Pandora's User Interface

[peca]

Who here would prefer a lightweight game launcher UI which would in turn launch a more fully featured GUI like KDE / Gnome?

Me. I'd like use Pandora askind of UMPC or MID device, but very simple user interface, maybe more game/emu oriented, with possibility switch to console or fully windowed enviroment.

 

[Tinnus]

Heh, am I the only one that thinks that the base UI should be on top of X and a minimalist launcher should be an app on top of that with some (maximised/fullscreen) special window format?

 

[sindbad]

Not really, that would be the most sensible thing to do.

 

[mindlord]

I personally plan on having 2 SD cards, one geared toward single instance apps like emulators and media player. And another with Xfce and all the UMPC type apps installed on it. I really don't see how the Pandora is going to have one GUI to rule all of it's faces. It simply hasn't been done yet on any device before. I've brought all this up before here. In a nutshell, the fast switch from full X environment to single app environment leaves some questions to answer like what background apps should be left running, what happens when the single app returns, and all manner of other hard to answer questions.

So, unless someone has come up with something new and miraculous. Most people in the emulator/mid camp are going to want a single instance style interface similar to gmenu2x, while the UMPC camp will want X and a window manager of some sort.

When talking about the WM to choose. Ultimately it won't matter, because if yours isn't the one that Team Pandora chooses, you better believe it will be available shortly after launch, because someone will compile it if they can. I'm personally rooting for XFCE, all the joy of Gnome without the bloat. I use it on my lappy, and desktop, and couldn't be happier. However, KDE4 with it's plasmoids sure looks pretty.

Using an SDL or GL based frontend on top of X will be subject to the same types of issues as a full blown X/WM environment, and doesn't help to solve any issues related to using X. While looking nice and customized, doesn't do much for the end user above what a normal WM might do, and would take a considerable amount of programming to bring to the same level of usability of even the simplest of WM.

 

[emil10001]

Who here would prefer a lightweight game launcher UI which would in turn launch a more fully featured GUI like KDE / Gnome?

I would prefer that. As long as whatever shows up in the menus for the lightweight UI also gets mapped to the menus for the fuller featured UI. Alternatively, a nice way of killing the window manager to get back to the lightweight UI.

Or, best yet, some way to use storage on the SD cards as 'save states' or something for whatever environment you're in, so if you're in the launcher and you are going to the window manager, it does a 'save state' and dumps it to a location on the SD card. Then when you are going from the window manager to the lightweight launcher it does a 'save state' on the window manager, and loads the 'save state' from the launcher.

 

[icurafu]

It is known that atleast in the current state, you will choose at startup, the lightweight (FB) option or the heavy weight EeePC style interface.

I'll be happy with that. I just wish they paid Ryo to organise a PandoraMenu.

 

[cb88]

xfce4 lightweight ... yeah right maybe in the previous version but currently it is really bloated IMO

rox stays out of your way and out of your ram i like that... dislike not haveing menus though so a different panel would be needed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROX_Desktop and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...op_environments as you can see from the numbers rox is way smaller ~200mb for kde or gnome and 15mb for xfce (used to be less than half that... :-( ) and rox at a mere 780kb for the base system granted there aren't as many programs for it but it is GTK based so IMO it is the future of GTK.. small light fast and easy to use... I wonder if the tint dock would work on arm http://code.google.com/p/tint2/ ? that would be pretty slick looking i think it is a GSoC project

i wouldn't mind a mere app launcher much if i could multitask very well (from a switching between apps point of view)... but by the time you write all that fuctionality in you have a simple desktop like rox etc anyway...

something else i forgot about is that since RoxApps are like app dirs basically you can just copy them to your system and they work or drag them to an install area iirc and you just delete them to uninstall

 

[vuffi_raa]

I chose ubuntu because personally I want to use the pandora for a few different things and it seems like a standard UI like ubuntu would be best- I am looking to not only use it for gaming, but also as a midi controller/sequencer to tie with my laptop/umpc that I currently use- if the UI is too proprietary i will deal with it, but a standard desktop layout would ease my mind a bit more switching from device to device

 

[grasshoppir]

you gotta be able to navigate with the d-pad.

has to be intuitive, no desktop bullshit. imagine youre new to the device and havent wasted the past 6 months on the gp32 board doing pointless requests to craig!

 

[CyruzDraxs]

I'd really like a skinnable GUI like the one used in XBMC. Actually--It'd be totally awesome if you could do a straight across port of the skinning engine from it; lots of awesome skins there.

 

[MilanC]

I guess a customized Matchbox (GPE) would be good as default environment.

LXDE and XFCE would be nice as desktops though: much lighter than KDE or Gnome, nice look, file managers detect removable storage devices correctly.
Or very lightweight window manager + some app to display icons on the desktop + nice file manager.

KDE or Gnome? Whatever... 256MB ROM and 128MB RAM...

If you really feel like customizing, you can put your own full-blown debian (or other distribution) on an SD card.

 

[cb88]

Or very lightweight window manager + some app to display icons on the desktop + nice file manager.

you are discribing the Rox desktop i believe LOL

 

[cools]

On the screen size and resolution available there's no way I want any of the current desktop GUIs for mobile use. If VGA out was available for desktop use then I'll take XFCE, GNOME, KDE, or whatever else is the best fit for the hardware.

Window management? You want more than one window open on a screen this small, with a touchscreen for control? Gimme Workbench style full screen apps with a switcher any day.

Maemo looks to be a good, modern fit. I'd be happy with that.

 

[desowin]

I think rox could work fine on pandora

http://roscidus.com/desktop/

 

[Sphinxter]

I think rox could work fine on pandora

http://roscidus.com/desktop/



The drag and drop centric nature of rox could be rather excellent with touchscreen.

 

[gagster]

ROX would rock on the Pandora. It almost looks like ROX was made for the Pandora from the beginning

 

[conso]

but rox is ugly ^^

I'd like a decent original interface best. It should look nice, be easy to use, to configure and single-window oriented. It should be just so small, it can be mostly placed on the "harddisk"/sd while an game/emu is launched and reloaded after game/emu is closed as fast as possible

Other things like maemo, xfce, lxde or kde4 should be users choice, when made available by the community. I'd pretty sure test out KDE4. If the SoC-student and other devs manage to optimize it well for mobile devices (both visuals and ram-usage) it could be wonderful to have the pandora with you as a perfectly synchable pda.

 

[cb88]

IMO KDE is a bloated mess of uglyness ... to each thier own but i doubt KDE will ever be an optimal solution

what do you gain by being single window oriented? i ran matchbox in xoo yesterday and wasn't very impressed rox does all that and more with about the same screen real estate

 

[imec]

I'm going to have to say custom (for a more console-like feel, I want to be able to access applications or play games as seamlessly as possible), but if it's not going to happen XFCE is the way to go. It's lightweight and looks great.

 

[emil10001]

Who here would prefer a lightweight game launcher UI which would in turn launch a more fully featured GUI like KDE / Gnome?

I think that this is sort of optimal. I don't really care for rox, so for the people that do, they could do it using the above method. I would prefer a really trimmed down version of KDE4, that would launch from the lightweight UI. For the main UI, I would really prefer something custom and lightweight.