Whatever the environment is, IMHO it should be coherent over all. Obviously the
ideal solution would be indistinguishable QT or GTK apps, somehow like the
gtk-qt theme acts in kde to hide the differences from qt apps to gtk. However
file selectors, for instance, keep being different, spoiling the consistence of
the experience.
As I am not sure if making qtopia and gtk functionally equal is even possible,
I'm all for a dual stack, somehow similar to the new framework vision. Below
dbus, a single set of apps and *most important* apis share everybody's efforts
to make the phone plainly *work*. Suspend issues, gsm, etc.
Above, however, I'd fight for consistency over development freedom. I find a
usable phone quite more important than a usable desktop (perhaps for being used
to windows and half-broken linuxes to be used to find quirks), and for that you
need consistency among a lot of other things. It's not just that the
applications look different (such as QT vs GTK), it's that they act subtly
different (file selectors, but also focus policies configured in different
places, cut and paste behaviour, etc etc), which drives mad the user as he
can't figure out the expected result of his actions.
To give two examples, I'd say the series 60 nokia phones are quite well
designed in that respect. I've been using them since 7650, I've gone through 3
different models, and all of them acted *exactly* the same. Copy / paste
through all the applications, same *keyboard shortcuts* (quite important when
you get faster), for instance in the menu, same way of switching apps, same
contact manager or sms (which is far from perfect BTW, as I don't get along too
well with the metaphore of "everything goes to the inbox"), same integration of
all the apps between theirselves ("send -> via bluetooth, via sms, via MMS",
mentioned copy paste, input methods -though dictionary should be present as
well in single text fields-, etc).
And, for me, old B/W series 40 are just perfect in that regard. When you get
used to one other phones seem just *clunky* and unbearably *slow* and twitchy.
And the same happened to me with the ipod (3G), which I believe it's a big part
of its success.
Only way to get this kind of consistency would be having full integrated sw
stacks, not mixing GTK and QT, and of course working a lot on those boring
usability issues :P. That's why I'm all for a dual stack, independent: if
contacts, sms, etc. are shared between them (sounds difficult though),
switching would be a similar matter as booting GNOME or KDE. Just a matter of
taste... And although in KDE I usually open firefox (to get my passwords and
extensions), and in GNOME I burn with k3b, appart from that you can get a very
consistent and predictable experience in both. I vow for the same ways in
openmoko... Worst for me would be the 8-years-ago linux experience: lots of
incomplete and inconsistent apps, unpredictable behaviour while mixing, etc.
Let's hope it doesn't take so long for us.
And sorry for these long emails, while studying I tend to get distracted and
"--verbose" :P.
--- El sáb, 28/6/08, Esben Stien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escribió:
De: Esben Stien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Asunto: Re: rationale for ASU (and change from GTK to Qt)
Para: "List for Openmoko community discussion" <[email protected]>
Fecha: sábado, 28 junio, 2008 3:58
"Ron K. Jeffries" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> the rationale for the decision to switch from the original GTK based
> OpenMoko
There will be a fork here at one point. There's a good bunch of us who
wants a standard GTK+ environment as the main guis' for the
phone. There's even some that don't want any QT on the phone, at
all;).
I just hope that the existing applications has been properly
engineered, separating the core from the UI (MVC, three tier, PCMEF)
so that it's just a matter of speaking a common protocol.
--
Esben Stien is [EMAIL PROTECTED] s a
http://www. s t n m
irc://irc. b - i . e/%23contact
sip:b0ef@ e e
jid:b0ef@ n n
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