On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 6:58 PM, <da...@lang.hm> wrote: > On Sun, 1 Mar 2009, Eben Eliason wrote: > >> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 5:53 PM, NoiseEHC <noise...@freemail.hu> wrote: >>> >>> Eben Eliason wrote: >>>> >>>> This whole argument, I feel, is fruitless. That's just my opinion, of >>>> course. >>>> >>>> The touchpad isn't readily accessible in handheld mode, and was never >>>> made to be. I'll continue to suggest that the cursor simply be >>>> automatically hidden in handheld mode, and that a simple means for >>>> taking full advantage of the handheld buttons which are present be >>>> made available to activities in a standardized way. >>>> >>> >>> This argument rests on the wrong assumption that the user can only rotate >>> the screen in handheld mode. Of course the user can open the laptop as a >>> book and read it rotated while using the touchpad with one of his thumbs. >> >> I suppose that's true, though I'm not sure I see a benefit to that. >> My impression of handheld mode is as a means of consuming content (not >> creating content). > > why should you make that assumption?
Because I think there is an inherently limited set of controls available, and the keyboard and mouse are not readily accessible in this mode. I think that defining a set of interactions that can be meaningful in such a context are better than forcing every activity and/or feature into a mode that's not suited to them. I don't mean that content creation shouldn't be allowed in principle—audio/video recording would still work great, for instance—but I don't think the mode was designed in hardware to make use of keyboard and mouse, nor do I think software should try to facilitate it. >> I think that the cursor AND the toolbars should >> hide completely, leaving a fullscreen interface for the pleasurable >> viewing of the pdf, webpage, image, movie, etc., with nothing else in >> the way, and basic controls mapped to the buttons. > > how do you decide which controls are 'basic' and need to be mapped to the > buttons? what do you do if there are more 'basic controls' than you have > buttons? Start with the most basic, and build up. There's a limited set of buttons there; that's something to be dealt with. Video game consoles have done a pretty good job with similar limitations. At least in the 90s they did. These days they've caved in to many more buttons. Also, see the Browse activity description I linked to. It describes a system which makes double-use of the buttons, and can provide logical secondary behaviors for controls like zooming, for instance. >> It's a question of need, really. When you're not using the laptop as >> a laptop, what benefit do you gain from use of the cursor (and/or >> toolbars)? Let's draw a clear distinction between the modes and make >> them independently useful, rather than trying to make every >> button/control/feature work in both. > > even when only 'consuming content' you may need to zoom in on the page or > things like that. See above. >>>> A suggestion for how this standardized system might work is laid out >>>> rather clearly at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Browse#Handheld_Mode. I'd >>>> very much like to see an API for the press and press-and-hold states >>>> of these buttons so that activities could take advantage of it easily >>> >>> I have read this page but it does not talk about screen rotation at all. >>> Unfortunately (last time I checked) most of the activities are handling >>> keyboard focus badly and they usually need some help with the touchpad to >>> focus to their scrollable area. In handheld mode it means opening the >>> screen >>> a little bit as david Lang has just said. >> >> This is why we need a consistent and easy to follow API (And >> guidelines) for implementing this mode. ;) If we could make it easy >> to get right, there wouldn't be a need to build crutches to fall back >> on. > > and how are you going to get all software in the world to comply with your > API? I'm not. I'm arguing that activities that *want* to take advantage of handheld mode should be given an API to make it easier to use to full advantage. If we want to support fallback modes that work in a more general sense, that's fine, but I'd really like to see something take off to make handheld mode something more than just a folded up laptop. - Eben > especially with the recent changes in direction, XO's are not the driving > force, and you can't even count on Sugar being a driving force. they re just > one choice among many. > > David Lang > >> - Eben >> >>> A footnote is that this latter touchpad usage conflicts with the one I >>> have >>> talked about halfway on this page, just imagine it.... :) >>> >>> ps: >>> I would like to hear a similarly interesting conversation about the >>> xvideo >>> surface and X11 driver, please! >>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Devel mailing list >> Devel@lists.laptop.org >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel > _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel