What Is Your Best Desktop Environnement For Pda?

[amrein]

Hi

When I run all those Desktop Environnement, from Gnome to KDE, from QTopia to GPE... I found that all of them are not completely usable. A lot of thing is missing and there is a long road before having a very good and usable Desktop Environnement for PDAs. What are your expectations? Have you got screenshots of what you would like (or love) to see running on your Zaurus? Something already alive?

I ask because... well... there are people who listen... and sometimes...

Any good solutions from other device? Good ideas?
I only got questions and no real answer.

[Snappy]

Well, it depends on what you want your pda for? Your needs and wants.

Mine are quite well fulfilled by Qtopia in Cacko rom.

[Da_Blitz]

I have had no problems with the comand line

[dhns]

what you would like (or love) to see running on your Zaurus?

[span style=\'font-size:21pt;line-height:100%\']MacOS X[/span]

-- hns

[Mickeyl]

Hi amrein, long time no see!

How's RPM doing?  

When I run all those Desktop Environnement, from Gnome to KDE, from QTopia to GPE... I found that all of them are not completely usable.

Agreed.

A lot of thing is missing and there is a long road before having a very good and usable Desktop Environnement for PDAs.

Agreed.

What are your expectations? Have you got screenshots of what you would like (or love) to see running on your Zaurus? Something already alive?

I'd like to see a small-systems environment tailored for screens from 320x240 to 800x600 recreated from scratch with the needs of embedded computing in mind. It should contain a set of convincing stock applications (PIM, Multimedia, Networking) that fit nicely into a no-less-but-astonishing UI, but should also contain a way to run "plain" X applications (for those geeks).

It should be using modern Linux technologies (like dbus, sysfs, udev) under the hood to create a snappy event based system with low power requirement. No polling is allowed in any case!

It should be fast.

It should be extensible -- but not too much. Since I'm the one preaching the choice-is-not-freedom-when-you-can-only-choose-from-insufficient-alternatives, I rather have a couple of killer apps than hundreds or thousands of sucky ones. Same goes for distributions btw and UI environments, btw.

Having to edit configuration files or dropping to the console must be a NO. NO! I mean it, really. NO NO NEVER!

If I were given the option to design and develop such a thing from scratch, I would most likely go the EFL way. The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries just rock and you can create very good looking and user friendly UIs. Perhaps something like EEM Demo on Motorola A780.

Last but not least you need to make a comprehensive set of guidelines and a strong framework available in an SDK. To make it fun developing for the framework. Encourage multiple languages, but focus on one.

[koen]

If I were given the option to design and develop such a thing from scratch, I would most likely go the EFL way. The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries just rock and you can create very good looking and user friendly UIs. Perhaps something like EEM Demo on Motorola A780.
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EFL looks real good, but I can't shake the qpf-like feeling I get with everything being raster based. I hope EFL will grow cairo support soon.

[Mickeyl]

This topic is addressed (a bit) in http://homepages.pathfinder.gr/kazanaki/contrib/

I share your concerns, but have in mind that badly designed vectors are looking worse than well designed pixel interfaces with good scaling algorithms.

Then again, edje is not just pixel scaling -- it has more advanced algorithms. The ejdes I've seen scale fairly good between 120x120 to VGA.

Keep also in mind that we're talking embedded here. It doesn't need to scale well from 240x320 to 1600x1200.

[koen]

This topic is addressed (a bit) in http://homepages.pathfinder.gr/kazanaki/contrib/

I share your concerns, but have in mind that badly designed vectors are looking worse than well designed pixel interfaces with good scaling algorithms.

Then again, edje is not just pixel scaling -- it has more advanced algorithms. The ejdes I've seen scale fairly good between 120x120 to VGA.

Keep also in mind that we're talking embedded here. It doesn't need to scale well from 240x320 to 1600x1200.
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scaling from 150 dpi qvga (a780) to 100dpi svga (simpad) is pretty hard, but I don't think it's a problem yet. It's just a thing to keep in mind, so we don't end up tied to build-time scaling.

[handheld-linux]

http://homepages.pathfinder.gr/kazanaki/contrib/
Instead, you will learn why you should program with the EFL. If you ever wanted to evaluate the EFL but did not see any advantages over previous graphic libraries then this document is for you!

Hm...

I think I have learned why I should prefer the MacOS X API even more. It can do the same with much less code. It can do both, vector and pixel with smooth scaling. And even cache vector images as pixmaps if that is better.

-- hns

[amrein]

Hi amrein, long time no see!

How's RPM doing?

I'm still building and playing with rpm for Mandrivalinux

I'd like to see a small-systems environment tailored for screens from 320x240 to 800x600 recreated from scratch with the needs of embedded computing in mind. It should contain a set of convincing stock applications (PIM, Multimedia, Networking) that fit nicely into a no-less-but-astonishing UI, but should also contain a way to run "plain" X applications (for those geeks).

It should be using modern Linux technologies (like dbus, sysfs, udev) under the hood to create a snappy event based system with low power requirement. No polling is allowed in any case!

It should be fast.

It should be extensible -- but not too much. Since I'm the one preaching the choice-is-not-freedom-when-you-can-only-choose-from-insufficient-alternatives, I rather have a couple of killer apps than hundreds or thousands of sucky ones. Same goes for distributions btw and UI environments, btw.

Having to edit configuration files or dropping to the console must be a NO. NO! I mean it, really. NO NO NEVER!

Last but not least you need to make a comprehensive set of guidelines and a strong framework available in an SDK. To make it fun developing for the framework. Encourage multiple languages, but focus on one.

Agreed. And this is so much work for one man. I can tell you. There is always something wrong in what already exist. Always the need to reenvent the wheel... for fun.

If I were given the option to design and develop such a thing from scratch, I would most likely go the EFL way. The Enlightenment Foundation Libraries just rock and you can create very good looking and user friendly UIs. Perhaps something like EEM Demo on Motorola A780.

Sure. To use something that already exist. Mixing all open source toolkit to have a few ultra powerful light and fast LGPL libraries is like a silly man project... A new thesis to work on    ?

Currently, the idea for the PDA Desktop Environnement could be to merge all the ideas, from all PDA Desktop environnement to PC desktop ones... Thinking "fast, easy, powerful, user friendly, easy to program, small memory footprint". E DR17 is really interesting.

To get back to the Desktop Environnement design, I have already worked on a draft with a few ideas of what the UI could look like. I still think I'm missing something and it's not easy to keep it simple when you like customizable UI. Sometimes, very good ideas emerge from the community but today the only answers I've got arround are : "'I'm already happy with what I have even if I dream about something better but I still have no idea of what it could be sorry.".

So I ask here to see if people have ideas or screenshots  

[dhns]

I'd like to see a small-systems environment tailored for screens from 320x240 to 800x600 recreated from scratch with the needs of embedded computing in mind. It should contain a set of convincing stock applications (PIM, Multimedia, Networking) that fit nicely into a no-less-but-astonishing UI, but should also contain a way to run "plain" X applications (for those geeks).

It should be using modern Linux technologies (like dbus, sysfs, udev) under the hood to create a snappy event based system with low power requirement. No polling is allowed in any case!

It should be fast.

It should be extensible -- but not too much. Since I'm the one preaching the choice-is-not-freedom-when-you-can-only-choose-from-insufficient-alternatives, I rather have a couple of killer apps than hundreds or thousands of sucky ones. Same goes for distributions btw and UI environments, btw.

Having to edit configuration files or dropping to the console must be a NO. NO! I mean it, really. NO NO NEVER!

Last but not least you need to make a comprehensive set of guidelines and a strong framework available in an SDK. To make it fun developing for the framework. Encourage multiple languages, but focus on one.

You exactly describe the agenda of QuantumSTEP.

* Since it is founded on mGStep it keeps embedded computing in mind.
* It has stock applications for Mail, Calendar, etc.
* It can run nicely plain X applications.
* It does not even need dbus, sysfs, udev - but can.
* It is completely event based (no polling) unless you want to have it different.
* Well, how fast it is depends largely on the processor clock and compiler optimization. A processor with FPU and GPU would certainly help a lot.
* It is extensible. You can write your own Apps, bundles, frameworks, plugins.
* You don't have to use any configuration file - since it tries to be similar to the philosophy of MacOS X (your Grandma can install and configure her Mac).
* The SDK is a Mac with Xcode and crosscompiler. Using Objective-C is really fun. It gives you approx. 10 times the productivity of most other environments.

So, simply join the efforts...

-- hns

[amrein]

I already know about this project dhns ;-)

[amrein]

To start the real discussion, here his what I was thinking about. I won't talk about the base system, nor about the libraries, nor build system but about the Graphical User Interface, the shell to launch the applications and access files. Here is my first brain storming made a few months ago:

Mozilla/Qtopia/Symbian have the good idea to use tabulation. Palm use simple access bar at the bottom but could be on top too. Psion Epoc doesn't show the application menu nor does PamOS and there's a lot of space on the screen. The bottom bar could even been merged with the application menu if using a simple menu button as on Psion device. Sharp Zaurus has one on the left side of the screen but doen't realy use it. Last Windows Mobile device use a quick menu access on bottom (and Sharp have.. as I said, 5 tactiles buttons on the left of the screen). Psion 5mx/revo/netBook do use simple shortcut to switch between applications view mode (from day view to week view for example) and to control the wall application. They also use shortcuts to zoom in/out in any application and been ale to beam data. Psion revo and WindowsCE use a Today view for quick notifications and quick access to most used applications. Konqueror uses multiple browsing configuration and can show the directories content as icons or tree (...), with windows splitting, files ordering with different attributes (...). iceWM and Psion 5Mx have quick access to running applications and show them in a list with the current opened file. Today view, applications views, documents views, configuration view... all need to be customizable and structured to be really usable and user friendly, as it is on PalmOS. Mandrivalinux menu application structure is the best I know so far.

The main idea: the user is free and he can play with directories or quick access list as much as he wants. Power user yes! I let "simple ideas" and "all in a virtual directory" or other simplistic ideas to those who want to create GUI for dummies and don't know how to teach users how to use powerful tools.

With this list, you should now have an idea of what I was thinking about a few months ago before I get into my "garage" as steel Job . Have you got any other ideas to add to this list? Good or bad ideas, I'm listening. We all know that it's easy to have bad ideas. Have you got good ones? Mine are frozen.

Many thanks in advance.

[dproldan]

The answer is Newton!  Yeah,  it may seem like I'm biased looking at the avatar I'm using,  but I speak from the perspective of having used almost every PDA and desktop environment of our days.

  The thing is that Apple actually did what you wanted,  they started from scratch with the pen interface in mind and poured lots of money into it.

  It is not easy to explain the user experience you get when using a newton,  take a few minutes to watch this video.  It is the first newton model (launched at 1992!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64QuJdJmCbA...related&search=

  That's "whole-screen" handwriting recognition,  printing to hundreds of printers out-of-the-box,  application inter-operation, etc.  Look at the way you select text!

  These are the user interface guidelines published by apple,  there's some philosopy in it!:UserInterfaceGuidelinesOS2.0.pdf

   Read at least the first pages of chapter 1,  and I'm sure that the next time you're developing a program you will remember it.

   Screen resizing?  no problem,  this picture is a screenshot of the newton emulator running at 1024x768,  no modifications done to the OS ROM.  Some more screenshots here

  enough ranting   :-)

[dhns]

Exactly. It is not always the new technology which is the best.

I did not own a Newton myself, but I have had a chance to play with them irregularily over the years. Since it is not trying to squeeze a desktop metaphor in a PDA format, it is much easier to use. It more resembles a "Palmtop" than a "Desktop".

Some basic ideas for a new GUI:
* what is the Trash? It is derived from the desktop metaphor...
* what are Files? Derived from a desktop metaphor...
* what is Drag&Drop? Derived from a desktop metaphor...
* What is Copy/Cut&Paste? Derived from a desktop...
etc.

So, a "Palmtop" must resemble a note/scribblebook, an address/phonenumber book and a calendar... Plus be able to play games, music, videos. And communicate, i.e. Mail&Browser.

So, one should IMHO think about:
* replace "Desktop" with a continuous (endlessly scrolling) working sheet (where you draw a horizontal line to create a new working area, i.e. open a new document)
* replace Trash by a LRU buffer (i.e. long time not used things simply disappear - or you have to wipe them out explicitly)
* don't have "Files" and "Folders" but a "Bag of Things" with search filters and tabs (e.g. ABC-DEF, Today-Yesterday-LastWeek)
* replace Drag&Drop with Mark&Act
* same with cut&paste

Some thought about Files: internaly, the system could still store files in a folder hierarchy. And simply allow the user to define an editable attribute "Folder Path" for it without breaking the "Bag of things" view. My idea is looking like Spotlight on MacOS X. BTW: the first Sharp ROMs for the 5500 did go more in this direction.

And what about Windows? On a Desktop, windows are usually tied to an application and an application can open several to show different documents. So, why not simply arrange the windows of all applications in the endlessly scrolling "Palmtop"? And make them the full screen width (but arbitrary height as needed).

A new document/alert/helper window would simply appear at the bottom, scrolling the others upwards. If you want to switch between windows and view more recent, move the scrollbar. Closing a window with the x button would remove it from the arrangement. So, this all would more or less become the task of a window manager. And IMHO it would not even break the usual GUI APIs.

-- hns