Shiny said:
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.