reading vertically. If the next device will have a function that will allow to read while holding the device vertically I assume that a FTV function would be even more helpful. But maybe this won't be implemented in the next device... Which would be a pity because there are times in which one would prefer holdng the device vertically.

One more thing would be useful to know: will there be a hardware button for vertical scrolling?

Regards,
Antonio

Can I just chime in here and relate my experiences with feedback from newbies...

Fit Width To View is off by default on current tablets, but newbies would switch it on when they first got their tablet, and then forget about it completely.

They then visited websites which didn't work well with FWTV, in fact some of them were downright awful (see below).

Because FWTV didn't give any warning about potentially severe distortion to sites, the newbies had no idea that FWTV was the problem. And when they came to ask for help, I didn't know it was the problem either because the same sites loaded fine on my tablet. It was only when someone else on ITT suggested FWTV as the culprit that the whole mystery was solved.

And how many newbies even bother to ask about this kind of problem? How many assume it's just an innate problem with the hardware?

The newbies often assumed the browser itself was just a piece of crap and dismissed their purchase of a tablet as a mistake. Some assumed because the tablet was made by Nokia, that this was some kind of simple java phone browser which was only intended for very simple mobile sites, and that it couldn't cope with proper websites.

Just to show how badly wrong FWTV could go, see the attachment at the end of this post. The normal site took 5 to 10 seconds to load, while the FWTV version took 30+ seconds to load (and never really loaded properly either).

IIRC this was raised in bugzilla, and the result of that discussion was a list of five possible options:

Option 1) Do absolutely nothing, let newbies think they've wasted their money on a piece of crap.

or

Option 2) If FWTV is on, have a dialogue box warn people about FWTV being on every time they start up the browser, saying that it may cause sites to be distorted and slow, and giving them the option of switching it off. That way no newbie could ever blame the general browser for problems that are specific to FWTV

or

Option 3) Bury FWTV much much further down into the menu system, so that only people who really know what they're doing are likely to access it, and have a dialogue box warning during activation saying that FWTV may make websites very distorted and slow.

or

Option 4) Remove FWTV completely

or

Option 5) Make FWTV switch off after every browsing session, so people are forced to consciously switch it on before using it. That way, if a site does go bad in FWTV the user will be much more likely to realise that FWTV is what is causing the problems. The risk there is that regular users will think the automatic switch-off is a bug.


Personally I would go for options 3 or 4.

I vote for option #2. After the 5th or 10th warning, there should be an option to check "Don't show me this warning again.", because by then they've read the warning enough to remember it, and won't want have to click through it every day. Maybe pop up a reminder every 100 days, for those with short memories or in case the tablet was given to someone else.

#5 could also be combined with mullf's #2. Krisse's concern with #5 seems farfetched -- a regular user is not going to think it's a bug that the browser opens with FWTV unengaged. As someone who relies on FWTV a lot, I nonetheless regard it as a tool I turn on for "special" (even if rather frequent) occasions; I don't think anybody would regard it as Standard Operating Procedure and be surprised that the browser opened without it.

Actually, what's surprising to me -- since the Newbie/FWTV problem was known for a long time -- is that #2 and/or #5 wasn't implemented while maemo4 and MicroB were still under development.

(BTW, while I disagree with your conclusion, Krisse, thanks for laying out the problem and solutions so well.)

How about option #6: improve FWTV so it doesn't break so many websites? Surely it can be done, just look at WebKit and it's seamless page reflowing.

Obviously Nokia considered that option and decided the time investment would cost more than the feature was worth.