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2009-06-10
, 15:53
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Posts: 903 |
Thanked: 632 times |
Joined on Apr 2008
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#62
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Originally Posted by benny1967
Just in X-Term, though, right? There is no autocomplete in X-Term now...
what?!?!?!
i cannot believe all this. i wish i'd never looked at this thread.
__________________
-Brent
Author of TouchSearch -- web searching software for Maemo 5.
Mobile Device lineage: Palm Z22 -> Palm TX -> Nokia N800 -> Nokia N900
-Brent
Author of TouchSearch -- web searching software for Maemo 5.
Mobile Device lineage: Palm Z22 -> Palm TX -> Nokia N800 -> Nokia N900
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2009-06-10
, 16:00
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Posts: 631 |
Thanked: 1,123 times |
Joined on Sep 2005
@ Helsinki
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#63
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Originally Posted by fms
Well, I think it is somewhat derogatory to talk about Apple audiences and "Maemo user bases" like that. Obviously we want to expand any current user bases to a great extent, therefore I wouldn't make generalized statements like that: the intended user base is not dramatically different from any other user base.
That is obviously a misconception. It is almost like you want your users to eat food but do not want them to prepare it. This may work for iPhone, with its iTunes store and an audience of users willing to put up with whatever Apple inflicts on them. This is not going to work for Maemo, starting with the fact that Nokia does not provide anything comparable to iTunes in functionality and ending with the Maemo user base not willing to put up with the lack of control of their data. This means that users will manage their own media files and you have to address this activity properly.
And I therefore wouldn't agree with your statement. People want to have a good experience with consuming and interacting with their data. I don't think most Apple users miss terribly "lack of control" with their data. As long as the overall experience has no gaps, I would claim most people prefer the simpler approach. Then again, I'm not saying that we would going the Apple route.
Originally Posted by fms
I'm not that familiar with the NGage offering, it's a whole different unit. I am under the impression that games are Symbian or Maemo specific, so I wouldn't be talking about cross-platform support. (But I could be off on this subject.)
Ok, not talking about specialized gaming devices here. But let us take pretty modest games available on Nokia devices via NGage. A lot of them (if not most) require directional controls and OpenGL ES APIs to be usable. I hope we both agree that having at least this kind of games play is well within the intended use for Maemo?
I.e. I don't know of a wide pool of games that we could be automatically supporting but we would be not even though we wouldn't have those two features. (That is not to say if they are there or not.)
I know that the iPhone has turned out to be a very successful gaming platform, despite not being particularly targeted towards gaming. They have sufficient enablers in the HW and SW side for games development, plus most importantly now a sufficiently large user base for commercial development. But it's just an example to say that there are other ways to do good gaming devices than just sticking directional controls and support to any certain technology.
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2009-06-10
, 16:05
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Posts: 903 |
Thanked: 632 times |
Joined on Apr 2008
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#64
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Originally Posted by qgil
What is wrong with the Help system now? Yes I realize that not many developers use it, but that is not because of the system, but because of the developers developing for the platform.
Hi, wouldn't it be better to have separate threads to discuss different topics?
I'm only speaking as a Maemo & Fremantle user here.
Have you used such Help in Maemo applications? I know I haven't. Even in my full GNOME desktop I have used the Help system only in few occasions after several years. The apps I use in Maemo tend to be self-explanatory. If I have questions I find the answers online.
What are your experiences with Help systems in mobile devices?
One-man Open Source developers were never known to write help documents
But isn't Fremantle supposed to be a mass-market device? And mass-market = commercial developers. And we all know commercial developers write very nice help systems. Look at Digia@scene or @Web, both utilize the help framework and provide very nice help documents. Digia is one of the few commercial developers developing for the platform now and they utilize the help system very well.
What are the thousands of commercial developers going to do with Fremantle? Are you saying Nokia doesn't want commercial developers and wants to keep Maemo a hobbyists toy? No? If not, why remove the help system right before it is going to be used as it was designed to be?
Also, my application uses the Help.
In terms of text selection, Modest is more an exception than a norm because it still uses gtkhtml. So please don't make conclusions for the whole platform based on it.
Let's see this from a user point of view:
- The Maemo selecting behavior up to Diablo could be improved specially in scrollable areas, according to many sources e.g. this old bug. This justifies the action to change things in Fremantle, where scrolling and panning has a more important role.
- The Maemo browser has a specific gesture to activate text selection. Any application using the browser engine to render its own content can benefit from its gestures at will, including text selection.
- Text selection is not an issue in non-scrolling/panning areas. Developers can offer an interface where the user just needs to move his finger from beginning to end of the text selected.
What cases fall out of these two categories? Developers can still offer the change from pannable to selectable areas in one click. The assumption is that this separation will make life of users easier than in Diablo and previous versions.
Thanks.
Let's discuss examples of real applications, please. In which ones do you expect selecting text is going to be a problem?
__________________
-Brent
Author of TouchSearch -- web searching software for Maemo 5.
Mobile Device lineage: Palm Z22 -> Palm TX -> Nokia N800 -> Nokia N900
-Brent
Author of TouchSearch -- web searching software for Maemo 5.
Mobile Device lineage: Palm Z22 -> Palm TX -> Nokia N800 -> Nokia N900
Last edited by BrentDC; 2009-06-10 at 17:24.
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2009-06-10
, 17:00
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Posts: 654 |
Thanked: 664 times |
Joined on Feb 2009
@ Germany
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#65
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Originally Posted by BrentDC
That's true. And even if there would be API documentation about that it's still completely undefined how the switching between selection-mode and panning-mode should be exposed to the user.
Where is the API document describing this property? I've looked everywhere, yet haven't found this documented in either hildon.PannableArea or hildon.TextView (my application, a text viewer, is an exception to the above rules I guess).
I asked how the default web browser will do it and was told it is a surprise
Have a look at the last 3 comments here: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=166
| The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to conny For This Useful Post: | ||
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2009-06-10
, 17:31
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Posts: 1,418 |
Thanked: 1,541 times |
Joined on Feb 2008
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#66
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Originally Posted by sachin007
This is technically incorrect. You have only one CPU, so at most one app is running at each moment of time. And most of the time, no apps are running, as they are all waiting for the user input.
I guess it is better to do it now than later being told that "Multiple apps drain battery and cpu.. so we are limiting the no. of open apps at a time to 1. After all this is a mobile device and we cant satisfy some very rare use case scenario."
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2009-06-10
, 17:44
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Posts: 1,418 |
Thanked: 1,541 times |
Joined on Feb 2008
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#67
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Originally Posted by ragnar
On the software side:
Sorry for possibly repeating stuff, but could you list those changes once again?
1. Fix Modest to work properly, every time, in every setting (IMAP or POP), with any connection (even if it regularly breaks during background mail check).
2. Redesign layout of File Manager and file selector to show more files at once and show as much of a file name as the screen width allows.
3. Fix File Manager and file selector to work with large directories, possibly add rudimentary sorting abilities for easier access (by-name, by-type, by-date, by-size).
4. Make all basic widgets (and the desktop, preferably) work properly in portrait screen mode. No need to make all bundled apps work in portrait mode, as it will take too much resources.
5. Make it possible for applications to use OpenGL ES APIs. The easiest way it can be done is to implement the exclusive full screen mode which gives application full control of the frame buffer and the 3D context. See how it is done in DirectDraw/Direct3D (Windows) and SDL (Linux).
6. Fix browser so that multiple Flash objects do not hang the tablet. Yes, I know that Adobe is to blame, but this can be worked around by not letting plugin instances take too much CPU.
7. Modify XTerm with the latest patches, including full-screen overlay keyboard.
More difficult stuff:
1. Add a decent dpad. "Decent" means large, easy to operate quickly. One way to do it would be to place four round buttons in a cross-like formation at the back of the device, opposite to the camera. The same pad can be used to operate the camera. (it is a hardware request, I know, the only reason why it is here is because it is important).
2. Bring back virtual input methods. A lot of people find it easier to use virtual keyboard.
These are the issues I have seen people discuss lately. There may be some others as well.
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2009-06-10
, 17:52
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Posts: 1,418 |
Thanked: 1,541 times |
Joined on Feb 2008
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#68
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Originally Posted by ragnar
The point was not to claim that iPhone users are somehow inferior to Maemo users. The point was to remind that before you start "consuming content", you usually have to manage it. iPhone users manage their content with iTunes, tightly integrated with their hardware. Maemo does not have a similar tool, and even if Nokia makes it, I have strong doubts anybody will use it, based on my experience with previous desktop offering from Nokia.
And I therefore wouldn't agree with your statement. People want to have a good experience with consuming and interacting with their data. I don't think most Apple users miss terribly "lack of control" with their data. As long as the overall experience has no gaps, I would claim most people prefer the simpler approach. Then again, I'm not saying that we would going the Apple route.
I'm not that familiar with the NGage offering, it's a whole different unit. I am under the impression that games are Symbian or Maemo specific, so I wouldn't be talking about cross-platform support. (But I could be off on this subject.)
I.e. I don't know of a wide pool of games that we could be automatically supporting but we would be not even though we wouldn't have those two features. (That is not to say if they are there or not.)
I know that the iPhone has turned out to be a very successful gaming platform, despite not being particularly targeted towards gaming. They have sufficient enablers in the HW and SW side for games development, plus most importantly now a sufficiently large user base for commercial development.
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2009-06-10
, 18:22
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Posts: 1,418 |
Thanked: 1,541 times |
Joined on Feb 2008
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#69
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Originally Posted by fms
Little clarification on this:
2. Bring back virtual input methods. A lot of people find it easier to use virtual keyboard.
If I understand things correctly, the main obstacle to this is the need to make all applications resize properly when the virtual keyboard is shown. Given that the new Maemo device is supposed to have hardware graphics acceleration, the virtual keyboard can be made semi-transparent (with configurable opacity) and overlaid onto the normal screen. Advantages of this method:
1. You do not need to fix all the apps to work in that cramped half-screen layout with virtual keyboard taking the bottom of the screen.
2. The applications can use the whole screen even with virtual keyboard present.
3. The virtual keyboard always takes the whole screen so it may have more buttons and be finger operated.
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2009-06-10
, 18:28
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Moderator |
Posts: 7,109 |
Thanked: 8,820 times |
Joined on Oct 2007
@ Vancouver, BC, Canada
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#70
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Originally Posted by conny
I think Maemo don't want third party developers stealing their coolest ideas. You can have them when everyone else does, not before!
I asked how the default web browser will do it and was told it is a surprise
Originally Posted by fms
I think an SDL library would probably do the trick. I don't think many game developers / porters would be upset if they were told to use SDL.
5. Make it possible for applications to use OpenGL ES APIs. The easiest way it can be done is to implement the exclusive full screen mode which gives application full control of the frame buffer and the 3D context. See how it is done in DirectDraw/Direct3D (Windows) and SDL (Linux).
Originally Posted by qgil
Having watched this pattern repeat itself in the forums and on the mailing lists, I'd like to suggest that Nokia employees don't waste "busy morning" time defending current policy or decisions. It doesn't seem to move the conversation forward, it often doesn't placate the complainers, and it often just adds fuel to the fire and spawns a long argument that doesn't lead anywhere new.
No, you have two Nokia employees that are spending a big chunk of their busy morning trying you to explain why things are designed and implemented the way they are.
Focus on the stuff that you believe is valid and can be changed; don't waste time arguing about things that aren't a priority for Maemo or Nokia.
This only applies to when you're wearing your Nokia hats. Feel free to argue about anything you want as community members. The problem is that posts from ragnar, qgil or Peter@Maemo Marketing (among others) will rarely or never be interpreted as community member posts.
__________________
qole.org --- twitter --- Easy Debian wiki page
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Thank you all for your donations!
qole.org --- twitter --- Easy Debian wiki page
Please don't send me a private message, post to the appropriate thread.
Thank you all for your donations!
| The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to qole For This Useful Post: | ||
I have a general problem with the direction of the changes. On one hand you say it's a device for hackers and Linux geeks. And i agree as those people who just want a small sexy device will prefer an iphone or similar as it's designed to be sexy instead of open. The average user imho doesn't care for openess. So fremantle is addressing the hacker and geek, true?. Why do you then simplify the interface so much? Hackers usually prefer capabilities over simplicity. So what's the target audience of fremantle? Hackers? Average users? My Mom? Former IPhone owners? I am a little confused ...
Last edited by Master of Gizmo; 2009-06-10 at 15:59.