Maemo is an open platform and whether it's 5 or 6 doesn't make any difference on this. If someone comes with an alternative window manager that works and seduces end users, then fine.

If you find disturbing having more than 3 widgets then have no more than 3 widgets and be fine with that. Maemo won't force you to have all desktops full of widgets....

... but if by the day this comes to your hands you find out that navigagting across widgets in a same canvas actually saves plenty of time and clicks compared to clicking icons in order to open and close fullscreen apps... Then Maemo will havesomething for you as well.

Yes, if you want to have only a couple of items on the canvas, and limit it to only one page, there's nothing preventing you from doing that.

I personally think of this a bit like what happens with Facebook profile pages. Some people like to keep them really clean, others (especially younger people) might like a really long page, this kind of "information overload". The framework is flexible enough to allow both.

I know about the customiziblity which I am not trying to talk about it here. The word "Canvas" is what concerns me. I think I am not that updated in this aspect ,but I never hear anyone used this term*** with desktop environment (Could I be the only one in the world who don't know it?) Wiki ,etc ... didn't get me anything about this "Canvas UI".

I am not sure if you do mean by "Canvas" as within *tiling window manager which might get more sense than the way I understand it (Relates to web gadgets) . Still, I am more of waiting for an answer to clear this for me.

*I mean by "Tiling window manager" like: XMonad (Link ) - Awsome (Link) - Wimii (Link)

There is a small problem, I don't have/use Facebook/social sites. Which this might be one of the reasons why I don't understand this concept.

Anyway, I am waiting for someone to clear this "Canvas" to me.

@allnameswereout

True, you could use a computer with lower power requirements. Though I'm not sure if I would ever build one, but then again considering most games are just going to consoles nowadays and I don't have as much time to play videogames, I may not need a gaming desktop anymore. I'll have to look up Linux solutions for use over the internet without logging in.

As for your later half of the posts, yes that's partially what attracted me to the Maemo platform (when I was first considering the n800, Android + G1, and the iPhone were the others). But it was also the capability of the device to do so much more if the user desired. I just wonder if in the long run if that aspect or capability is going go away due to hardware and UI changes.

Edit: And to get back on-topic.

The Canvas idea is interesting to say the least. Not sure I understand it though like f(x). Is it more like the desktop solutions where all windows are available to see and use. That's what it appears like to me (with the funny Windows 95 looking drawings =P) Or is it more like information at a glance, an expansion of the widget system? Kinda like a Google personalized homepage where you can add all the gadgets you want.

On a sidenote, I don't see why this also couldn't be brought to the n900 (minus the multi-touch, capacitative features and whatever new hardware).

I think it's great that developers can see where Maemo 6 is headed.

And that Canvas suggests that the Harmattan leak from May was genuine. Imagine four of those stacked side-by-side.

Regards,
Roger

For those that don't understand what the "Canvas" means, it's actually an old concept - Scrolling Desktop.
You can test it on you desktop to see how it might work. Just get a small monitor with low resolution.

1. Does he canvas move smoothly or in "jumps"?
2. If it moves in jumps will there be an overview section and/or the abiliy to selected the number of jumps (defacto setting the size of the canvas)?

If I understand it correctly the canvas is actually just an extension of the many home screens that exist now. The questions hat have been raised have been mostly about this extension creating clutter or making it harder to navigate?

Couldn't these problems be, at least partly, solved by letting the usen choose how big the canvas is like we choose cells in a table inserted in a word document and having an overview section similar to the one now existing for applications in Maemo 5?

What I'm envisioning is basically a pulldown menu where you pull to choose X*Y number of boxes for your canvas. hen going to a birds-eye view for some of the navigation (although this might have to be split up for larger canvases).

Wouldn't this be similar to the idea of virtual desktops on computers? At least when I looked closer at the picture that's what it seemed like to me. Not necessarily a tiling window manager where all windows are exposed.

I would have thought that of all the things that are a bit confusing about UI, that the idea of a canvas wouldn't be one of them.

Think workspaces, or the extended desktop metaphor used in many desktop OSes. Except they are *stitched* together as one whole. Because the resolution and physical size of the sum of these stitched screens is greater than that of the device, you begin to pan through each.

Depending on the implementation, it could be smooth or not - that's up to the UI design from that end. Ideally, it should be going in one direction (left to right/right to left or top to bottom/bottom to top). But that can be something that the UI frameworks of Maemo 6 leaves to the users to stitch together.

*throwing this in there
Imagine that you had this canvas, and by holding a function button and doing a gesture with the device that you could move between those parts of the canvas. Imagine what that does for creativity and productivity applications. Also, with the fact that you have a greater resolution being used - for the canvas as a whole - imagine what you could pump out via a TV-Out/HDMI-Out facility. Imagine how that device can now be useful for traditional computing tasks, but when its physically in a mobile context, it submits to that end as well.

This is what's possible, now

Hmm, ok so I'm beginning to see what you mean. It's something similar to if you specify a resolution bigger then your monitor in Linux (something you have to do sometimes to get around limitations when using dual monitors) combined with the idea of virtual desktops but instead of having to switch between each of them (well you still are, but now it's just panning around instead of switching between them with a keypress).