Suggested Pandora Gui - "tango"

[Pleng]

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.



Chad I love your designs. I hope Craigx is looking at these and hope very much that he consults you when the interace is being designed. You clearly know what you are doing and your designs would no doubt be a pleasure to use.

BUT... and sorry for repeating myself here, but regarding this:

QUOTE

*ATTENTION CRAIGX - Hook up with Google and set Google.com as the default browser's homepage and Google and Pandora's default search engine - this could mean another means of cash flow from Pandora, other than hardware sales!* (A point of clarification - users could still select any homepage and search engine they wanted to be their default - but the *shipping* default would be a affliate [aka sponsored] version of Google which would pay CraigX for every search / click-thru. It would not limit the user, and would not change the user experience in any way from CraigX *not* getting paid for it, and including a Google option anyway.)
The Weather automatically updates whenever you are online. I forgot to add the “Currently” info, but you get the idea. You type in the zip code (for US - postal code, city & country, etc - for other countries), and it tells you the weather.
The News Reader can be set to whatever RSS/Atom/Podcast feeds you want - again, automatically updates when online.



NO NO NO NO NOOOO!!!!

Google has NOTHING to do with Pandora. Zippo. ZILCH! The last thinkg I need is another device/application trying to FORCE google down my throat.

I like Yahoo! thankyou very much. I can always find what I'm looking for, and 90% of the time the information I need can be found within the first page of results, somethng that I simply can't say for google.

Anyway, I don't want Yahoo! as the default homepage, either.

The default homepage should, in my humble opinion be a dedicated mini-site for pandora. The page should be split into 4 segments showing: Latest homebrow game, latest app, latest news posting, and random accessory from the pandora store. Clicking the image of the app or game would direct you to download the app, but each section would also have a 'more' button which would take you to the relevent section of the site.

 

[efegea]

My idea is of having fully customizable tabs, and each tab is a 'plugin'. A plugin can be a grid of applications, an slider emulator selector, an rss feed reader, a file browser, and so on...it also can be a container of more plugins. As they are plugins, it means someone can code a new plugin, so the pandora's gui has no limits. Nothing is hardcoded. Someone can code a new plugin that is a better improved version of another one..

 

[javaJake]

I'd play around and code a little something to see how far I'd get, but (like efegea) if I were to do this I'd want to know what interface I'm working with.

What I'd do if I were to do this is make a window that's 800x480, let SDL handle the GUI, and then use keyboard and mouse for controls.

Would this be easy to port later on if it was done?

 

[sindbad]

I'd play around and code a little something to see how far I'd get, but (like efegea) if I were to do this I'd want to know what interface I'm working with.

What I'd do if I were to do this is make a window that's 800x480, let SDL handle the GUI, and then use keyboard and mouse for controls.

Would this be easy to port later on if it was done?

How about you try with kdrive and matchbox instead of SDL? Much cleaner and easier to code.

 

[Pleng]

That said, your suggesting brings to light another issue - how to show active programs. An issue I don't currently have an answer for.

How about an overlay widget with thumbnails of the apps (like the alt+tab widget) that shows up somewhere when a key is pressed? You can't run that many apps at once anyway.


This is what I was thinking, you could have a little button on the screen, which could activate an overlay, also obtainable by pressing down one of the game buttons. From here you can navigate with the dpad, or touch with your finger, the app you want to switch to. Underneath each icon/thumbnail there could be a little red X to close/kill the application

 

[efegea]

How about you try with kdrive and matchbox instead of SDL? Much cleaner and easier to code.

You beaten me!! I was going to say that we must use matchbox on the pandora. I have compiled it on my linux pc and it's exactly what we should use!

It only needs a few modifications, like the alt-tab actually running applications display window..

 

[fusion_power]

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).

A good Software ALWAYS has more than one option for controlls. Look at Windows or Linux, many functons can be activated in more than one way and I expect this for the Pandora to. So I would like to see Menu Navigation like in Gmenu2X (GP2X) with Shoulder Buttons + Stick AND for the Pandora with the Touchscreen Onscreen to.

And I think a full customize GUI is the best way. Like mentioned before this is also optional and no must, there could be Pre-sets of the placement for the Tabs for example (up or down or left or right), complete Skins ready to use (one-Click install of course ) OR you do everything seperate per hand.

This is, how a Pandora GUI should work.

 

[AireTamStorm]

Looks very nice, gave me a few ideas. It would be kinda neat if you never had to run an emulator- You just saw all of your ROMs and you set the GUI to associate certain ROMs to an emulator of your choice. Integrate this with a package manager?

You copy an SNES ROM, ever so ignorantly onto the SD card.
You pop it into the Pandora.
You try to run it via the "ROMs" tab, or whatever.
Pandora complains: "What do I run this with? This isn't native code!" Not to you, but to the Package manager.
Package manager comes up with a list of packages to run the file with.
A GUI Dialog asks you "What emulation engine would you like?"
You select "Squidge SNES Pandora" as the engine.
It installs via WiFi, runs, and you're off playing Chrono Trigger for the 60th time.

 

[Squidge]

Sounds fine for a third party app, but if it did that "out of the box", then it sounds like the Pandora people endorse emulation and rom piracy, and could end up in tricky situations. You could go from file extensions, but then again, multiple apps use the same file extensions.

I'd say the Pandora just allows easy application launching, and leave the rest to happen later via third party apps.

 

[Sphinxter]

How about you try with kdrive and matchbox instead of SDL? Much cleaner and easier to code.

You beaten me!! I was going to say that we must use matchbox on the pandora. I have compiled it on my linux pc and it's exactly what we should use!

It only needs a few modifications, like the alt-tab actually running applications display window..


I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[chad78]

Sounds fine for a third party app, but if it did that "out of the box", then it sounds like the Pandora people endorse emulation and rom piracy, and could end up in tricky situations. You could go from file extensions, but then again, multiple apps use the same file extensions.

I'd say the Pandora just allows easy application launching, and leave the rest to happen later via third party apps.

"It sounds like?"

Um, Do you think people are going to pay $330 to play just the games that are natively written for the Pandora? The Pandora is a emulation device. Look at the Wiki, look at the boards - all that is being talked about is "Will it be able to run this emu?" "Can it play DS games?" "Will PSX games run at full speed?" And, again, it's not just the forums - it's the wiki. The Wiki lists dozens of platforms that it should be able to run out of the box.

Do you think those games are just going to be public domain or open source roms?

Do you think people are only going to play ripped roms that that still physically own?

The fact is, emulation of systems that are no longer in production is perfectly legal. The justification for that is, if I own a game - say Sonic 2 - but my Genesis breaks - I can't go buy a new one. I still have a legal right to play that game, even if I play it on hardware that is not the hardware it was written for. And it stands to reason that if that is legal, then it must be legal for get the roms, because I can't plug my Sonic Cart into my MacBook. So emulation and ROMs are not illegal. At least not for systems that aren't being made any more. That means everything except Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and 3, Wii, DS, GBA, and PSP is up for grabs. And, (with the exception of GBA, and maybe the DS), those just happen to be the systems that the Pandora won't be able to emulate.

 

[yaustar]

QUOTE
The fact is, emulation of systems that are no longer in production is perfectly legal. The justification for that is, if I own a game - say Sonic 2 - but my Genesis breaks - I can't go buy a new one. I still have a legal right to play that game, even if I play it on hardware that is not the hardware it was written for. And it stands to reason that if that is legal, then it must be legal for get the roms, because I can't plug my Sonic Cart into my MacBook. So emulation and ROMs are not illegal. At least not for systems that aren't being made any more. That means everything except Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and 3, Wii, DS, GBA, and PSP is up for grabs. And, (with the exception of GBA, and maybe the DS), those just happen to be the systems that the Pandora won't be able to emulate.

*Can of worms can of worms can of worms*

I quite like the design of the GUI and interested to see if anyone is going to pick it up and make it happen.

 

[chad78]

I'm sure there aren't enough options or text on the screen for you, but here's a version with less eye candy, for all those you are complaining about it.

I know, the font is too big.

 

[Shiny]

I'm sure there aren't enough options or text on the screen for you, but here's a version with less eye candy, for all those you are complaining about it.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2074/246488...61490e7a5_o.png

I know, the font is too big.


The purist in me says that font anti-aliasing is eye candy :rolleyes:

 

[Arialia]

I'm sure there aren't enough options or text on the screen for you, but here's a version with less eye candy, for all those you are complaining about it.

I know, the font is too big.

:lol: :wub:

 

[Holokauston]

I'm sure there aren't enough options or text on the screen for you, but here's a version with less eye candy, for all those you are complaining about it.

I know, the font is too big.

Too big? when you look at it in real size (4,3") the fonts are borderline too small really IMO, that's the biggest problem with a more textbased UI, you wont really gain anything since the screen can't really show that much text at any one time, too small and too much text will make it hard to read.
If you want to know how much text is really the max you should use, take any standard english pocket printed book, take an A4 paper or likewise, draw a 56,2mm x 93,6mm rectangle ( 4,3" ) and cut it out, now place the paper over any place in the book and you will see that you don't really get that much text in there.

If you are now thinking "but we can make the text smaller" consider this, first of you might be starring at that screen for some time and if you have to strain your eyes you'll get headaches and working on the pandora will be harder and more uncomfortable. The text in pocket books are a good template to follow, it's the result of years of typography experience behind it, something that's easy to read and yet still as compact as possible. Also if you have a mobile with for ex. OperaMini you might want to look at it as well, at least all my mobiles have more or less the same size on the text as my pocket books have for that very same reason.

 

[gruso]

I think you took that a little bit too seriously.

 

[chad78]

I think you took that a little bit too seriously.

+1

 

[chad78]

I made a video of the Tango GUI on a Nokia N800 (which has the same resolution touch screen - but is just a tiny bit smaller than the Pandora - 4.1" instead of 4.3") and my PSP Slim (so you could see it on a game system. These are just slideshows of the pictures you've already seen on here. So, it might just be a waste of time. You have been warned.

 

[Chip]

I made a video of the Tango GUI on a Nokia N800



Looks totally usable. Ideally the UI would have options for changing the fint and text size for the RSS reader, icon names, etc. Though personally, I think I'd leave it as-is.