Notices

So I've been contemplating getting a new DAP for a few days instead of just buying a big MiniSD card for the N810. For some reason the N810 doesn't appeal to me as a media player, I couldn't quite put my finger on it but it just didn't function that well as a dedicated audio player, even with an awesome application like Canola. So before I go spending a few Benjamins on a new DAP I decided to delete all my videos from the N810 and drop a chunk of my music library to see how it functioned (I hadn't tested it with more than a few songs before this). Canola truly is a quality app with a wonderful finger interface, which is why I was so confused that the N810 didn't feel like a good audio player.

So finally today it hit me. The problem with the N810 as a good portable DAP is that it is designed to be used with two hands. When you are walking around town and you want to break out the N810 to select a new album or change track, it takes a considerable amount of attention to be using both hands with the device to navigate through Canola's interface. Whether you are holding with one hand and using a finger on the other to poke at the screen, or holding it with both hands using your thumb. Once I realized this I understood why something like an iPod Touch felt like a better audio player, because you can hold it in one hand and navigate the entire interface with a single thumb. I turned the N810 sideways and realized how it could achieve the same simple navigation. When the N810 is sideways, the thumb (at least mine) can reach any area of the screen with relative ease. Its also easier to hold the N810 sideways with one hand because you can reach all the way around the back.

So of course I really wish the Canola team would make a portrait version of Canola. I think it would improve the (already good) experience that people are having with Canola, and help convert the N810 into a really viable media player. I have the feeling that the reason that it has not been done already is that the OS doesn't support vertical text (among other more complicated problems), is that right? If there aren't actually any technical limitations preventing this from happening, then I hope the Canola team will sit down and seriously discuss the possibility of a portrait version of Canola. Oh and one other benefit is that the portrait orientation is generally better for long list views like media apps tend to provide.

Please share your thoughts!

For no other reason other than the heck of it, I edited a screenshot of Canola's home screen to portrait orientation... as well as 15 mins and paint will let you do -

Yes!!!!! I absolutely agree with you 100%. I've already thought about this in general with the N810, I think many more apps should support portrait orientation (web browser for example), especially single-finger usage. Even though it (currently) wouldn't be possible to make it "dynamic" (i.e., like the iPhone, turning the screen when you physically turn it), it could still have an icon or menu option, SOMETHING that let's you switch back and forth. Even Palm has had this feature for years in many of their programs! I definitely think that Canola should make a portrait version/option in their software. In fact, I think that portrait mode should be the DEFAULT mode!

Let's hope it's possible and they can make it happen soon!

yeah you guys are right. i think that portrait mode is something should be worked on in exactly the capacity that cybercat mentions - a general feature for several applications. one thought i had was button switching or maybe even some sort of algorithm incorporated using the camera as a mechanism for detecting motion - just a thought since i know the camera doesn't have much use to me.

Hi Guys,

Couple of exciting things. (and maybe another couple of not so exciting)

Believe it or not, Canola can support rotation. We have internal demos with first page on portrait, then goes to landscape for pictures and so on. This is also nice because it wouldn't require TOO much work on the UI Design, just some adjustments in the player, and we would be ready to go.

So the exciting news is that I have been talking about this with the guys for quite a long time. There's also a "lyrics" plugin that would use this already... but it's low in the priority... because:

not so exciting news is : We would love to do a theme with rotation support, but there's so much to do to make canola really a stable / full featured application was we wanted that this is not going to be tested more right now.

So in a sense, At least me (don't know the other team members) think this is great, and for sure I would make a good use of it. Specially because I fell bad with the list having a small amount of space to scroll, best usage of space (in widescreen the list is quite much not using screen space)

BUT I tend to disagree with you guys in one point :
the industrial design was not meant for that : / unfortunately. While it does serves you.. it's quite uncomfortable for a lot of people (smaller hands) to hold the device in the portrait (and click around) for people with not so big hands. This works quite nicely on the ipod touch or even the iphone because of the shape and the thickness and more : the absence of bevel around the screen. But of course this could reach some users... =)

But we believe devices will evolve and we are ready for it =) Maybe we surprise you guys with a Theme that works like that... =) I think that would show some EVAS / EDJE power around .. .to create a how new application look and feel (with turnings) just by using themes =)

About the camera: could be done, but there's no guarantee to have a good precision to the fact that you are turning from landscape to portrait only : / movement can be traced, but with the camera facing forward... I don't know how much trouble could it be.. because canola is already using a considerable amount of CPU.. so a "continuous" process calculating the turning doing image processing... is a big NO WAY =)

I wish I could post here some videos of the turned ui. but this is not canola, so I can't :/

=)

Hi handful, thanks for the prompt response. I'm really excited to hear that you are considering a rotated version of Canola. I somewhat disagree on your thoughts about people with small hands as I really don't consider my hands to be large at all. They are probably small-medium, and I have no problem getting to every area on the screen. The only problem area I see is the lower right corner of the device, because you thumb is stretched almost all the way to get there it is hard to hit something with a lot of accuracy, as long as you don't smash a tiny little button down in the corner it would be fine. You could even put a button down there as long as its decently finger sized.

I hope you can talk to the team and have them consider moving a portrait UI higher up on the priority list. I really feel like it could give a significant boost the ability of the N810 to function as well as a dedicated media player. I would love to scroll through my album covers list in portrait, or through my lists! One thing about scrolling while on the subject. I feel like the inertia scroll decellerates to quickly. Its probably a personal preference, but maybe it could have an adjustable level of deceleration (you could call the setting 'Scrolling Friction"), or just have it changed a bit by default.

On a slightly unrelated note, I know this probably isn't the fault of Canola, but more the ability of the N810 or the graphics subset that serves it - I can't stand vertical/horizontal tearing with moving objects. I don't know why, it just seriously ruins the quality feel of the applications. To think that moving on screen squares can't even hold their shape consistently is kind of a upsetting. Though when you are scrolling through lists in the most basic of lists within OS2008 there is still tearing, so I suppose its not something that could easily be fixed.

Believe me: we work with maemo since before the 770 and when the n800 came.. we were really really sad about the tearing.

And you're right it does destroy the quality of applications, if you see animations on the 770 you will feel the smoothness of not having tearing (even 770 being slower on cpu) basic scrolling, menu animations are REALLY smooth on it because of no tearing.

Unfortunately, this has been largely discussed in the Maemo Dev lists, and it's a final thing It's not possible to be fixed. Seems a hardware issue. I don't know the technical details but is what you see.. the screen can't refresh fully at the expected time frame.. and you get "teared" graphics all over (even when doing fade outs)

You just found out why the settings only go half of the screen. There was no point in making it just on the right, but it just absurdly annoying to scroll the whole thing and looks even worst.

The thing behind not being able to see in lists, is because of the shape / less blocking things of text, but the tearing is there for everything (like I said even fade in or fade outs)

About the device: well, that's exactly it. I consider the ipod touch to me at the maximum optimal size for that, of course you can use the n810 but it does demands more physical effort for using it. The landscape is the natural way. Of course you (and me) like the portrait, but it's not that simple, and demands from the whole team a time that we don't have right now, and it's not about putting it higher on the priority list.. it's because first it needs to work well on every application, then we think of more ways of using. One step at time ... trying to do things even without doing the easy way first can be misleading...

About the friction, yes.. if you compare to the iphone / ipod it does stops earlier. We tried a lot of combinations and this is the best speed x performance x accuracy that we found so far. We can and will improve in the future... but not having a quite sensitive screen like the other devices makes this a little bit harder...


BR

Marcelo

Well I'm looking forward to future Canola updates, it feels like finished quality application, and the fact that it is that good but still in beta means the final quality will be even better which is exciting : )

Thanks for letting us know that you are considering the portrait view, I'm looking forward to it with eager anticipation.

Well anyway I've been trying Canola on the N810 and I really like the album art view, the only problem is the Canola-Tuning isn't picking up my albums very well. Which source is it grabbing images from? Two of mine have come in upsidedown and backwards, probably a problem with the image itself and not the way Canola is displaying it. Most of them are simply not there even though they are already on my computer, or a media player like UKMP is able to find nearly all of them on the web. How can I help Canola chose the right ones?

Oh and I swear I read somewhere that Canola was supposed to support UPnP, maybe it was actually for another application and I just got them mixed up?

Covers: hold still that the step 3 of 5 is coming =)
You will be able to select between the (several) that canola-tuning downloads. In such a easy way =)

About source: Amazon (Last.fm)

Better results: the responsible for canola tuning still updating it and improving results... but I think for optimal ones.. people should write some extensions for tuning that uses different sources then amazon.

Also in step 4 we are going to add "pick from file" so if everything else fails, you can just browse somewhere.. download to your device's memory and pick from there... and save as album art.

Step 5 we plan to integrate tuning (everything but the download of album, that I already explained why it can't be inside of canola, or officially supported)

Yes, Canola has UPNP support. It has been under testing for a couple of weeks, and we were just "improving" it to make it load faster etc.
Once it's "ready" for prime time... you will be able to install from the website the plugin for it.

BR

It all sounds good, any word on when you expect the next update?

The key to getting tuning to get the right covers is probably having the correct tag information so I'll update that and give it a whirl.