And yet people want small devices with big screen real-estate. folding screens seems like a very natural progression.
And once you have a single large screen or dual screen setup, more than one active activity is also a natural progression. example use case: youre browsing and a video call comes in. browser takes up one screen, video call the other. The person making the call asks a question that neccesitates you using the browser (or maps, or other application/whatever) whilst talking to them. Now if thats sort of thing is desirable (and of course it is), then you could implement a dedicated two-screen solution, OR you could implement a more general solution such as a 'desktoppy' windows management system that would satisfy pretty much any requirement at all - just because you have the functionality available to duplicate a desktop GUI like experience doesnt mean you HAVE to. But it does give you a hell of a lot more flexibility. cheers On Feb 16, 4:32 pm, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote: > No we have nothing on our roadmap along these lines at this point. > > Not speaking for anyone else involved with Android, but personally I don't > really see a big benefit of such a facility for any of the form factors that > people are interested in putting Android on. Even at the netbook category, > my experience running Windows on such screens is that I generally want to > keep the current application maximized so that it can use all of the > available screen space. If you then look at such a device with a touch UI, > where the UI elements need to be larger to be touchable, keeping things > maximized is even more natural. > > My personal main interests for a netbook would be in exploring different > system UI elements on the screen (such as taking a side to show recent apps > or richer notifications you can see all of the time), and having a really > good task switcher for moving between applications. > > Also a desktop-style window manager is really not something I have any > interest in at all. This introduces a much more complicated interaction > model for the user, having to do meta-window management of the things they > are actually using, for questionable gain in the kinds of form-factors > Android is targetting. > > I am just not interested in turning Android into a desktop operating > system. That is a whole different world, interaction model, and set of > requirements, which is quite different than Android today. Certainly, any > such work that negatively impacts the UI for our target devices (cell phones > and such) by making it slower, more complicated, etc, is something that > would be questionable on accepting back to the main platform. I also have a > hard time seeing why someone wouldn't just use GTK or KDE if that is the > kind of UI they want. > > At any rate, I personally believe that the area of devices where it makes > sense to have the current application take the whole screen is a large > enough swath of things to keep things interesting, I suspect larger than > everything that looks like a desktop UI. ;) > > > > On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 8:32 PM, stefoid <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi Dianne. - Any chance that Google has this kind of modification on > > the horizon? I think it might be an increasingly popular request > > given the conflicting requirements for smaller and smaller devices > > with larger and larger screen real estate. > > > Another consideration is using android for internet-tablet / net PC > > kinds of devices, ie.e with lots more screen realestate than say, an > > iPhone sized device. The limitation of one-fullscreen-activity-at-a- > > time would really start to grate when you have the space available to > > do more. > > > Really, the dual-screen thing is a bit of a furphy, what is really > > needed is more of a windowing/application management system that > > supports multiple non-fullscreen apps running active concurently. > > > Obviously Android wasnt originally built with that in mind, but if it > > wants to maintain momentum/mind share, its going to have to look at > > that limitation sooner rather than later dont you think? > > > Very interested in the thoughts of the Android team on this,. > > > cheers > > > Steve > > > On Feb 15, 8:34 pm, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote: > > > As I replied before, this is going to be very non-trivial to do, and will > > > require that you at least get a good understanding of > > WIndowManagerService > > > and ActivityManagerService. The former is the component that decides how > > > windows are placed on-screen, and the latter is the one that manages the > > > stack of activities and tasks. > > > > The first thing you'll probably notice that the concept of a single stack > > of > > > application-kind-of-things is firmly baked into both of those, so > > allowing > > > for two such stacks is going to require significant restructuring of > > those > > > parts. > > > > On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 8:49 PM, saroj <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Hello all, > > > > > I need to split the Android screen into two parts and run 2 > > > > applications (app A and app B) simultaneously. app A will run on > > > > screen 1 and app B will run on screen 2. Both are visible to the > > > > users. I need to implement this thing in the Android Framework. > > > > > How to do it ? > > > > > Waiting for your valuable inputs..... > > > > > Regards, > > > > Saroj K Pradhan > > > > -- > > > Dianne Hackborn > > > Android framework engineer > > > [email protected] > > > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to > > > provide private support. All such questions should be posted on public > > > forums, where I and others can see and answer them. > > -- > Dianne Hackborn > Android framework engineer > [email protected] > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to > provide private support. All such questions should be posted on public > forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "android-framework" group. 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