Hello.

Let's start by apologizing, if this kind of thread already exists. I did do some searching and found none.

Now, I've noticed (from many) that some developers (for example MohammadAG and Matan) have made their own modifications to the Hildon-environment. We've got now portrait-status menu, portrait modest (email), portrait control panel, modified multi-tasker and we can have even up to nine (9) desktops. However, as a non-coder, I have a question.

Since these modifications are possible I'm wondering, that can we some day see a portrait for Hildon desktop? I know, Fremantle was never designed to be used in portrait, but think about it. Since the developers have already been able to do the mentioned above, why not? Sure, if the source is closed, then they can't, that's obvious. I'm just asking this from Hildon's view : how far can we take the modifications on it?

The most closest one so far would be the rotatedaemon, which does work, but it doesn't adjust the windows correctly. Then there's also the CTRL+Shift+R but it doesn't cover the whole system, it's excluding for example Hildon menu and Hildon desktop. Personally, I'd be modifying Hildon right away if I'd have the skills. Alas, I don't and I, as many others, are dependent to the developers.

So yeah, that's just what I wanted to ask.

A few developers are currently discussing this, I think Venemo is the lad that's taken it up

Closed source is all the reason... All those apps that modded to allow portrait are open source. But some apps are just closed that we can't do anything.

Hildon-Desktop (the "window manager" - the task switcher, launcher, etc..) is open source. So is Hildon-Home (the "desktop" that hosts the desktop widgets). So a "portrait desktop" is "legally" and "technically" possible, it's just a matter of somebody implementing it and dealing with the issues of portrait mode (i.e. how are the widgets re-arranged when switching from landscape to portrait? are there two different layouts? etc..).

For closed source applications, we can set a property on their windows to allow rotation (hildon-desktop does the rotation, which is open source), but we can in general not modify their screen layout. That's why Ctrl+Shift+R works even for closed-source apps like the media player - it sets the window to be rotatable in hildon-desktop, but the app itself cannot "relayout" itself if it's not written to do so.

Yes but only hildon desktop... If you make hildon portrait then it would mean that it's limited to the menusystem and homescreen only? I don't think it's user friendly if a user uses portrait homescreen and menu then switches to landscape everytime he/she opens anything?
Also no that's not possible to rotate an app to portrait... Doing so would make it almost unuseable... If it were only I'm sure it was done a long time ago...

IMO it's not worthy hacking hildon-home to support portrait mode when a significant nubmer of apps don't suppoer portrait mode. Besides, rotation takes significant amount of time and the desktop will be inaccessible during the period. This hampers user experience.

If possilbe I would suggest spending the effort on the task switcher. The use case of such feature is benefinal, e.g. switching between multiple browser windows in portrait mode, and has an immediate impact on usability improvement.

Indeed. There is a person who forked the desktop about a year ago and made some interesting changes to it.

I won't go in detail here, but I'll tell you that I'm working on forward-porting his work.

@Sony123: I would assume that any project to make the Hildon Desktop fully support portrait mode would also support the task switcher. (At the technical level, isn't the task switcher just another app running in the Hildon environment, meaning that you only have to change they layouts in the task switcher after the fact at most?)

Also, I don't know what apps you're using - most of mine support portrait mode just fine. App Manager is replaceable by FApMan, which can have auto rotation, FileBox, a decent stock File Manager replacement (more versatile, just not always as intuitive), has auto rotation, frankly, just about everything I run on this device regularly can either do auto rotation, or at least looks fine in portrait mode.

And if you ultimately don't like it, you have the option of not installing if/when it does come out. (Ideally they'd make it configurable in user-accessible settings) You're the exception anyway. Many people have been wanting and hoping for portrait mode for a while now.

Frankly, I'm not even sure that it would be easier to just enable portrait in task-switcher, as opposed to entire hildon. Oh, and if the screen isn't usable for those 0.5 seconds it's rotating and that annoys you, just overwrite that setting in the transitions.ini file.

@Radicalz38: That's not how it works. If you enable Portrait accross the entire desktop, everything gets portrait enabled, unless some ridiculous voodoo was used in the code - and I'm not even sure you can do it that way. Hildon Desktop is basically always effecting what happens on the screen when the OS is fully loaded. If you have a full screen app open, as I understand it, it's not just the app that's running, but the app running ON Hildon-Desktop (not on top of the desktop as we humans see it on the screen, I'm talking code-wise). All the rotation that most apps have right now is made possible by Hildon-Desktop. When you press Ctrl + Shift + R that's Hildon-Desktop rotating the app - the app just has the ability to tell Hildon whether or not it should be auto-rotated, and to change its layout when rotated.

Right now, Hildon Desktop is the only part that doesn't support portrait. (I'm counting task switcher as part of Hildon-Desktop, and I am pretty sure it is for the intents and purposes of this conversation.) The point of doing this is specifically so that you don't have to deal with the annoyance of everything rotating 180 degrees on you when you leave a window to switch windows, or to launch something from your desktop. (And so you can use the various menus in portrait mode just as easily.)

And yes, it is possible to rotate every app to portrait right now. Some become unusable but that's not the point - the point is that they rotate, which is what's relevant to what was said above. There's that Ctrl+Shift+R thing. Bam, rotation. It doesn't look that great if the app wasn't coded for it, but more and more developers are making their stuff support portrait right off the bat. Enough so that I think most people are finding they'd rather have the whole Hildon-Desktop (yes that includes task-switcher) portrait-capable, and for the rare app with shitty portrait support, you just rotate it to landscape.

The use is basically the same, except you're doing like half as much if not entirely none (depending on what you're using) the rotating of your N900 in your hands when trying to use stuff in portrait. (And still 0 rotating when using everything in landscape.)

This far.

Yes the thread linked was literally right next to this one on my Active Topics list... Hildon is extremely buggy.

Yes, the task switcher is part of the desktop. Also, portrait mode for the task switcher is implemented in the version I talked about earlier.