Pangea - New Design, Codename Pinjala

[efegea]

Here it is, the new design I've been planning for Pangea, the simple mode interface for Pandora on which I'm working on.

Originally, Pangea idea was a simple interface with an screen with a list of categories and applications icons, where the layout was taken form a .xml skin file. The idea was that each component was a widget, and that users would be able to develop new widgets and modify the skin as they liked.

But I wasn't convinced about the design, neither the way to develop it. That made me to redesign it again from scratch a lot of times. But thanks to the new QML - or Declarative UI - technology of the Qt toolkit - the toolkit used to develop Pangea - and after a lot of discarded ideas, I've found what perhaps could be the definitive Pangea interface. I like to call it Pangea PINJALA - Pangea is not just a launcher anymore.

The design

This is a concept of what could be the Pangea look when on the main menu. It consists of a row of buttons named after each of the Pangea sections. You can switch them by using the d-pad, or you can touch them on the touchscreen. You can also do iphone-like kinetic-scrolling.

Now, what you can't see on the picture:

Each button has on the top a little tab. That tab means that you can open an area where you can see, for example, favourite and most used applications, or an area with internet widgets -social networks, rss....- To open it, just slide your finger from the top of the screen downwards, or press "down" on the d-pad. The area will show up with a nice animation. To hide it, just press "up" or slide the finger upwards, although it's not needed to hide it, you can still switch the big buttons without having to hide it.

If you press one of the main menu big buttons, a new screen will be shown, depending on the selected option:

-Applications: launcher mode
-Store: app store mode - for this, the Pandora app store MUST have an API for applications to interact with it.
-Multimedia: media player mode - integrated player or external one, configurable.
-Internet: to be decided
-Settings: the configuration..


Pictures are placeholders. They are Creative Commons pictures taken from Flickr, but I haven't asked for permission yet. In the future I'll ask for help to find better pictures with permission for use on Pangea. The words used also have to be changed for better ones.

At this moment I'm working on a prototype with this design..I hope I can upload a video soon!!

Nothing from this design is definitive, anything can still be modified.


That's all. I'll update the post in the future. Now you can comment, discuss and suggest

 

[Butterman]

Sexy.

 

[BackAssward]

Nice... in your mockup, the first one is longer than the rest. Is the highlighted one longer by design, or just longer because it's an example?

We always welcome more menus, thanks.

 

[efegea]

Nice... in your mockup, the first one is longer than the rest. Is the highlighted one longer by design, or just longer because it's an example?

We always welcome more menus, thanks.

That's the highlighted item

 

[darionapole]

looks awesome

 

[skeezix]

More attractive than anything I've ever done

jeff

 

[Vlynndar]

Good work, Efegea. Keep it up :lol:
I like what I'm seeing!
And it might just be me, but the tab-button looks a little small to touch to me.

 

[Trip]

V.nice. Clean and smooth to look at and the control scheme sound perfect for joypad use.
Look forward to seeing a video of it running if you can find the time + energy to make one efegea

 

[bzar]

Very nice ideas! I'm looking forward to seeing this in action.

EDIT: typo

 

[Prometheus]

Oh, wow, this is looking sleek. Going by your description, I really want to try it out, already.

-Store: app store mode - for this, the Pandora app store MUST have an API for applications to interact with it.

I don't know if this really counts as a confirmation of the availability of an API, but you might be interested to see it (it's from a thread that was posted back in December);

Well, if the store exposes an API, client programs can be created later.

You will be able to grab anything you want from it. Someone may well make one for the Pandora, but right now, it is html based so you can access it from any machine inc. the Pandora.

I hope this is useful.

 

[Awakening]

Very sexy

 

[efegea]

Good work, Efegea. Keep it up :lol:
I like what I'm seeing!
And it might just be me, but the tab-button looks a little small to touch to me.

You don't touch the tab-buttons, you slide the stylus (I think I said "your finger", blame apple for this :lol: although you can use the finger too, of course) from top of the screen to bottom.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Looks nice.I like the little tab idea.Thought before that would be cool if most used programs
and apps,games,etc appeared in a small quickstart menu.One click and it would load.etc.Anyhow very professional looking
app.

 

[danielliu88888]

slick.

 

[kingoddball]

Slide down... I like it!!

Its a great design! andora2ut4:

 

[fusion_power]

Good Idea. I really want to see kinetic scrolling onto the Pandora. And it is good to have many options to use the Menu (Touchscreen or D-Pad etc...)
At the end, the important thing is, that the menu works, simple and effective and with a good overview. I think we find out, when we have our Pandoras.

But I also would replace these images. This menu needs cool GFX or nice Pixel Art and something with "style", Photos don't fit I think. But I'm sure, our Pixel-Pushers here are already in the start box to pimp this menu.

 

[willrandship]

Another feature I don't know if you have is an ability to drop to the desktop, maybe a small button in the corner, so people could do more advanced applications. It looks way better than any interface I've ever seen before! It kind of reminds me of mythTV....

@fusion
personally, i think it goes well with photos, just a few don't quite fit with me. For instance, I don't really like the internet picture. An ethernet jack doesn't really go with Wifi in my mind.

Here's another cool feature you could implement! Skins! you can either download entire skin folders, or select and build your own from various pictures.

 

[dflemstr]

It looks splendid and promising, but now we have 3 interfaces for the Pandora: PMenu, Panorama and Pinjala.

Also, Panorama and Pinjala have almost exactly the same features and are implemented in almost exactly the same way (Using Qt, QML etc!), except for that there currently isn't a theme like Pinjala's for Panorama.

So, the question I have is, why not merge our efforts and work on one product? If you want to go in a totally different direction than Panorama then that's a fine explanation but now it seems that they are almost technologically identical... I would like to hear your reasoning.

EDIT: I don't want this to come across the wrong way, I totally respect what you're doing. It just seems a bit redundant to have two applications that do exactly the same thing; correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Vlynndar]

Good work, Efegea. Keep it up :lol:
I like what I'm seeing!
And it might just be me, but the tab-button looks a little small to touch to me.

You don't touch the tab-buttons, you slide the stylus (I think I said "your finger", blame apple for this :lol: although you can use the finger too, of course) from top of the screen to bottom.

Oh, excellent! I imagine having to drag that tiny little thing down.

 

[efegea]

It looks splendid and promising, but now we have 3 interfaces for the Pandora: PMenu, Panorama and Pinjala.

Also, Panorama and Pinjala have almost exactly the same features and are implemented in almost exactly the same way (Using Qt, QML etc!), except for that there currently isn't a theme like Pinjala's for Panorama.

So, the question I have is, why not merge our efforts and work on one product? If you want to go in a totally different direction than Panorama then that's a fine explanation but now it seems that they are almost technologically identical... I would like to hear your reasoning.

EDIT: I don't want this to come across the wrong way, I totally respect what you're doing. It just seems a bit redundant to have two applications that do exactly the same thing; correct me if I'm wrong.

Sounds weird that you say that, when the truth is that the third interface is Panorama. Pangea was the first! You was who started something that by your reasoning (not mine) would be redundant. You already knew about Pangea and PMenu when starting Panorama..That's fine!! you can start whatever you want! I'm not against it! more choices, the better!

I was here since the "craiginator" thread, and since then I was wanting to code an interface for Pandora. When Pandora was official, EvilDragon sent me a PM (I was trying to convince the wrong person: I was sending emails to Craig but that didn't work) But ED, -a great person- he was who said me that if I want I could work on an interface and it would be in the firmware for people to have the choice of whatever interface they want (the official was going to be GMenu2x). More choices, the better (so there is not redundancy: let's work each one one our own project, cpasjuste, you, and me..PMenu, Panorama, Pangea..and let the user choose whatever he wants) I know that Panorama and Pangea are so similar that perhaps one could even swap the .qml files between them and it would work! But that doesn't mean they are the same thing nor redundant. Each one seems to take a different direction. And if it not, I have my own reasons for not to merge them:

Pangea is for me something personal. A project I started and that I should finish, you have read my posts on the other thread if I'm not wrong, so you will understand this..

Also, I can't work on groups, it even scares me. At least for programming projects. I don't know why..That's something I'll have to sort out.

I just don't feel like I'd do what you suggested. Although perhaps collaboration would help both projects (or the project resultant of merging them) I'd prefer to work on my own..