Originally Posted by christexaport

Although not everyone agrees on portrait and automatic screen rotation, I do, and we're not alone. There is some opposition to having this feature added, and I don't understand why, since those that don't need or want it won't be affected by its inclusion.

I should point out that the developers in opposition aren't the direct coders of the OS UI, but the voice of the community is what gets support for features, so many see it as an attempt to block the addition of portriat mode and ASR. Ignore them and focus on what you wish. There is a brainstorm (idea incubator) on how best to get automatic screen rotation in the UI, mainly the desktops and menus here:
http://maemo.org/community/brainstor..._in_fremantle/
You have to register separately to participate in these brainstorms, but access is open, and I invite you to comment on the proposed solutions and even posting some of your own.

You can post a new solution by pressing the orange "new solution" button at the top of the screen. You can comment on them all at the bottom of the page. Feel free to ask any questions about any of the solutions in the comment portion at the bottom of the page, and vote on them all by pressing the thumbs up (to support an idea) or thumbs down (to not support an idea) to the left of each solution.

I look forward to seeing your input in the brainstorm, and welcome to the talk.maemo.org forums. Glad to have you.

Originally Posted by sjgadsby

A designer who works on the actual Maemo OS does frequent this site and he did say that rotating the home screen would be hard due to the design of the home screen and its freely placed widgets. Other people on this site (note: not OS developers or designers though) have agreed this assessment.

Originally Posted by Firebird8

Couldn't this be solved by just rotating each widget about its center instead of moving the widgets at all? (Is the homescreen opensource ?).