Pandora Interface Design Concept(s).

[atomicthumbs]

Personally, I'd much rather have icons along the top (like Gmenu2x) than blades.

Or perhaps side-tabs. Who knows? I've got a better interface design suggestion; I'll make a mockup when I get home.

 

[dockthepod]

Good god please no blades. I hate the interface on the 360.

 

[Nova]

Very old mockup I made back when the craiginator was just announced:

 

[Game_over]

-Playing Devil's Advocate

Plus the blades will most likely take up to much of the screen's sides, It may also contradict the principle (so redundantly addressed by this great forum) that the font needs to be large enough to read without squinting.

-My Honest Opinion

As an active GP2X, GP32, PSP, and even N-gage QD user, the whole idea of text size is not that big of an issue that some people are making it out to be. Each of these platforms go by a standard character-set size and some dynamically change and can be adjusted as in many cases the font used are scalable vectors. I can honestly say I never had to go beyond my general playing view to see the font. All These posted concepts being just that, Concepts, the is little to no reason to bring it up again.

All of the designs I've seen so far are awesome, and each of them has a feature I think will be worthy to carry on to the final initial firmware interface. Of course, the main thing we are discussing is what the initial design should include, and we all know that any alternative interface to suit anyone's needs is completely open. Again, the initial design should be simple but that doesn't mean it shouldn't look good or be functional (duh!). I wouldn't mind some kind of updated and Apple-esque, throw back to the Amiga interface. I do like the widget like interface that efegea has though, and yes, widgets could be on or offline.

 

[DaveC]

I generally agree with DaveC about wanting a gmenu type interface. That could be spruced up by having Xbox 360 style blades along the side instead of the current menu of icons at the top of gmenu.

Also, it may be a good idea to have a customizable 'home' tab/blade. Having a news feed seems to me a waste of real estate, but if people want that they could put it there. Personally I would want my home tab to put my favorite programs and just battery info.

I don't like the blades idea either. Again you must sequentially flip through blades. We need to stop thinking serially and more random access. If you have tabs across the top or side of the screen you can hit the first, middle, or last instantly with a stylus without having to scroll through the choices that you don't want. That changes a bit when using the pad but it is still very quick. An icon matrix is also quick even with the pad as it requires less taps to get to what you want and you can see where most things are quickly.

I still say it should come standard with a very clean and simple Gmenu type interface. You can always install something more complex if you want later. If it starts out complex as standard it is hard to go more simple later without breaking things.

 

[Sphinxter]

I generally agree with DaveC about wanting a gmenu type interface. That could be spruced up by having Xbox 360 style blades along the side instead of the current menu of icons at the top of gmenu.

Also, it may be a good idea to have a customizable 'home' tab/blade. Having a news feed seems to me a waste of real estate, but if people want that they could put it there. Personally I would want my home tab to put my favorite programs and just battery info.

I don't like the blades idea either. Again you must sequentially flip through blades. We need to stop thinking serially and more random access. If you have tabs across the top or side of the screen you can hit the first, middle, or last instantly with a stylus without having to scroll through the choices that you don't want. That changes a bit when using the pad but it is still very quick. An icon matrix is also quick even with the pad as it requires less taps to get to what you want and you can see where most things are quickly.

I still say it should come standard with a very clean and simple Gmenu type interface. You can always install something more complex if you want later. If it starts out complex as standard it is hard to go more simple later without breaking things.


Yeah. Blades suck. What is Gmenu? The gtk object? Javascript thing? Will this be running under X? Would you advocate statically linking everything like the gp2x or will there be Xlib, imagemagick, gtk, SDL available in firmware dynamically? If you were to start writing a, 'desktop', for it tomorrow what would you use?

 

[Zarneth]

Yeah. Blades suck. What is Gmenu? The gtk object? Javascript thing? Will this be running under X? Would you advocate statically linking everything like the gp2x or will there be Xlib, imagemagick, gtk, SDL available in firmware dynamically? If you were to start writing a, 'desktop', for it tomorrow what would you use?

Gmenu2x is a very popular menu program for the gp2x.
http://gmenu2x.sourceforge.net/page/GMenu2X

 

[Sphinxter]

Yeah. Blades suck. What is Gmenu? The gtk object? Javascript thing? Will this be running under X? Would you advocate statically linking everything like the gp2x or will there be Xlib, imagemagick, gtk, SDL available in firmware dynamically? If you were to start writing a, 'desktop', for it tomorrow what would you use?

Gmenu2x is a very popular menu program for the gp2x.
http://gmenu2x.sourceforge.net/page/GMenu2X


So it won't be running X? Someone else suggested it and I took a look and I'm totally impressed, I'd go with nanoX or kdrive and matchbox and open up a can of whoop-ass on it, just look at the top four screen shots, no offense to gmenu2x, great program, but X brings a whole hell of a lot to the party;

from
http://matchbox-project.org/screenshots.html

 

[Zarneth]

So it won't be running X? Someone else suggested it and I took a look and I'm totally impressed, I'd go with nanoX or kdrive and matchbox and open up a can of whoop-ass on it, just look at the top four screen shots, no offense to gmenu2x, great program, but X brings a whole hell of a lot to the party;
I think what people want something LIKE gmenu2x, but not gmenu2x itself. X is definitely required for programs like firefox and other desktop apps. X should really be running all the time regardless with games only in a fake full screen mode, so we can still task switch.
If X isn't used then there's probably going to be a LOT more issues getting programs to play nice together.

 

[Sphinxter]

So it won't be running X? Someone else suggested it and I took a look and I'm totally impressed, I'd go with nanoX or kdrive and matchbox and open up a can of whoop-ass on it, just look at the top four screen shots, no offense to gmenu2x, great program, but X brings a whole hell of a lot to the party;
I think what people want something LIKE gmenu2x, but not gmenu2x itself. X is definitely required for programs like firefox and other desktop apps. X should really be running all the time regardless with games only in a fake full screen mode, so we can still task switch.
If X isn't used then there's probably going to be a LOT more issues getting programs to play nice together.

X and a minimal wm together might take like 8-12 megs of ram, linux another 4. Firefox I'd have to wonder, worth a shot but then it's not a pc, gtkmozembed or some derivative may be more it's speed, can't think of any at the moment, dillo mebbe.

 

[Zarneth]

X and a minimal wm together might take like 8-12 megs of ram, linux another 4. Firefox I'd have to wonder, worth a shot but then it's not a pc, gtkmozembed or some derivative may be more it's speed, can't think of any at the moment, dillo mebbe.

We've been told firefox 3 will probably run. Though we would be better off with something lighter. As long as it has tabbed browsing, and full screen support.

On that note, All these designs with RSS feeds, weather and stuff, Better to just make that your browser home page.

 

[naples39]

Wow. Everyone hates blades. Very interesting.

To clarify, I was thinking each blade would have an icon matrix, so there'd be no loss of efficiency there from gmenu.

Also, there's nothing preventing blades from having names on the edges of the screen just like tab headings.

Lastly, double or triple tapping R to flip through a couple of blades is much faster than getting out the stylus to click on a specific tab (or even using your nail to tap the tab). Some programs on DS have such options and I never use the stylus to select things.

I'm not super-committed to blades, I just don't think it's as impractical as everyone says either.

 

[JyCet]

just a suggestion the screen is wide so the UI need to be design for wide screen.
I think if you want some tabs it's better to put them on left or right but not up or down

 

[efegea]

But a simple grid of icons is boring. Pandora needs something better :lol: just joking..

If a basic interface is needed but some people might want a more powerful interface, then my interface is a must because it's totally customizable and skinnable using xml files and python scripts. You can do whatever you want with it, there is nothing hardcoded. That's because my interface shares code with a media center I'm coding, and the code is designed this way.

So as DaveC said (was him?), yes, a basic gmenu2x interface must be provided as default. But with my interface the user can extend it as he wants so there are no limits.

 

[Karel Jansens]

just a suggestion the screen is wide so the UI need to be design for wide screen.
I think if you want some tabs it's better to put them on left or right but not up or down

The problem with side tabs is that you either lose a lot of screen real estate due to the caption text, or have awkward and really hard to read rotated text.

 

[sryidc]

i think having button short cuts AND the touch screen will be very cool, cause those of us that use the pand all the time will be able to rip through the menus with the short cuts, and the touch screen will be there for any one that picks it up and has never used it before


i like the idea of tabs on the top and having tabs appear for the apps that are running

 

[javaJake]

Keep in mind that we humans don't like to transfer between mouse (stylus) and keyboard, so the interface should provide some keyboard controls as well as touch-screen.

For instance, say you finish up reading your e-mail. You want to play an NES game you just downloaded (or bought *hint hint*). You slap a key combination that sends you to the main menu, click around on the dual analog to find your NES emulator, and hit an action button to get it rolling. Your hands are already in position to play the game, and you didn't have to inconvenience yourself by taking the stylus out for the few seconds it was needed and then putting it back.

 

[Zarneth]

What's with all this switching to stylus? You're just hitting a nice big 32x32 or larger icon plus text. A thumb will do nicely. Sure you get fingerprints. But I find I always end up getting fingerprints anyway even if it's not a touch device. but not all screens show them up all that badly.

Always good to have both options anyway.

 

[Shiny]

Keep in mind that we humans don't like to transfer between mouse (stylus) and keyboard, so the interface should provide some keyboard controls as well as touch-screen.

For instance, say you finish up reading your e-mail. You want to play an NES game you just downloaded (or bought *hint hint*). You slap a key combination that sends you to the main menu, click around on the dual analog to find your NES emulator, and hit an action button to get it rolling. Your hands are already in position to play the game, and you didn't have to inconvenience yourself by taking the stylus out for the few seconds it was needed and then putting it back.

Amen!
This is especially important to people who can't stay focused on one thing and end up constantly switching between things, like me.

What's with all this switching to stylus? You're just hitting a nice big 32x32 or larger icon plus text. A thumb will do nicely. Sure you get fingerprints. But I find I always end up getting fingerprints anyway even if it's not a touch device. but not all screens show them up all that badly.

Always good to have both options anyway.

o.o
I would never touch a touch screen with my finger, ever.
Fingerprints bother me, allot.

 

[efegea]

I use my HTC Touch *only* with my fingers. I never use the stylus.