Suggested Pandora Gui - "tango"

[Yrx]

I like this a lot. Simple but nice-looking. And yeah, it should definitely be skinnable.

 

[javaJake]

With thanks to everyone who has helped me with advice on the GUI, Joppa, Sinbad, Chip, Rokdcasbah, and everyone else - as well as to the Tango library for their icons (which are free to anyone). Here is my concept of a GUI for the Pandora. Brief explanation to follow - but in-depth discussion was started here.


So is this a mock-up to get our hopes up for nothing, or will someone actually go and make this?

 

[Vorporeal]

The GUI looks very clean and well laid out. One thing to keep in mind is the multitude of input devices and types on the Pandora. For example, don't forget that one could use the L and R buttons to shuffle between pages - this would work significantly better than trying to use the D-Pad.

Also, the idea that someone had of using the F# keys at the top of the bottom half as shortcuts for the tabs is a good idea.

 

[jaycee900]

More great work Chad! Love the pictures of the machines on the emulators tab! Man i missed picking up all those machines somehow!

Well, the names are the names of the fake emulators I made up for the shot. Let me give the you name of each system, and you may have had more than you think.

From top left to bottom right.

• Bedouin - emu for Nomad - Sega’s shortlived handheld version of the Genesis. It’s just a Genesis emulator.
• Duck Diamond - emu for Swan Crystal - The last version of the WonderSwan Color, with an improved screen - so it’s a WonderSwan and WonderSwan color emulator.
• game.rom - emu for game.com - shortlived system from Tiger Electronics, featuring a touch screen, PDA style menus, and a dial up modem! Crazy for its day.
• GeoNeo Pocket - emu for SNK’s NeoGeo Pocket Color
• GizEmu - emu for the Gizmondo - Another shortlived handheld - Tiger Telematics doomed system that was shot-down by the mob. Which sucks because it had a freaking ton of potential, 400 Mhz ARM CPU, GPS, VGA Cam, BlueTooth, SMS/MMS messaging - damn Ferrari flippin’ Eriksson!
• GP33 - emu for GP32
• GP2Y - emu for GP2X
• Micro SP Advance - emu for Game Boy Advance

Yeah sorry I was only joking I knew what they were Sorry perhaps too much British sarcasm!

 

[Shiny]

It looks nice and seems to have plenty of eye candy, but is there room for some more functional display modes for people who want to get things done efficiently?

You problably already plan on implementing at least some of these (that is, if you're actually going to make it), but here are some suggestions that I have:

• More icons in grid mode! (at least 6x4)
• List mode with small icons, similar to this
• Plain list mode without icons to increase browsing speed in directories with lots of files
• "Currently playing" tab that shows running applications in a list-like mode with larger icons
• Display mode customizable for each directory
• Customizable tabs. I'm not sure if I could fit all of my categories on there, so perhaps have 'pages' of tabs?
• MUST be easily navigable using only the face buttons or only the touch screen. Switching between the two is very annoying
• Take care that data is streamed to an extent so that you're not constantly waiting around for icons to load. Sony did a horrible job with this on the PSP

 

[chad78]

The GUI looks very clean and well laid out. One thing to keep in mind is the multitude of input devices and types on the Pandora. For example, don't forget that one could use the L and R buttons to shuffle between pages - this would work significantly better than trying to use the D-Pad.

Also, the idea that someone had of using the F# keys at the top of the bottom half as shortcuts for the tabs is a good idea.

The shoulder buttons move you between tabs (Home to Apps to Media, etc.) so they can't also go between pages. But yes, linking the 1 button to Home, 2 to Apps, etc. sounds like a good idea - unless they might be accidentally hit too often, which would make it insanely frustatraing. You are going back and forth between which emu to play, and you're just about to make up your mind when you accidentally hit 1 and are back at the home screen.

I like it, though I'd like to see customizable grid size. For instance I have 20 emulators on my gmenu emus tab (in a 6x4 grid), and have no problem with the small icons on the gp2x 3.5 inch screen. Hate the idea of flipping through 'pages' of emulator icons.

I don't see why resizing the icons would be a bad idea. Just keep in mind the size of the screen (4.3") but, yeah 6 x 4 should be doable. Would a drop down menu style option be good enough? Something like "Icons per page: 4, 8, 15, 20, 24" be enough, do you think?

 

[gruso]

What could I possibly add? Bring it on.

 

[chad78]

It looks nice and seems to have plenty of eye candy, but is there room for some more functional display modes for people who want to get things done efficiently?

The List mode that I haven't done yet is probably what you want.

QUOTE

• List mode with small icons, similar to this
• Plain list mode without icons to increase browsing speed in directories with lots of files

That's way too much stuff - I can't even read it on my computer monitor, and the pixels per inch is much lower on my monitor than it will be on the GP2X. But something *like* that is what I'm talking about. Although I'm not sure if I'll actually include the icons at all, since they will be so small that they will be hard to see, and at the same time be taking up a lot of screen area by the sheer number of icons on the screen. At a certain point/size the purpose of icons (giving a visual clue as to what the file is) is lost. The screnshot you sent is far past that point.

QUOTE

• "Currently playing" tab that shows running applications in a list-like mode with larger icons

That's an idea to answer the "What's open" question. And while it's better than mine - which I don't have one at the moment - I'm not sure if I like it or not. What do you guys think? I just don't know if that's a "tab". It seems like I should be able to see the currently open applications while still on a (another) tab.

QUOTE

• Display mode customizable for each directory

This isn't a file manager - you won't see "Directories" here. You have tabs, and each tab (other than Home, which has the widgets, and won't be in the other three modes) can be in either of the 3 modes, with the options set by the use (icons per page, file name on or off, etc.)

There will be a separate way to organize your files. This GUI is focused primarily on making the Pandora simple to use as a gaming device first, and a computer second. So think of this as a "Shell" like Windows Media Player -or Apple's Front Row - than a replacement for Explorer or Finder. Remember, Pandora is a consumer device for easy, on-the-go use - not a replacement for your desktop. With the risk of encuring the wrath of the purists - this is more TiVo than Slackware.

QUOTE

• Customizable tabs. I'm not sure if I could fit all of my categories on there, so perhaps have 'pages' of tabs?

I'm not sure how practical that would be. Again, the point of this GUI is not to get you to organize all your files. The point of the Pandora is not it give you ultimate file management control - it is let you have fun. Having pages and pages of tabs would (1) kill the use of the numbers as quick links to tabs (2) make it far more confusing to use (3) leave X% of the tabs (and therefore your stuff) absolutely no where on the screen.

What other tabs are you wanting to add? What are you planning on having on the Pandora that isn't a Widget (Home tab), Application (Apps), Web or Communications Application (Web), Media file (Media), Emulator (Emu), Native Game (Pandora), or Control Panel option (Prefs)?

Many people in open source want *EVERYTHING* to be customizable. That's is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. More choices ≠ more happy. Not to the overwhelming number of people in the world.

APA (American Psychological Association - A bunch of shrinks, in other words) Article - from the article:

QUOTE

"The presumption is, self-determination is a good thing and choice is essential to self-determination," says Barry Schwartz, PhD, a Swarthmore College psychologist and author of "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less" (Ecco, 2004). "But there's a point where all of this choice starts to be not only unproductive, but counterproductive--a source of pain, regret, worry about missed opportunities and unrealistically high expectations."



{PDF WARNING} "The Tyranny of Choice" a more in depth covering of that same topic.

Look at this way. You go to a restaurant - they don't list the ingredient that they have available and then ask you to put them together into what you want. No, they give you a set number of complete dishes. They may - and I stress this is not always the case - give you an option as to you side - but even then, it's a limited number of choices.

Can you customize your order? Sure! But they don't show you (the GUI) all the options that are actually there. They say "New York Strip with Steak Fries, and Rice Parlaif." and somewhere above or below that, they mention all entries come with a side salad and breadsticks.

That's one option - but even then you have a lot of choices to make - Caesar or green salad? What salad dressing? How do you want the Steak done? And then there are the unlisted / unasked questions - do you want to substitute the smashed potatoes for the fries? Would you rather have carrots than rice? Do you want steak sauce? Do you want ketchup? Do you want the steak butterflied?

But if you listed *all* the options of *every* plate on the menu - not only would the menu be 5 to 10 times the size - but you'd lose customers. People have a hard enough time choosing among the 20 entries you do list - adding all those options in print in front of them would make them crazy.

Heck, as limited as MacDonalds menu is - they don't even list *HALF* of their menu on the boards. You just have to know its there if you want it - but even with just 10 meals listed, you still have people standing at the rgister going "I'll take a um.... um.... um... let's see... I want a number ... uh... a number.... uh.... Hmmm?" And that's after being in line 3 to 5 minutes already - doing the same choosing gymnastics in their heads.

This is a simple interface - if you want to unlock all the power of the hardware in the GUI - install Ubuntu, or Gentoo, or Slackware. This isn't a desktop computer. The GUI shouldn't look or feel like one. this is a shell, not a hard core operating system.

QUOTE

• MUST be easily navigable using only the face buttons or only the touch screen. Switching between the two is very annoying
  • 
    
    
    
    I competely agree. You can use just one.
    
    QUOTE
    
    • Take care that data is streamed to an extent so that you're not constantly waiting around for icons to load. Sony did a horrible job with this on the PSP
    
    
    
    That's not my department. This is a mockup of what I'd like to see. It's just a picture. I don't code. And even if I did - this is just the gui. I don't see any reason why loading even 30 icons on a screen should take any time on a 600 Mhz, dual core computer, even with the 3D effects and shading, etc. But that is another reason to limit the number of icons the screen. (The other being too many icons are impossible to see in any reasonable way.)
    
    But, yeah, I agree, for this to be worth anything, it has to actually work fairly well and fairly quickly. Otherwise it's making the Pandora look *worse* instead of better. I'd scarifice the eyecandy for usablity any day. That said, if the system can't handle the simple GUI, which would be natively written for the device - then I have serious doubts about its ability to actually play games. And that goes for the PSP as well. I ahve one, and the load times for games - even off of a flash drive - are painful.

 

[chad78]

So is this a mock-up to get our hopes up for nothing, or will someone actually go and make this?

I'd love it if someone actually made this - but, for now, it's just a mock-up. But the purpose is to, hopefully, convince someone with some real authority to make something like this happen - or at least inspire, give some ideas to, whoever is in charge.

But, if anyone has the mad skillz to make this happen, even if it's some sort of third party, unofficial skin, addon, or firmware, please let me know!

 

[JakeK]

Should have made a poll for who likes it

I know I do

 

[chad78]

I like this a lot. Simple but nice-looking. And yeah, it should definitely be skinnable.

Thank you.

I have a question. There have been a few people that say it should be "Skinable". And, while I know what the word means, I'm curious as to what is meant in this context. I mean, what would you want to be able to change? The wallpaper, obviously, but that's doable from the preference menu - or the browser, one would hope.

Do you want to change the icons? The color of the tabs? The location of the tabs? (Top, sides, bottom) Shape of the tabs? Change the tabs to just icons?

I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I'm all for allowing the hard core user to do what they want. The Pandora is designed to be hacked, from what I can tell. No jailbreaking, warranty voiding, EULA violating, or mod chips necessary. I'm just not sure what you mean by skinable.

In my thinking, (and I may be wrong), if you do a different GUI (say, expanding drop down menus instead of tabs) then its not a skin you want - it's a different GUI altogether. Maybe I'm being dense. Please show me where my stupid is. Because I know it's there somewhere! :unsure: :huh:

 

[Tom`]

...

There's some very good stuff there. It's certainly true in my (admittedly limited) experience, for the vast majority of people. However, I think it's worthwhile to note that this is (at least to some extent) a community of people who like to spend some significant amount of time doing obsessive tweaking. It's the difference between Gentoo users and everyone else, it's all about the feeling of power that you get when you have access to every detail of how the system works. Sure, it may take hours to configure all the compiler settings and kernel options, and three days to compile everything, but that's not the point.

It looks great, though, I like it more than PSP's GUI (although I don't own a PSP, so haven't spent much time with that, but just from what I've seen here it looks much better IMO).
I'm assuming there'd be a separate file manager program specifically for file management, as opposed to launching programs/control panel/other stuff.

Also, an idea: on my Pocket PC (Toshiba e755 running Pocket PC 2002) I'm often running a web browser, ebook reader, and a few other things at the same time, and I find myself resorting to Settings>Memory>Running programs to switch between them. Since people are probably going to be doing a lot of word processing while listening to MP3s and the like, given the potential for multitasking (if my 400mhz pocket pc with 64 MB of sdram (shared with storage, even(!)) can do it, the Pandora should have no problem,) it might be worthwhile to include some kind of task switcher in the GUI somewhere.

As for skinnability, it usually means the ability to change the color scheme/icon set. However, there are much more radical skinning systems out there (see Winamp 3, for example), but I think that would be mostly pointless on a handheld, since you'd be making a completely different GUI.

 

[Shiny]

That's way too much stuff - I can't even read it on my computer monitor, and the pixels per inch is much lower on my monitor than it will be on the GP2X. But something *like* that is what I'm talking about.

Whoah, hold on there. I didn't mean at that particular size; I was only referring to the layout. Reading anything like that (if you can anyways) would seriously mess with your eyes. I should have been clearer in my original response.

What other tabs are you wanting to add? What are you planning on having on the Pandora that isn't a Widget (Home tab), Application (Apps), Web or Communications Application (Web), Media file (Media), Emulator (Emu), Native Game (Pandora), or Control Panel option (Prefs)?

At first I thought that I would remove the Emulator tab and replace it with a tab for each system that leads to a list of its available games (I don't bother emulating many systems so I could get away with this); But later I came to the conclusion that it would be a better solution to keep the Emulator tab but have each entry lead to a list of available games for their respective system which, when selected, launches the emulator. I seem to be in the minority that wants a consistent game selection menu between emulators ):

Many people in open source want *EVERYTHING* to be customizable. That's is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. More choices ≠ more happy. Not to the overwhelming number of people in the world.

APA (American Psychological Association - A bunch of shrinks, in other words) Article

{PDF WARNING} "The Tyranny of Choice" a more in depth covering of that same topic.


o_o too many words to choose from. Point taken.
A few pre-set options like you are referring to are definately a must for most ("normal") people, but the choice to customize everything is always a nice addition. I have a feeling that Pandora's userbase may include a much higher percentage of customization nuts than normal.

If this is ever made, I hope that it's open source so that I can hack in a few things to better suit my needs (;

That's not my department. This is a mockup of what I'd like to see. It's just a picture. I don't code. And even if I did - this is just the gui.

Well since that's the case I hope some lucky programmer picks this project up. I would surely try it out as the interface shows promise and looks great.

 

[magicman5421]

Just an observation, craig and company have been strangely silent on this topic. If they could, I'd like to hear what is going on on the gui side of things. Is it already written? is our speculation here pointless?

 

[Gilrad]

Here's an idea for that gray bar at the bottom of the screen...

How about, if you press a certain key/button, or drag the currently active tab up, the screen will slide upwards, to reveal some other facet of the gui? That is to say, the entire interface will slide upward, off the screen, and the little gray bar will fill the screen with some other bit.

Could be active/inactive application switcher, could be a way to toggle to grid mode. Dunno. Any other ideas?

edit--as for skinning, here are some bits that I think could be customized:
colors. Perhaps a smart way of going about it would be to make it as simple as possible. Perhaps two values for each color: The base color, and a second value to determine how the shading around that color will blend (making it stronger, lighter, inversed, whatever)
Icons. Pretty simple, I would say.
Actual image files used for the gui. Say I don't want all these beveled corners. Maybe I want a strong two-tone border on everything. Replace the images with those of my choice.
Animations. Sorta like the Compiz settings manager, there could be a utility that will allow you to tweak every little thing that can be tweaked. Maybe on the slider mode, I want the image to flash when it is centered. Maybe I want it to bulge for a moment. Maybe I want all images on the side to be blackened. Or shrunk. Or upside down. There's a lot of possibilities you can give users, and with all these possibilities, the sky is the limit for custom-built themes.

 

[Vorporeal]

I think that, after considering all of the different tabs and pages and everything that needs to be navigated through, it makes more sense to use the L and R buttons to switch pages within a tab, and use the D-Pad to change tabs (as well as possibly change rows of tabs, if someone has more tabs than can fit on one row).

 

[chad78]

More pics.


Removed grey bar and added 3rd line of icons

Click for big.

The "Alt+Tab" Shot / Active App Picker

click for big.


I removed the Gray bar, and recentered some stuff and now there is room for a 3rd row of icons. I sort of cheated because I made sure all the icons on the new row only had one line names. I could have resized the icons, shrunk the font, etc. - but it was easier to cheat. That's why it's cheating.

BTW - these are just mock-ups. so the icons used, like for the different systems, are not finished products. This is all just my suggestions (altered, of course, by people's feedback) in a visual form. I know the resolution / coloring sucks on some of the stuff. It's just a mock-up. If I were actually making the GUI things would be much better looking.

I do think removing the gray bar is a Good Thing ™, so from now on, just say no to greybar! Any other screenshots I do will not have that in them. I may even remake the other 2 modes.

 

[Arialia]

Fine Chad

Well maybe a tiny line of 2 pixels ( 1 for eyes) at the place of old 'greybar' ?

 

[Joppu]

For skinning I would like the possibility to change the image files and make all the graphics from scratch

 

[efegea]

I wanted to code an interface very similar, and fully skinnable using xml files and by the use of compiled plugins. But at the end I abandoned the project because I'm very confused about how the Pandora will work, i.e: if it will run X11 or framebuffer and a lot of things I didn't get answered..and if they did, are still confusing me...