Pandora Desktop Environment Prototype Try 2 (screenshots And Videos)

[Trip]

I like the design But I find the Pandora logo a tad too prominent. Something more embedded, like a more hinted logo made of PCB traces forming out of a blurred PCB-like Background would be cool. Unfortunately I have zero graphics design skills :rolleyes:
Or my second idea, a negative logo that looks like it was etched into the background.

This the sort of thing you mean, but without the circuit board showing through the logo?

 

[mali]

It is hard to describe what I see in my head, and even harder in English Your design comes near, I like the more structural look of the background the traces create Actually I thought it would look cool, if the logo itself would consist of traces, to get a more even look of the whole theme. Some of the background traces come from different sides and run into the logo, that has a higher density of traces. A small 3D step in the logo would be ok, but without too light colors, more the same colors as the background and without a shadow on the sides, that lifts it. The logo should be part of the whole wallpaper and don't be placed above it. I generally think, that the wallpaper should be more in the background and don't attract so much attention through the logo. The strong 3D look of the logo contradicts the lesser 3D of the folders in my opinion. The folders look a little small and lost in that scenario. I hope my talking doesn't sound too stupid :unsure:

 

[MDave]

The idea behind that particular background design was to have a very prominent logo stand out, to help catch any passer users by and identify the product (brand recognition is very important!) Of course, people will most likely have something running over the background anyway so the little chances there are to show it, show it in style To be honest that is also why I wanted to avoid the cliche subtle logo faded over a pattered background look. I could remake the folder icons to suite the background, but I felt they did anyway I think they're pretty small for default size anyway. Any idea what icon sizes are supported?

 

[mali]

I like your design, no doubt, and I see your reasons for doing it this way
I'd just like something more discreet for everyday use.

 

[Vorporeal]

Well thanks for the feedback
I thought pixel quadrupling would be good. since i really want a retro feel and im not sure that pixel doubling will look like pixel doubling on the pandora. we have to remember that its still a small screen.
I like pixel quadrupling. its pretty.

IM not sure what you are talking about vorporeal... You mean a version with no big pixels. for the people who like the theme but dont want it to be retro Sure i could still make an HD version.

aha

I didn't mean no big pixels (I love retro and pixels too ) but I was thinking maybe slightly smaller pixels. You have a good point about the screen size though... It'll probably turn out perfectly.

 

[Olexxy]

Well thanks for the feedback
I thought pixel quadrupling would be good. since i really want a retro feel and im not sure that pixel doubling will look like pixel doubling on the pandora. we have to remember that its still a small screen.
I like pixel quadrupling. its pretty.

IM not sure what you are talking about vorporeal... You mean a version with no big pixels. for the people who like the theme but dont want it to be retro Sure i could still make an HD version.

aha

I didn't mean no big pixels (I love retro and pixels too ) but I was thinking maybe slightly smaller pixels. You have a good point about the screen size though... It'll probably turn out perfectly.

+1
I actually like the render of your smaller resized picture on my current screen, the initial pixel quadrupling seems too blocky for my taste, but it is shown on my normal lcd screen... If you could make a theme which would look similar on the P to the smaller resize (taking into account the higher pixels density), but with bigger folder icons / pictures to be nice to look at on the P, that would be great !

 

[Sphinxter]

Nobody else seems to be constrained to have their desktops be fully navigable with the keyboard anymore. Try living for a day without a mouse in windows or osx. It's a touchscreen device, what is the horror in using it?

If it was a touch screen device, the screen would lay flat for optimum use.
It's a device with touch screen included, there's a big difference <_<


The only difference is in your mind.

 

[CandidStan]

Absence of analog controls click ability is not so crucial. Yes, it will be better for controlling desktop, but not so good in games. I can confirm (but someone other can decline), that accidental click in game happens. This mean that "missing" click ability is not so missing as appear. It just have pros and cons.

I take part in discuss and poll about keyboard layout, and mostly first thing mentioned was mouse emulation by analogs. This came with suggestion how to emulate mouse buttons and scroll controls. Now we just cant wait for solution that Craig & Co make. We see if they take some inspiration or have better guess.

no one would use the click unless it was supported in the emulator, which would only be about one or two consoles. The PS1 being one of them rarely used the click, but the reason for it would have been the OS.

 

[greendots]

Heres my Mock-up of a Matchbox theme...

For the menu button... I think the simplest solution is the best... just launch 2xmenu in a window.

I would try to make the theme but i have no idea how to set up a dev environment for it.

 

[Coder_TimT]

Just a couple more comments in regards to the "requirements list" on page 3 of this thread based on things I've found whilst playing around.

At application launch, window decorations (titlebar and panelbar) can be turned on or off via an option.

Matchbox seems to remember the last state of each application. So if you quit Firefox with the titlebar hidden, it will start it up the next time with it hidden. So while not exactly fulfilling this requirement, it could render it unnecessary.

Drop-down menu for task switching, linked to a hotkey.

The same drop down that is accessible from clicking the title bar can be linked to a keypress. Keyword "taskmenu" in the kbdconfig file.

 

[a.tom]

Don't know if it was mentioned before, but according to the manual window decoration for the desktop can be switched on with

matchbox-window-manager -use_desktop_mode decorated

Btw... which version of matchbox are we talking about? In angstrom and ubuntu repos i found version 0.9.1 but there seems zu be 1.2 available on http://matchbox-project.org .
I guess a standardised setup would be helpfull.

For testing of the themes i just gave xoo a try under ubuntu - works so far and is quite simple to setup. This is nice, because one can even simulate hardware buttons

 

[giovanni]

...]What greendots said and his mock up[...

I know it will be replaceable but I like very much your background and, in general, these colours...
In my opinion the fullscreen of the applications is the most important thing and the GUI should be made with this priority; the desktop should be able to contain icons and should be present a panel (assigned to an hotkey) to change the "application on the screen" (I didn't know how to explain it... :rolleyes: ).
These are only my 2 cent. but I probably would like every kind of inerface...

 

[wesbrown18]

Just a couple more comments in regards to the "requirements list" on page 3 of this thread based on things I've found whilst playing around.

At application launch, window decorations (titlebar and panelbar) can be turned on or off via an option.

Matchbox seems to remember the last state of each application. So if you quit Firefox with the titlebar hidden, it will start it up the next time with it hidden. So while not exactly fulfilling this requirement, it could render it unnecessary.

Drop-down menu for task switching, linked to a hotkey.

The same drop down that is accessible from clicking the title bar can be linked to a keypress. Keyword "taskmenu" in the kbdconfig file.



Awesome. That's two more items that can be crossed off the list.

Don't know if it was mentioned before, but according to the manual window decoration for the desktop can be switched on with

matchbox-window-manager -use_desktop_mode decorated

Btw... which version of matchbox are we talking about? In angstrom and ubuntu repos i found version 0.9.1 but there seems zu be 1.2 available on http://matchbox-project.org .
I guess a standardised setup would be helpfull.

For testing of the themes i just gave xoo a try under ubuntu - works so far and is quite simple to setup. This is nice, because one can even simulate hardware buttons



Awesome here too. One more item off the list.

We're using the standard Angstrom packages, so 0.9.1.

 

[greendots]

Thanks xoo makes it really easy to start for people using ubuntu

I made a quick theme for xoo if any one would like to use:

http://dragon0scale.googlepages.com/xooPandora.tar.gz

 

[hells_dark]

Can i have a short tutorial about xoo ? (i installed and started it but how to start matchbox - installed too - in it and how to charge the greendots theme ?)

 

[greendots]

switch doesnt really work so you have to overwrite xoo's default.

extract the tarball to: /usr/share/xoo

create a back up of ipaq4700.xml: CODE
sudo cp /usr/share/xoo/ipaq4700.xml /usr/share/xoo/ipaq4700.xml.backup


copy pandora xml over ipaq4700: CODE
sudo cp /usr/share/xoo/Pandora.xml /usr/share/xoo/ipaq4700.xml


To start matchbox go to Device > Preferences and paste:
/usr/bin/X11/matchbox-desktop
in the "On startup run" field.

 

[Pseudonym]

Matchbox seems like a good default Window manager, but I'd like to see other options, such as a Pandora optimized one (and there seems to be some possibilities).

BTW, what is xoo?

 

[hells_dark]

Thanks greendots.
Now i'm looking for how to launch matchbox with zoo

EDIT : OK, thanks ! ^^
(it works but matchbox is too small into xoo..weird.)

 

[MDave]

Been tweaking my theme up some:

Desktop:


PandaSNES:


Fullscreen PandaSNES:

 

[Username]

Been tweaking my theme up some

It looks good, but I thought that fullscreen would really be 'full screen' (ie black bars on side with option to stretch picture) and not show the desktop behind it.