Pui

[rokdcasbah]

Couple thoughts spurred by all this:

File association only works if every app supports switches. I know that in the *nix world that's like saying a car should have wheels, but lots of gp2x emulators, impressive though they are, left out this bit. I suppose things like music players wouldn't, but it's up to the individuals doing the work.

I don't see any (positive) comments about search. Imagine typing a few letters from the name of an application and getting a list...I'd love to be able to keep only a few things out front and get to the rest via a search box. I'm sure there will be a console but if apps are installed gp2x-style, that is, anywhere, then you wouldn't be able to do much with tab-completion.

Here's the main thing: any method of app launching has the potential to work nicely and without user intervention *if* there is a clean package management system that people stick to. To the extent that things aren't uniformly installed, there will need to be some sort of indexing process, manual or otherwise, to make things accessible. But why start out trying to figure out ways to do that, like xml files, instead of treating it as a last resort? I'm behind on the talk and I don't know if anyone's done or said anything definitive about package managers lately. But if it's done right, the GUI can focus on being shiny and the locations of things can be pulled straight from the package manager's db, rather than a user-generated xml file.

Again, the point of such a file on systems like the xbox, or the directory+file stuff that gmenu2x uses, is to keep a central list of where the hell everything is, since it could be literally anywhere. Package management eliminates this problem the right way.

Maybe you guys have more recent info than I do, or you're just more cynical...but I'm really hoping that this time around we won't need things like a separate index to tell us where the apps are located. I'm willing to sacrifice the raw speed of just dumping & deleting files (and letting the pandora handle it) if it means not having to maintain a separate list or list of programs.

Just my 2c, I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

 

[Sphinxter]

Couple thoughts spurred by all this:

File association only works if every app supports switches. I know that in the *nix world that's like saying a car should have wheels, but lots of gp2x emulators, impressive though they are, left out this bit. I suppose things like music players wouldn't, but it's up to the individuals doing the work.

I don't see any (positive) comments about search. Imagine typing a few letters from the name of an application and getting a list...I'd love to be able to keep only a few things out front and get to the rest via a search box. I'm sure there will be a console but if apps are installed gp2x-style, that is, anywhere, then you wouldn't be able to do much with tab-completion.

Here's the main thing: any method of app launching has the potential to work nicely and without user intervention *if* there is a clean package management system that people stick to. To the extent that things aren't uniformly installed, there will need to be some sort of indexing process, manual or otherwise, to make things accessible. But why start out trying to figure out ways to do that, like xml files, instead of treating it as a last resort? I'm behind on the talk and I don't know if anyone's done or said anything definitive about package managers lately. But if it's done right, the GUI can focus on being shiny and the locations of things can be pulled straight from the package manager's db, rather than a user-generated xml file.

Again, the point of such a file on systems like the xbox, or the directory+file stuff that gmenu2x uses, is to keep a central list of where the hell everything is, since it could be literally anywhere. Package management eliminates this problem the right way.

Maybe you guys have more recent info than I do, or you're just more cynical...but I'm really hoping that this time around we won't need things like a separate index to tell us where the apps are located. I'm willing to sacrifice the raw speed of just dumping & deleting files (and letting the pandora handle it) if it means not having to maintain a separate list or list of programs.

Just my 2c, I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

Hey that's gold. Good point about the args, massive problem there. Search is seriously going on the list for the lower right corner button, I'd like it to bubble up a drop down as you punch in a few letters. I was thinking the other night you should not have to store anything and it should just scan and pop up a sorted and paged list every time you hit it but how to handle the sorting and I can't possibly know every app in the world's category, whether it belongs on the emu, media, game or what have you tab and it struck me that you don't have to, just all of yours, if you could get the user to do it and store it on the device it could be manageable, maybe a sleepycat db. Clutter 0.8 says multiple stages now, I'd missed that. Could sort by split screen and let them pick tabs and flick icons back and forth, maybe even ball physics and billiard clacking noises.

It could independently scroll each side by tapping the top and bottom, empty tab exit.

Edit:
No after finishing and clicking the basic framework of a prototype of the interface I have to say l loathe and hate the tabs, the whole sorting thing, the search should eliminate that anyway. The whole thing is too narrow in purpose, it should be a front end to anything, mplayer, emus, whatever. I'm thinking the configuration should be a path to start searching, pattern to search for, and format string of what to do with it. A row of buttons of additional places, masks and actions across the top with a search that covers them all with scrolling sideways like the finger scroll test in the tidy tool kit, the grid of icons is so blah, should look a lot more like;

Using gtk does not bring that much to this without it's layout manager, will try this in clutter alone.