David and others keep posting vague hints as to not taking the current
hardware for granted.
If all these warnings make sense, Palm Computing (R) Platform
devices with different screen sizes and color will (hopefully) appear in
the near future. (If not, the market share for PalmOS devices certainly
won't remain what it is now.)
Given the current tiny displays, fiddling with every pixel to make the
most out of the screen is inevitable. Screen real-estate is so precious
you can't afford wasting any pixels with a generic size-independent
approach (as Wince does).
This means many apps have hard-coded display positions (for
right-aligning dynamic text, resizing buttons, adjusting for current
font sizes etc.) all over the source, even if this is not recommended.
AFAIK, both pilrc and CodeWarrior generated UI resources also store
absolute pixel values. Developers have been reassured to tailor for
160x160 pixel display hardware in that *all* existing PalmOS handhelds
(even Qualcomm and Symbols) use the same display size.
I really wonder how the OS will make the thousands of existing apps look
on any new kind of display. Will they be centered on the larger screen,
or use double-size pixels? Something more intelligent?
Any hints greatly appreciated,
Andreas
