I've been thinking about usability designs for a wimp-free window manager for embedded devices like mobiles, pda's or tablet pcs.
I would like to be able to use something similar to dwm or wmii on such devices, but they're not designed for touch screens or pointer use. And of course, not for small screens. Nowadays the most wm used for embedded devices is 'matchbox'. On the maemo platform is used as a fullscreen wm, but it does not provides any window switching method. So all applications must be modified to be registered by the maemo. That's almost innecessary and bloated design. I think that having such environments on embedded devices forces the creation of more satelite applications (like floating keyboard, dmenu adapted for touchscreens...) So, I understand that current projects are ok for desktops, but don't know if would be good to insert this changes into the current projects or create some new ones. (I prefer create new ones). So, back to the design.. What an embedded device user needs is: - most of windows in fullscreen - a way to switch between applications - group windows by application (not necessary at all) - menu for launching applications What would be really cool to have is a way to split the view to view 1, 2 or 3 applications in stack, this way you can switch fastly between the last applications (alt+click = zoom/unzoom for example). Or just as tabbed windows on statusbar. The window switcher can be implemented as an scrollable vertical combobox (like dmenu, but in vertical), and program launcher can be implemented in a similar way. (maybe adding nested dmenu's for categories/applications) Some concept-ascii-mockups of my ideas O:) status bar + fullscreen window [w]------[date]-. | | | | | | | | | | |_______________| splitted window [w]------[date]-. | | | mail app | | | |_______________| | $ shell | |_______________| vertical dmenu: (click arrow to scroll) [w]------[date]-. |__________| | |__________| | |__________| | |__________| | |__________| | |____v_____|____| I'm just throwing ideas, but I would like to know your opinions about this. Thanks --pancake
