Gui

[DaveC]

I'm not sure that a windowed GUI is so impractical. I recall using one at 640 x 480 back in the day, and didn't have any problems with it at the time.

Regardless though, we have these analog nubs - why not a tabbed version of the Zodiac interface? That gives quick, mouseless control while still allowing space for a directory heirarchy. As far as tabbed, palm-like interfaces go, that seems the most practical for the Pandora.

Despite that, I voted for windowed. I have had some problems with the Zodiac interface... I'm not going to try to enumerate them here, it's mainly just that its never felt natural to me.

Well the big problem with the Zodiac interface is that once you get more than 8 apps things just spill over to a big unorganized mess along the side of the screen.

I plan on having more than 8 things on the Pandora so that interface wont work well at all.

 

[Chip]

I'm not sure that a windowed GUI is so impractical. I recall using one at 640 x 480 back in the day, and didn't have any problems with it at the time.

It is not so much the resolution as the dot pitch that makes it impractical. All icon labels / menu item fonts are going to need to be in the 18-24pt range just to be easily legible. Once you've made the status bar and title bars big enough to compensate for this, then consider how many large icons you can fit in a half-screen window with large labels. It's not that many.

When designing GUI mockups, make them at half rez (400x240). That will give a closer aproximation to the actual physical size of the Pandora LCD on your monitor.

How many useful windows can you fit on a screen that size?

 

[shmuck]

Well the big problem with the Zodiac interface is that once you get more than 8 apps things just spill over to a big unorganized mess along the side of the screen.

I plan on having more than 8 things on the Pandora so that interface wont work well at all.

Well alright, you're limited to eight things per directory if you don't want spillover, but the thing is that there's no reason you can't stack your directories.

Let's say that you wanted to play Chrono Trigger, for example, located at /games/snes/rpgs/chronotrigger. This could be as simple as four button presses, if your directory tree is organized right.

There are two probelms with organizing things this way on the Zodiac. One is that it forces you to keep your system memory directory tree and your SD card trees seperate. The other is that it's something of a pain in the butt to set these directories up. If you could solve those two problems than it'd work fine.

QUOTE
It is not so much the resolution as the dot pitch that makes it impractical. All icon labels / menu item fonts are going to need to be in the 18-24pt range just to be easily legible.

That's a good point, hadn't thought of that. Still, I can think of ways to get around it - how 'bout color coding your menu bar and assigning each window's title bar a different color? You could eliminate the need for text in the menu bar that way. ... Well, mitigate it anyway. Hmm. Maybe that's not such a good idea.

I'm going to stop thinking about this. I suspect that the interface is already well under development and if there are changes to be made I'd like to get my hands on it before I comment any further. I'm sure that whatever they've got cookin' will be perfectly serviceable, at the least.

 

[Ravnos]

I seriously think the UI should be copied from the N-Series tablets. The screen is the same size and resolution and they're both running Linux. And the N-Series UI is great and functional.

 

[Holokauston]

I seriously think the UI should be copied from the N-Series tablets. The screen is the same size and resolution and they're both running Linux. And the N-Series UI is great and functional.

you mean the UI on the n810 WiMax?
looks really good, I must agree

 

[Karel Jansens]

Just doing my part to help muddying the waters:

A windowing interface's advantage isn't only that you can have several "big" applications on the screen, it's also that you can have applets (or widgets, or like whatever) over the main application.

Think about a small calculator, a calender, a yellowy sticky note-ish thingie, a keypad for quickly entering numbers or special characters, a word-completion macro interface...

So maybe something like the Newton's "hybrid" windowing interface is what's needed: A main application will always be full-screen, but smaller widget windows can overlay it.

 

[Holokauston]

A small calculator?

on a 4"ish screen = 2cm high and 1cm wide?? my eyesight is good but not that good ò.Ó

Are you really looking for windows or layers?
Can't really see the point to "windows" on Pandora, but to layers with widgets sure and possibility to run stuff in the background I think is a given.

Are the people talking about having a windowed UI talking about having windows really or just the ability to tab between running apps and accessing the menu / desktop even if you got something running?

 

[guitarMan666]

I really enjoy the look and feel of the PSP's interface. It is a nice, minimalistic-looking interface that could use some improvements. Better handling of multiple applications (especially for a device like Pandora) would be essential. It could be designed to add a new "tab" for each installed emulator then list the games present based on the emulator they go with (could be achieved with simple directory structure organization).

 

[Squidge]

Well alright, you're limited to eight things per directory if you don't want spillover, but the thing is that there's no reason you can't stack your directories.

Let's say that you wanted to play Chrono Trigger, for example, located at /games/snes/rpgs/chronotrigger. This could be as simple as four button presses, if your directory tree is organized right.

So you want to execute your roms directly now, rather than running your preferred emulator first?

 

[shmuck]

So you want to execute your roms directly now, rather than running your preferred emulator first?

It's just a matter of file association. I don't see why that couldn't be a one click option.

 

[Squidge]

Sure, but I think emulators are always going to have competitors, and so some people will always want to run certain roms under certain emu's.

I suppose there could always be a "Open with" option anyway.

 

[thedracle]

Qtopiacore is quite easy to port to embedded Linux devices- I've ported it to several. It can sit on top of the framebuffer, and make use of DirectFB. It would be pretty easy to make any of the described UIs, or even customize between each, for those that prefer a windowed or tabbed interface. It also supports vectorized graphics, so vectorized icons may be dynamically scaled to help with visibility. 3.4 also supports Webkit, so embedded browser functionality would already exist just by porting Qtopia. The only issue being any of the UI code built on it would be required to exist in the open source realm, and to be distributed. It would be fairly easy to relinquish focus of the framebuffer when an emulator, or game application, is executed- and place the UI system into a low-memory state, or perhaps to close, and restart it back to its original position depending on resource constraints.

I'm eagerly waiting to hear some news about when Pandora will be released to developers.

 

[Sphinxter]

Just a stray thought from the ancient files triggered by those layouts. I'm bored, other insists on watching Harry Potter and my TV cards not working so I'll share. b-) In '95 I wrote a desktop shell for windows, from the header file:
/******************************
Cubic Rube
by
Linus Sphinx
A user defined grid of buttons to replace the
file manager of windows or just provide a
suite of menus in a simpler form so an idiot
can't lose them.
********************************/
Rube is defined as in simple, unsophisticated. It was for my visiting kins kids to use the pc untended and not destroy it, I'd set it to full screen and only a few buttons that I wanted available, turns it into a kiosk with the right settings maxed. The ini file had a vb editor, but the cube was in C, it was a scaleable button that used the bitmap from an ico file and the ini file gave it the size, position number per page, sides of the cube, ico:startup directoryrogram to run when clicked. Came with a bunch of icons, right click would spin the cube left click launched. An sdl png version would be a snap, delete a couple files and switch the rectangles, the ini file looked like;

[dimensions]
rows=4
columns=4

[position]
top=5
left=5

[iconsize]
width=42
height=40

[paths]
icons=c:\icons

[buttons]
0=progman.ico;c:\win;c:\win\progman.exe;
1=control.ico;c:\win;c:\win\control.exe;
2=winfile.ico;c:\win;c:\win\winfile.exe;
3=printman.ico;c:\win;c:\win\printman.exe;
4=msdos.ico;c:;c:\win\dosprmpt.pif;
5=setup.ico;c:\win;c:\win\setup.exe;
6=paint.ico;c:\win;c:\win\pbrush.exe;
7=notepad.ico;c:\win;c:\win\notepad.exe;
8=clipbrd.ico;c:\win;sysedit;
9=winword.ico;d:\winword;d:\winword\winword.exe;
10=pifedit.ico;c:\win;c:\win\pifedit.exe;
11=write.ico;c:\win;c:\win\write.exe;
12=bcc.ico;c:\borlandc\bin;c:\borlandc\bin\bcw.exe;
13=workshop.ico;c:\borlandc\bin;c:\borlandc\bin\workshop.exe;
14=iconmstr.ico;c:\icons;c:\icons\iconmstr.exe;
15=startrk1.ico;c:\win\winzip;c:\win\winzip\winzip.exe;
16=soundrec.ico;c:\win;c:\win\soundrec.exe;
17=clock.ico;c:\win;c:\win\clock.exe;
18=recorder.ico;c:\win;c:\win\recorder.exe;
19=packager.ico;c:\win;c:\win\packager.exe;
20=charmap.ico;c:\win;c:\win\charmap.exe;
21=mplayer.ico;c:\win;c:\win\mplayer.exe;
22=harmony.ico;c:\sfx\windat;c:\sfx\windat\windat.exe;
23=mixer.ico;c:\sfx\windat\c:\sfx\mixer.exe;
24=tetravex.ico;c:\win;c:\win\tetravex.exe;

 

[DaveC]

Sure, but I think emulators are always going to have competitors, and so some people will always want to run certain roms under certain emu's.

I suppose there could always be a "Open with" option anyway.

"Open with" is to windowsy for me.

I guess it could be set up so that when you load an emu directly it will load the ROM through the emu's menu. If you somehow click on a rom them you can use "open with". I just hope there will be a way to just load apps in the GUI. Having all files like ROMS show up in the launcher too can get messy especially if you have alot.

 

[bnolsen]

Qtopiacore is quite easy to port to embedded Linux devices- I've ported it to several. It can sit on top of the framebuffer, and make use of DirectFB. It would be pretty easy to make any of the described UIs, or even customize between each, for those that prefer a windowed or tabbed interface. It also supports vectorized graphics, so vectorized icons may be dynamically scaled to help with visibility. 3.4 also supports Webkit, so embedded browser functionality would already exist just by porting Qtopia. The only issue being any of the UI code built on it would be required to exist in the open source realm, and to be distributed. It would be fairly easy to relinquish focus of the framebuffer when an emulator, or game application, is executed- and place the UI system into a low-memory state, or perhaps to close, and restart it back to its original position depending on resource constraints.

I'm eagerly waiting to hear some news about when Pandora will be released to developers.

Do you mind forking over many $$$$s a year for doing commercial development on this platform? One of the reasons my company dumped Qt was because the maintenance fees alone per year for 2 developers was running almost $4k. And Qt4 only caused us untold amounts of grief. Yes, we were trying to do cad type stuff with Qt so yes we got totally trashed when we ported from Qt3 to 4 and then started to wonder why we were paying for a product that was starting to push their bugs around in circles with every release.

No thanks. Take something like fltk and polish it up more please!

My biggest requirement for a gui is that it must be proficient at:

Total navigation using dpad & controls
OR
Total navigation using touch screen.

None of this something dpad/sometimes touch screen crap. I can't stand editors that require mousing to be used *sometimes*. It really irritates me.

 

[sindbad]

I guess your mileage may vary.

Even though I've been quite negatively impressed by Qtopia (it promotes code duplication and it isn't easy to work with at all), Qt itself has always been a joy to work with. It makes c++ almost bearable and even in python, where convenience is a given, it's very nice to work with. Qt4 has the cleanest API of any gui toolkit I've seen and is in general much better than gtk and wx (features, performance, native look on any platform). KDE4 is a testament to what it can be done with it (holding my breath for 4.1).

However, if your app is closed-source, then I can perfectly understand why you wouldn't pay for Qt (I wouldn't either). FLTK FTW

I personally think that Enlightenment would work great. It's lightning fast, droolingly good-looking and it uses tiny amounts of ram. The only things to do would be a little customization for the resolution on the part of fonts and default widget/window sizes and adding a few modules specific to the pandora.

I'm sure we'll have more GUIs to choose from anyway.

 

[Sphinxter]

On the tabs #4, given the different aspect ratio of the pandora would it be a better use of real estate to put the tabs vertically down the side?

bnolsen: true, the most important feature of a user interface should be consistency.

 

[thedracle]

Well, I did mention issues with releasing UI elements as open source. I think almost certainly the main user interface for the Pandora will in fact be open-source. Also, the issue with changing focus, and running an external application would address further licensing issues with closed-source developments. They could use whatever user interface elements they choose, I would imagine something custom via OpenGL, or SDL. Perhaps their are some BSDish license alternatives so we can address concerns commercial developers may have releasing non-binary extensions? Also, perhaps such UI elements could be loaded via a plugin?

GTKFb, unfortunately, does not have a compromising license for would-be commercial vendors- but it would
be another potential user interface target.

I think, on an open-source platform, asking for consistent user interface patterns and utility, will be met with some disappointment. I think the basic platform would be the usual first concern, and then a set of user interface guidelines would follow based on that (although usually one doesn't, and it becomes a wild-west of various interfaces and ideas.)

Does anyone here know the timeline on when prototype platforms will be available, and if so, when? I heard something seemingly pinning that to sometime this month.

Cheers,

Jason Thomas.

Do you mind forking over many $$$$s a year for doing commercial development on this platform? One of the reasons my company dumped Qt was because the maintenance fees alone per year for 2 developers was running almost $4k. And Qt4 only caused us untold amounts of grief. Yes, we were trying to do cad type stuff with Qt so yes we got totally trashed when we ported from Qt3 to 4 and then started to wonder why we were paying for a product that was starting to push their bugs around in circles with every release.

No thanks. Take something like fltk and polish it up more please!

My biggest requirement for a gui is that it must be proficient at:

Total navigation using dpad & controls
OR
Total navigation using touch screen.

None of this something dpad/sometimes touch screen crap. I can't stand editors that require mousing to be used *sometimes*. It really irritates me.

 

[alfatreze]

The interface for a touch and hardware buttons controlled UI is always a tricky one, as it should optimally respect useability in both domains, and will consequently need a higher effort in designing and optimizing the UI.

I have some experience in UI development under specific constraints, mostly for Homebrew/Opensource applications, and being an area of development I love and am quite commited to, I'll sketch some early UI concepts with the preoccupations being vocalized here, further research and my own vision.

I will leave my developments under an open-source license, with commercial rights being limited to the Pandora only, I don't know wich one yet, I'm not really well versed in these.

Being a Graphic Designer by trade, and UX (User Experience) designer by heart, this is a project I'm willing to give a lot of my time to, if there is enough positive feedback and a potential for implementation/development.

I'll drop my concept/s soon in a new topic, as I also will be having some free time with upcoming vacations from work.

UX development is always a subject that I find to be very undeveloped in homebrew/open-source software, as most work is done by coders, and/or graphic savants/curious, and rarely by professionals that work in the area. Not that I claim to be a hardened pro, but my trade, curiosity and experience allow me a different/educated vision and mindset while working these subjects, backed by my experience as a designer.

I do hope there is a good interest in this area by the Pandora team, and associated developers, that a good amount of resources is allocated to it, because a good UI will set a good standard for the console, and allow for a fluid positive experience from the device by a large range of users without compromises.

I'll try to have a good set of concepts soon to drive an healthy/strong discussion on this subject.

 

[slint]

I think a tiling window manager like http://xmonad.org/ would be just perfect to use all of the small screen.

A shoulder Button as Mod-key would be verry nice