What's more comfortable - top or bottom bars? - maemo.org

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XTC	2009-01-02 , 07:49
Posts: 226 \| Thanked: 47 times \| Joined on Jan 2008 @ Poland / Bialystok	#1

Each time I use my tablet I wonder if anyone considered deeply usage of bottom bars.
Let's take Xournal for example.
On PC - it has top placed menu bar, on tablet - bottom.
Why? Just because someone build tablet's browsers that way?
Of course it's more comfortable to work with stylus on the bottom area of the screen but - hey - in fact no one types in browser addres window directly - the keyboard shows up and we "type" - at the bottom of course.
From my point of view the bottom screen's area is too precious to put some fixed bars here - just like almost any app does.
On the other hand - hildon desktop seems free from this issue since it has it's bar on the top.
This is the way we could avoid some silly behaviour when in full-screen mode right scrollbar flickers at the bottom because additional webpage elements are being downloaded.
To sum up - don't You think that top placed bars in applications (especially in fullscreen) are more comfortable than bottom ones?

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soap	2009-01-02 , 10:10
Posts: 31 \| Thanked: 20 times \| Joined on Nov 2008 @ Ohio	#2

Originally Posted by XTC

To sum up - don't You think that top placed bars in applications (especially in fullscreen) are more comfortable than bottom ones?

I always find top placed bars in applications (even in full screen) undesirable on a touch-interface device.
Top-placed menus might be familiar from my exposure to desktop applications, but they do not make sense on a touch-screen. It isn't a matter of avoiding touching other controls or of the convenience of using them when placed there, it is the simple fact that my hand obscures the screen when using them.

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	benny1967	2009-01-02 , 10:31
	Posts: 3,790 \| Thanked: 5,718 times \| Joined on Mar 2006 @ Vienna, Austria	#3

funny... right before i came to this site today, i used "mirage". it's a nice image viewing program that can do some simple manipulation such as crop, resize etc.

it has its button bar on top, not on the bottom of the screen, and i never get used to it - i find it most annoying. i find myself using the menu rather than the buttons in this situation.

so when i saw this poll, the answer was easy. bottom!

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XTC	2009-01-02 , 10:33
Posts: 226 \| Thanked: 47 times \| Joined on Jan 2008 @ Poland / Bialystok	#4

Originally Posted by soap

I always find top placed bars in applications (even in full screen) undesirable on a touch-interface device.
Top-placed menus might be familiar from my exposure to desktop applications, but they do not make sense on a touch-screen. It isn't a matter of avoiding touching other controls or of the convenience of using them when placed there, it is the simple fact that my hand obscures the screen when using them.

Indeed - with assumption that they are used extensively.
When drawing ie. with Sketch or Xournal or Maemopad+ it's much easier to draw on lower half of the screen.
No doubt - lower part of the screen is far more comfortable to use so ... maybe the bar itself isn't so important?
It's simply question of how many times I have to use toolbar.
If only for selecting address from bookmarks or drawing tool it comes sometimes to ONCE or TWICE.
Do not look at top-bars as some garbage from PC apps

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XTC	2009-01-02 , 10:36
Posts: 226 \| Thanked: 47 times \| Joined on Jan 2008 @ Poland / Bialystok	#5

Originally Posted by benny1967

funny... right before i came to this site today, i used "mirage". it's a nice image viewing program that can do some simple manipulation such as crop, resize etc.

it has its button bar on top, not on the bottom of the screen, and i never get used to it - i find it most annoying. i find myself using the menu rather than the buttons in this situation.

so when i saw this poll, the answer was easy. bottom!

Sure - but what's the use of image editing app. If main use are on toolbar - no question about it - it's Your workspace.

Then - consider someting like GIMP and try to do some drawing/sketching when lower half of the screen would be filled with toolbars. Horror.

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	allnameswereout	2009-01-02 , 14:13
	Posts: 3,397 \| Thanked: 1,212 times \| Joined on Jul 2008 @ Netherlands	#6

None (full screen), except when necessary. If using bars, use both bottom and top equally. The focus of the eyes is in the middle of the screen on the application. However because currently (Maemo 4.1.x) there are already information items on top and (left) side of the tablet it makes sense to put further bars on the bottom allowing the user to focus more on the middle of the screen negating the noise.

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	YoDude	2009-01-02 , 22:17
	Posts: 2,869 \| Thanked: 1,784 times \| Joined on Feb 2007 @ Po' Bo'. PA	#7

Any bar that will serve me is fine.

It all depends on what I am viewing or working with. In some cases side button bars are best for me.

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	TrueJournals	2009-01-02 , 22:34
	Posts: 480 \| Thanked: 378 times \| Joined on Apr 2008 @ Chicago-ish	#8

Usually when using a Desktop, I look at the screen from going top --> bottom. On my tablet, I see it more as bottom --> top. About 1/4 of the way down my monitor is where my eye level is, so I naturally look more at the top of the screen. On the tablet, stuff at the top is undesirable because when using the top of the screen, your hand is blocking most of the screen. Buttons on the bottom allow you to see the screen, and see notifications that the buttons give, while pressing them.

Having said that, all OSes I can think of have some kind of bar at the bottom. Windows has the taskbar at the bottom, OS X has the dock at the bottom, and both KDE and GNOME allow you to switch programs using a bar at the bottom. I realize these are all configurable options, I'm just looking at the default setup here.

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	Benson	2009-01-03 , 06:04
	Posts: 4,930 \| Thanked: 2,272 times \| Joined on Oct 2007	#9

Originally Posted by TrueJournals

On the tablet, stuff at the top is undesirable because when using the top of the screen, your hand is blocking most of the screen. Buttons on the bottom allow you to see the screen, and see notifications that the buttons give, while pressing them.

Definitely agreed.

Having said that, all OSes I can think of have some kind of bar at the bottom. Windows has the taskbar at the bottom, OS X has the dock at the bottom, and both KDE and GNOME allow you to switch programs using a bar at the bottom. I realize these are all configurable options, I'm just looking at the default setup here.

Well, can't speak for others, but I actually prefer a 3-row taskbar at the top on my XP desktop, although on my tablet I keep it (still 3-line) at the bottom for two reasons: sometimes window/message placement gets scrazzed by the combination of multi-line+top-placement+Vista, and it spaces the on-screen keyboard (which I like near the bottom) up a little, giving me a place to rest my hand when using the stylus.* I'm not as concerned about blockage with the tablet, because my hand blocks a lot less of a 12" than a 4" display, and because I'm using the touchpad around half the time when it's in laptop configuration.

*To round things out, my current Eee config is FVWM, with just a tiny buttonbar near the lower-left corner, positioned such that it overlays the statusbar of a maximized firefox window, for practically zero effective screen usage. And, when I get the touchscreen from HK here and installed, it should be rather convenient to hit with a thumb or stylus.

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