Pandora Desktop Environment Prototype Try 2 (screenshots And Videos)

[wesbrown18]

I posted in the other thread, but upon reflection, this probably deserves its own discussion topic as I'd really like feedback and thoughts.

In sum total, GMenu is a great menu application. But issues have cropped up when trying to adapt it to a multiuser environment that uses package management. 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.

But I'd like to see what you, the Pandora user, think of it. I had taken a video capture, but thanks to Google Video, it's not very high quality So I've created screenshots in addition, and I will explain what's going on with each.

Above is the desktop that you'd see. At the moment, there is no window decoration for the desktop, which is actually a slight problem, because of how we're going to use applets in the window decoration to communicate status. This desktop is rapidly navigable using the D-pad.

Here, we have Ultima 4 running. And you guys can see the window decoration. And in the upper right corner, there's a few applets. There's the clock, the CPU meter, and the Istanbul video capture application. In the final version, we will probably have a clock speed applet, a battery applet, and a wireless applet. The beauty of this is that users and developers can extend with their own applets.

Windows are still full-screen, they are just decorated. Most games will not be decorated, but this can be a user option.

Another screenshot, this time of of E-UAE firing up under A500 with Workbench 1.3. Still decorated. We will be working on making window/fullscreen decorations a bit more intelligent and customizable.

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. To add PXML support, all we have to do is create a PXML plugin.

Here is the Google Video of the desktop interaction. You'll see that it's quite rapid to interact with. 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. If you have a media player that supports Ogg Theora, then the higher quality video is available here.

Feedback is appreciated. Please make them constructive, rather than obstructionist. 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.

EDIT: To make your own matchbox themes

Below is a link to a post I made on how to grab the Matchbox themes and modify your own.

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?s=&am...st&p=681605

 

[DaveC]

It looks like it is not too bad as far as navigation. Going in to load an app then backing out then going into another folder to load something else is a bit more but isn't the worst I have seen. It is very boring though. a screen full of folders don't look like much, Gmenu looked better. I know it is just a quick test so I will see what you say can be done to customize.

I don't know how customisable it is. It needs alot. I mean can a catagory folder look different from a game subdirectory folder or will it just call up the same image? It needs to be skinnable. Can these icons sizes be changed so when in the actual folder you can have more columns and rows (someone may have 50 games in the games folder)? Can icon order be changed other than alphabetical?

Could it be set up so that the catagories are tabs across the top with the apps below where the shoulder buttons select catagories and the dpad selects icon?

I don't like that status bar across the top in the game. You say full screen can be decorated, not always if you want the full game screen and not have to cut pixels out you can't have a VGA PC game for example, decoration, and fullscreen. There are times when you need the full 480 height. Ones that use an even factor of the vertical screen like a 320x240 game that you want to double evenly to 640x480, or a 640x480 VGA PC game. With this enabled you will have to fractional scale which will look like shit with uneven pixel sizes or you will cover up the top. It is also distracting, we may just not want to see that bar during a game. You say this is a user option, please *make sure* it can be set to automatically shut off totally during a game (so that you don't have to do it every time you load).

 

[gaterooze]

It looks quite functional.

Will it be possible to set the window decoration to disappear once an app is loaded, and brought back with a key combo or such?

 

[mali]

I very much like the decoration feature
I wouldn't miss gmenu. This seems equally intuitive.
If there was something like a drop-down menu for switching and killing tasks in the decoration bar, it would be perfect to me(which should be possible with an applet, I suppose).

QUOTE
I don't like that status bar across the top in the game. For emulators that will be a problem, especially ones that use an even factor of the vertical screen like a 320x240 game that you want to double evenly to 640x480. With this you will have to fractional scale which will look like shit with uneven pixel sizes or you will cover up the top and it is distracting. You say this is a user option, please *make sure* it can be set to automatically shut off during a game (so that you don't have to do it every time you load).



A shortcut to toggle the bar ingame would be perfect. In conjuction with a taskswitcher that would be extremely efficient to control.

 

[wesbrown18]

I don't like that status bar across the top in the game. For emulators that will be a problem, especially ones that use an even factor of the vertical screen like a 320x240 game that you want to double evenly to 640x480, or a 640x480 VGA PC game. With this you will have to fractional scale which will look like shit with uneven pixel sizes or you will cover up the top and it is distracting. You say this is a user option, please *make sure* it can be set to automatically shut off during a game (so that you don't have to do it every time you load).

I actually agree with you about this. Skeezix and I were working out how to address this. The decorations are there, because I wanted to show you all them and how they fit in with the games. I realize that most of you will want the option of going full screen. The decoration is useful, because it is where the applets are.

We may need to patch some behaviors of SDL to tell the window manager, 'No decorations' for specific applications. We can probably set this up as a per application flag, or environment variable.

QUOTE

If there was something like a drop-down menu for switching and killing tasks in the decoration bar, it would be perfect to me(which should be possible with an applet, I suppose).



Yeah, that's on the to-do list.

QUOTE

Will it be possible to set the window decoration to disappear once an app is loaded, and brought back with a key combo or such?



That's a very good idea. I will have to think about this. The problem is that this will cause the window to resize, which can be rather unexpected to SDL applications. At the very least, the user would be able to select on a per application basis as a setting whether to decorate or not before the application is launched.

 

[DaveC]

That's a very good idea. I will have to think about this. The problem is that this will cause the window to resize, which can be rather unexpected to SDL applications. At the very least, the user would be able to select on a per application basis as a setting whether to decorate or not before the application is launched.

It could just overlay as an option.

Again I don't know how customizeable it is but can this decoration be set to appear along the SIDE(s) of the screen? Since the Pandora is widescreen, and 99.9% of emus and ports are NOT there will be this unused space along the sides of the screen almost always.

 

[mali]

It could just overlay as an option.

Yes, with a nice slide-in/ slide-out animation
You boot, fire up your favourite apps and from then on just navigate via the decoration bar, without the need to go back to the real desktop. Someone could code a quicklaunch menu applet to start programs and the taskswitcher is already on the todo list. You'd only go back to the desktop, when no program is running at all, or you want to start something you don't have in your quicklaunch menu. The more I think about it, the more I like it

 

[socket]

Oh crap, I better wipe the drool out of my keyboard. Very nice. I love the little updates.

One thing, Sometimes allowing an emulator to go full screen works out well even if it is "stretched"... Yeah, I agree that watching tv/ playing games stretched is pretty ugly sometimes, but sometimes it can be ok.

 

[cools]

Don't suppose you've looked at LXDE? The last time I tried Matchbox was on the Zaurus and it really felt clunky there. LXDE by comparison feels very well put together (I'm aware it's made up of various disparate components)

 

[mali]

The core system should solely be built upon embedded optimized components, so matchbox is the right choice IMO
QUOTE
Above is the desktop that you'd see. At the moment, there is no window decoration for the desktop, which is actually a slight problem, because of how we're going to use applets in the window decoration to communicate status.


I don't see this as a big problem, because it will be rarely the case, that the user is hanging around on the desktop in idle mode without any program loaded IMO

 

[dentrado]

Again I don't know how customizeable it is but can this decoration be set to appear along the SIDE(s) of the screen? Since the Pandora is widescreen, and 99.9% of emus and ports are NOT there will be this unused space along the sides of the screen almost always.

that was precisely my thought too. use the side of the screen.

 

[benjymous]

The one feature I'd love to see would be Amiga style screen dragging

(or, assuming it'll be straightforward to switch WM for our own, I might just end up using AmiWM anyway :-D )

 

[som99]

I like the idea keep up the good work

 

[hells_dark]

hum.. I don't know.. GMenu looked so much better.
If it's really skinable, why not..

 

[mechanizeddeath]

Beautiful. I actually like the minimalist look. Maybe a bit too minimal at the moment, but I like where this is going. I realize I may be in the minority in that regard, but it's always nice to see that the UI has a good, clean starting point that it can be reduced back to, if need be.

Keep it up!

 

[PokeParadox]

It looks good functionally, although I am sad if this means GMenu is getting ditched completely. But at the end of the day whatever works the best should be used.

For the window decoration,
you could pick a key to toggle it.

 

[ashdjones]

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!

 

[salasq]

Functional, not frilly. Me like.

Overlay sounds like a given, but unused sides on most emus is a good point. Though I suspect devs will be wanting to use those sides for emu data/controls eventually.

 

[todd]

Looks great, Wes!

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. I don't know if there are any buttons left on the Pandora that could be reserved for such a purpose, but it might be a thought.

As this thing gets developed:

+1 for putting the menu bar / applets on the side. That's where we have extra real estate.

Also it would be nice to make the menu bar large enough (whether drawn that way or not) to make it finger-friendly.

--Todd

 

[Tor]

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.