Pandora Desktop Environment Prototype Try 2 (screenshots And Videos)

[Prometheus]

Like mechanizeddeath, I rather like the minimalist look, too. I'll be perfectly happy just as long as I can easily change the desktop background and the icons to the ones I've prepared already (they're all PNGs).

I know it's not the most important of things, but just out of curiousity, speaking of the desktop background, if it is indeed changeable; One of my favourite features in KDE (I generally use Kubuntu on my main box, you see) is the "Centred Maxpect" option for desktop images - it's handy for when you want to use an image which isn't available in the resolution you're using (at 1280x800, I come across this quite often ). You can also set a plain or gradient background of various types to show up in the areas that the image doesn't cover. Will a feature like this be present, if it isn't already? It would save having to manually resize things to 800x480.

Everything else I would have said has already been said by others.

 

[mali]

I vote for user changeable placement of the decoration bar. I won't use emulation much, but instead text containing apps, where I need the full width of the screen. So for me the bar should be on top or bottom of the screen(if I use it in always visible mode).

 

[PandoraSuechtig]

So we are experimenting with using the Matchbox desktop for application launching. It seems to work well, and it is very, very easy to extend to incorpoate PXML package functionality.

Hope you guys got reported what i discussed in the german forum. About defining a format for an index on each SD card containing which and where the PMXLs are located. Each time the gui get's killed it would have to rescan the SD cards on restart. having an index right in the root of each SD card it should save time. And if you define the exact format any other app that wants to know about the "per pxml installed" software has a list for easy access. Especially alternative GUIs could profit and they could share the same index
Bugged ED heavily about it

 

[cb88]

I personally *really* dislike matchbox.... and yeah I think clunky fits

I fail to see how PXML would be hard to integrate...

... perhaps matchbox + lxpanel would ease the pain also is there a way to change the BG in matchbox as is it is horrid

instead of... poking along with a out of date UI like matchbox (that is clunky on top of that) why don't you build a UI with e17 it would be low resource usage and look slick and be highly themeable

http://www.enlightenment.org/

http://www.gp32x.de/board/lofiversion/index.php/t29860.html << EEM on Gp2x

http://maemo-efl.garage.maemo.org/ <<maemo stuff

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/E17 << openmoko

and before you say e17 is huge ... the source code was recently refactored from 30mb to 6ish mb (lots of extra stuff like themes etc were removed from the source snapshot and replaced with lighter less garish alternatives)

 

[PandoraSuechtig]

So we are experimenting with using the Matchbox desktop for application launching.
...
Windows are still full-screen, they are just decorated. Most games will not be decorated, but this can be a user option.
...
Here, we have the task 'directory' under the Matchbox Desktop, showing running tasks. If we select here, it will switch. The great thing about the Machbox Desktop is that the directories are virtual, and pull data via plugins.
...
I do apologize for the poor video quality here. XVidCap has issues with getting the frame rate right, so I used Istanbul which uses Ogg Theora.
...
I know that the interface is not what you all may have expected, looking for GMenu instead -- but I hope this one satisfies, as it is going to be a lot more robust in the longer term.

I can see a "directory view" and a "running tasks" view. Where is a "favourites" and "last used" view? And how would i switch between them? maybe a similar decoration in the main views where you can choose between tabs e.g. "folder (view)"/"favourite"/"last used"/"running apps"? "Folders" could even be a tab per SD slot and NAND??
i'm more interested in nice usability than having the most beautiful icons from the beginning. the latter one is easier to modify later... Therefore going for the more robust and easier extendable choice is great.
Video quality is mediocre also for the second video because the background is "interlaced/dithered", but the screenshots are very useful. i like the simplicity. of course some macosX or iphone fans will be disappointed by the simple icons. but better having a running GUI which looks fine now than a super beautiful GUI and release in 2010... Arent' there any artists reading this thread which can supply "nice icons"? outsource this and concentrate on the code.
Decorations in fullscreen optional, maybe as sb proposed by hotkey? It really distracts while playing some games or watching a movie. Usually i would prefer the apps fullscreen and getting the decoration just on request (configurable?). And if it's on top or on the right (most apps will leave there some) i don't care. Because emulators will resize and blur the output (to make it look as good as it looked on the old screens/TV) anyway i would play many of them resized using the whole screen even with slightly broken aspect ratio, just to see more on the 4.3' screen, it's anyway blurred and HW scaling+blurring is almost for free. so decorators should be optional for me.

 

[cb88]

I highly doubt it would take till 2010 or even before launch to do a half decent looking ui <_< and e17 was already ported to the gp2x

all that would be needed is to report it with the updates that have been done to e17 since the gp2x port and add a module to support PXML in the menu and a window theme with large buttions (I think you can all ready scale the borders)

giving up on gmenu does not sound like good news to me more like oh.. we couldn't figure out how to get it working so lets just use matchbox which nobody liked to begin with which is why gmenu was used... or am I completely off base here?

Also e17 can render to X11 or a framebuffer so.... we could get some unification of interface appearance and extra bling a little cost even on the frame buffer who knows maybe rasterman would join up with the pandora project he apparently has had ties with arm devices in the past

 

[mali]

I've always been a fan of clunky and plain and simple. A handheld has to be fast and efficient. I like a simplistic look. I'm planning to torture it with every app I can throw at it and won't spend much time with looking at icons and the like.

 

[AireTamStorm]

It looks nice although desperately needs a different shade of blue/green (can't tell on this screen). If you're looking for a good balance between easy customization and minimalism you might want to look towards XFCE instead.

Don't forget, many of us here want other WMs and I'll be one of the first to try and package them.

 

[Svartalf]

I know it's only minor, but all the graphics are ugly (and those are my least favourite Linux icons).

Task switching looks very fast though!

The graphics are skinnable, actually. He was going with the baseline offered. If you want an idea of one of the ways one can take this, look at a Nokia N770 or N8x0 handheld, as they're using the same framework, scripted up to do the launcher the way they did. Some of the "alternate" launcher ideas people have discussed in this part of the forum can be largely or completely done within Matchbox.

 

[Prometheus]

The graphics are skinnable, actually.

I suspected they would be, but many thanks for the confirmation.

 

[mali]

I really like the concept of fullscreen-only with switchable menu. I've used KDE on N800. It's a nice proof of concept, but windows aren't practical an a handheld. With this Matchbox concept you won't waste a single pixel

 

[PandoraSuechtig]

I highly doubt it would take till 2010 or even before launch to do a half decent looking ui <_< and e17 was already ported to the gp2x

all that would be needed is to report it with the updates that have been done to e17 since the gp2x port and add a module to support PXML in the menu and a window theme with large buttions (I think you can all ready scale the borders)

Of course not till 2010, but some release dates already passed by and we are still talking about the GUI?? I prefer getting even a non multitasking capable one, ugly like a warthog if i could just run already my apps on it and use it! And later on you can install the updated "beautiful"/"perfect"/"capable of whatever" version of the software.
large buttons?? Would mean to support different icon sizes, i commented in the german forum to add this in the PXLM format, hope they will.

QUOTE

I've always been a fan of clunky and plain and simple. A handheld has to be fast and efficient. I like a simplistic look. I'm planning to torture it with every app I can throw at it and won't spend much time with looking at icons and the like.. the latter one is easier to modify later...


exactly, i share your opinion. but the pandora has a big screen resolution and is capable to run a fine X-Windows, using it as linux box and with a window manager. For such users it makes sense to quarrel about the GUI. But just having it now and being able to use it as a kind of a more powerful GP32x with the existing apps would be already great. I can still update the software later using the packet manager.

 

[Svartalf]

I personally *really* dislike matchbox.... and yeah I think clunky fits

I fail to see how PXML would be hard to integrate...

Matchbox's launcher framework has plugin support to handle alternate launcher hints...

QUOTE

... perhaps matchbox + lxpanel would ease the pain also is there a way to change the BG in matchbox as is it is horrid



Ever used a Nokia with OS2007 or OS2008?

QUOTE

instead of... poking along with a out of date UI like matchbox (that is clunky on top of that) why don't you build a UI with e17 it would be low resource usage and look slick and be highly themeable



Funny...Matchbox IS that. You just never bothered to work with it, apparently.

QUOTE

and before you say e17 is huge ... the source code was recently refactored from 30mb to 6ish mb (lots of extra stuff like themes etc were removed from the source snapshot and replaced with lighter less garish alternatives)


Six of one, half dozen of another. Each person has their pet stuff. It's going to be evaluated as an alternate, but it's not designed for handheld/embedded use like the other is.

 

[cb88]

@Svartalf no not really played a game once on an n800 but that is it... it was running on top of hildeon anyway might not be fair to compare

that would explain why PXML would be easy with matchbox but not why it would be hard for gmenu... really it is just writing a parser to set the variables for the window or display various infomation about a package is it not? perhaps a CLI util that can parse and return the info from the PXML would make it easier?

I beg to differ enlightenment is for embedded use... it was strongly considered for for the freerunner iirc also what about mamona >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hipg7ov4w-I...feature=related Site: http://dev.openbossa.org/trac/mamona/wiki/FAQ

mamona is an openembedded distro... so there should't be any porting needed to get the desktop version of e17 running

I took a minute looked up the matchbox site since it has been awhile .. I tried out matchbox in xnest on Debian and wasn't impressed... I guess a good part of that is Debian's lacking initial configuration of it and my lack of knowlege on how to configure it

If matchbox must be used perhaps some of the efforts of poky linux could be reused http://pokylinux.org/about/

 

[wesbrown18]

I'm going to do a rundown of feedback and feature requests, and explain my thinking behind it.

Already In Matchbox
Things that people keep asking about, but are already in Matchbox.

• Skinnable interface
• Task switching
• Desktop plugins

Targeted for Implementation By Release (Hard Requirements)
These are considered to be core requiements. Requirements that *must* make it into the environment before release.

• At application launch, window decorations (titlebar and panelbar) can be turned on or off via an option.
• Drop-down menu for task switching, linked to a hotkey.
• Modify desktop to be decorated.
• PXML Support/Pandora packaging
• Keymappings for Pandora hardware
• Better pervasive support for MWM hints throughout the OS.

Targeted for Implementation By Release (Soft Requirements)
These are features that would probably be implemented by release, but don't be -too- disappointed if it doesn't make it in.

• Toggle window decoration on or off while application is running via hotkey.
• Better icons, colors and themes (anyone want to volunteer? just install matchbox, use xrandr to set your XServer to the right resolution and have a go at it)
• USB game controller support

Very Nice To Have, But Unlikely To Be Implemented By Release (Feeps)
These are very, very good ideas. In an ideal world, they would be implemented by release, but it will take considerable engineering effort to do so, relative to the other feature/modifications that need to be done. They are worthy features, though and I'd like them implemented.

• Overlay of window manager decoration via toggle rather than resizing, for quick checking of panel status.
• Window decorations to the side rather than the top, along with panelets. (User changable placement of decoration bar)

Not Likely At All
Self-explanatory.

• Amiga style dragging. Matchbox is a fullscreen window manager.

The beautiful thing about this setup is that you *can* use a different Window Manager if you like, but still retain the matchbox-desktop launcher, and still get PXML support. You can even still use the panel applets in your own window manager, and you don't have to implement your own versions of what the Pandora team is working on.

So, guys? If you want Enlightenment, be my guest. But Matchbox is here to stay, and will be the default environment upon boot of the Pandora. Nothing stops you from installing Enlightenment or whatever window manager you want. I asked for constructive feedback, not 'Matchbox sucks, use something else'.

 

[cb88]

I gave constructive feedback... perhaps not all about matchbox but as I mentioned perhaps you can glean something usefull from poky linux since they are useing matchbox as well and not on top of hideon as far as i can tell edit (I checked they are indeed using X11)

I guess the swtich confused me a great deal considering the apparent progress that had been made with gmenu (from our point of view anyway)

I appreciate the clarification.

 

[dockthepod]

Looks good but I'd much prefer the menu to be able to be on the left side of the screen since we have so many horizontal pixels.

 

[mali]

Thanks for the update wesbrown18
Great work so far and good luck for the rest of the features!
I'm really looking forward to this

 

[OrR]

QUOTE

and before you say e17 is huge ... the source code was recently refactored from 30mb to 6ish mb (lots of extra stuff like themes etc were removed from the source snapshot and replaced with lighter less garish alternatives)

Six of one, half dozen of another. Each person has their pet stuff. It's going to be evaluated as an alternate, but it's not designed for handheld/embedded use like the other is.

Orly? I'm certainly not an expert on this stuff but Enlightenment is beautiful and fast on my Neo 1973. Maybe Illume could be adapted to the Pandora. The control bar should obviously be hidden in emulators, games and movie players and I agree that the option of putting it to the side of the screen is very good.

 

[Trip]

As I recall, the Nokia (e.g., N800) had a dedicated button for switching between full-screen and windowing. I thought that was a pretty smart feature.

The Nokia ItT hw button to toggle full-screen is very useful indeed. I use it all the time - an on-screen toggle would have been very tedious.

I have to disagree here. Nokia have tried to do too much with their desktop and menu systems and the whole thing is a complete pain to use. The dedicated full screen button does make this better, but it's still too much hassle for such a small device.
Too much messing about just to do simple tasks = frustration

It's impossible to use a Nokia tablet with a finger only and you end up using the stylus all the time, even though it was supposed to be finger friendly by design.
The Pandora is supposed to be joypad/stick controlled by default and including things like drop down menu's etc. will change this completely. Main navigation and programme launching needs to be possible with all of the control methods that the Pandora includes, but the user shouldn't have to swap controller mid navigation for any reason.

@wesbrown18-
Rather than have a dedicated button to swap to full screen mode, it would be a better idea to have all of the programs full screen by default. The screen might be of quite a high resolution, but it's still too small and finicky to be used like a normal desktop unless you intend it to be used with a stylus all the time (and this wasn't the way the device was designed to be used).

Make the dedicated button a task switcher which will swap from one full screen program to the next (and the desktop of course). This would limit the number of button presses needed making it easier to use and looking a lot more professional IMO. Pandora users shouldn't really need to open more than 4-5 programs at any one time anyway (including the desktop).
Leave the option to show the taskbar up to the programs themselves as most software won't need to use it for anything. If you need to check the time/ battery life/ WiFi signal etc.. all you need to do is pause the game or whatever your playing and use the task switcher button to get back to the desktop.

Anybody wanting a full desktop experience will just install Ubuntu etc. anyway, so I don't see why we need a full on desktop experience with the default GUI if it's not warranted.

Nice work so far by the way