Re: Will GTK be used in Openmoko?
Shachar Shemesh wrote: Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: On Thu, 15 May 2008 20:58:48 +0300 Shachar Shemesh [EMAIL PROTECTED] babbled: [...] as such EFL has no right-to-left support - why? no one has yet to step up and help. why? there is so little demand for it in the developer community. Then again, the NEO is not intended to stay within the developer community. [...] - i don't mean to be, but minority languages tend to get the worse end of the stick support-wise Which is precisely why I'm asking that we stick to toolkits that are mature enough not to discard them. Essentially you are saying: We (actually, you|) decided to go with EFL, it doesn't do non-western, tough on everybody else. That MIGHT have made sense if no toolkit supported those languages, but the simple truth is that other toolkits exist, and they do support it. What I'm saying is: Take the question of non-western support into consideration when thinking whether to go EFL. In other words, instead of telling all those billions (literally) of people your language is too weird for my mind, so I'm going to disregard you when choosing a technology, I'm suggesting we tell EFL your toolkit does not support the first choice language for a third of the world, so we will not pick you. :( i know how painful it can be supporting them - i looked into doing right-to-left and gave up when i saw the world of hurt that was doing mixes right-to-left and left-to-right formatting... No, that part is easy. It's easy because it's a solved problem. The parts that are hard are text input and getting program to respect paragraph direction. It's a lot of work even if the infrastructure is there. [...] Shachar Sorry if I sound harsh, but I want to make a point. What part of free you have not understand? YOU are free to do whatever you want regarding using toolkits within Openmoko. There WILL GTK as well as QT shipping too. And do not blame a mother for loving her children. ;-) NO ONE promised that Openmoko will deliver a ready to use phone developed ENTIRELY ON THEIR OWN. They always stated that they need the help of the community to get user-ready. DO NOT BLAME them for not supporting your preferred language/writing style from the very first, but get your hands on the keyboard and write the missing parts yourself. YOU YOURSELF stated, that this is an easy part, so you have to be an experienced developer. Then DO IT. If you can't do it yourself, because it is still not that easy, find someone else to do it for you. If no one wants to do it without getting paid, give him the money to do it. That is the way, open source development works. One has some needs and does it himself or finds someone to do it for him. It is not about blaming others for not taking his personal needs into account (even if there are millions of others having the same needs). You are free to do whatever you want to do and we (we means: not you but all the others) are free to do NOT whatever we do not want to do. It is that nice and new thing with Openmoko, that they never promised the All-in-one-everyone-will-be-happy-out-of-the-box product. They will provide the starting grid and the community will do the racing. Take on your helmet and start racing, dude. ;-) Regards ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Virtual QWERTY Keyboards to be used with Fingers...
Lorn Potter wrote: On Monday 03 March 2008, Karsten Ensinger wrote: [...] Survey (after half an hour of testing and three complete screen lockups): I don't want to put down the implementation of the Qtopia keyboard at all. I have much respect for the quality one can see. But to me it seems as if the keyboard was not designed for finger use in first place. A hit rate of 90 percent (when using an adult fingertip) is barely acceptable. Actually it was. You only have to come close to a letter to select one. It tries to guess what word you are wanting, as well as looking at the letters in the general area of your finger pressing. If you do not like the predictive feature, then you can hold down on a letter to select only that one. The usage is not yet intuitive (how to do a backspace, a delete, use upper case letters, use special characters (like @,$,,/)?) move your finger up or down to get to get to caps, numbers and symbols. backspace is moving your finger from right to left. and due to the look alike of a regular hardware keyboard and the expectations caused by this, the frustration is high, when one can not handle simple things without looking for help (is there a helpfile for the keyboard input? I only found help for the application itself but not for the usage of the keyboard). There should be yes. But looking at the input method help from the menu I am not seeing it. I will look into this and make sure it gets fixed. Maybe you should think about a small question mark somewhere on the edges of the keyboard, so one can press it to get help on the input methods. [...] Maybe I am too biased, but most of the critics we discussed months ago became manifest in this implementation of a screen keyboard. It is smart, but needs tricks to handle the problems of imprecise finger touches, lack of screen space for great numbers of keys and fault tolerance. This leads to a learning curve one has to master before being able to use the keyboard as such. A qwerty keyboard also has a learning curve at first. Ever tried graffiti input? Today, nearly everyone has some small experiences with qwerty keyboards. So this learning curve is not an issue here. It is more the opposite, due to the differences (advantages?) in handling. Unfortunately one has to use tricks (finger movements) instead of keys (like shift, ctrl or alt) to get to additional characters in Qtopia and this contradicts to the usage of a regular qwerty keyboard. I do NOT want to say that this is bad at all, but you have to get the user an extremely easy way to get help on your tricks to prevent frustration at the first usage (this is based on my own experience with Qtopia, where I had no assistance by others, but was left by my own. It was EXTREMELY frustrating to feel like a complete fool due to not being able to delete a typed character or to switch to another layer of characters, even though I do have used computers for more than 25 years (but maybe this 25 years also were the cause :-) )). Maybe you should think about the suggestion to place a help key on the keyboard itself. At least, every first time user will be very thankful. And yes, I do have used graffiti input. I used a Palm for several years and it took me some weeks to switch from the regular keyboard to the graffiti input. If the user has to master a learning curve anyway, why not take a completely different approach, which is designed exactly for the problems first and foremost? If the approach is different enough, the user will accept/expect a learning curve (and will tolerate it, if it is not too steep). Knowing four things for the predictive keyboard in Qtopia will get you going. 1) tap on the letters like normal, a word, or words will appear, you have to tap on the word to enter that in whatever text you are inputting. 2) slide your finger up and down to switch caps, undercase, numbers and symbols. 3) slider your finger right to left to backspace 4) to select a letter without the word prediction, hold down your finger over a letter. You can even rotate your finger to select letters around it if it detected the wrong one. Is that a too high learning curve? No it is not. But one has to be able to get this information on a fingertip and not by searching a help database or asking at a user forum. :-) Using only a finger, the predictive keyboard cannot be beat. Qtopia also has handwriting and a 'normal' qwerty keyboard with the use of a stylus. Someone has also gotten dasher running. Although I DO think that the predictive keyboard can be beat in terms of intuitivity (does this word exist?), I will give it another try in terms of usability. So I will give Qtopia another try and do revise my report/opinion if necessary. Regards Karsten ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Virtual QWERTY Keyboards to be used with Fingers...
Marco Trevisan (Treviño) wrote: Karsten Ensinger ha scritto: I am afraid, I have to admit that I have NOT tried the Trolltech stuff at all. Maybe because I thought I would deceive the openmoko movement by trying other stuff on the Neo. ;-) I will give it a try until next weekend and will change my mind if it is as cool as you claim. Ok, we're waiting for your report...! OK, I installed the latest reviewed u-boot, kernel and rootfs. Then I tried to install Qtopia on the SD-Card. Unfortunately every scp failed (even if my laptop thought it was successful). I made some test and dicovered that it was possible to copy arbitrary stuff from flash to SD-Card but not via USB-scp. I tried to format the SD-Card, but after successful (means: no error messages) formatting, it was impossible to mount the SD-Card. Even my laptop (Ubuntu based) denied to mount the SD-Card then. Lucky me, a new build appeared at buildhost and I tried the latest and greatest u-boot, kernel and rootfs. SD-Card could be formatted without any problem and even scp succeeded this time. I followed the instructions on the wiki and configured the Qtopia stuff for manual starting. Then I started Qtopia (without a SIM card inserted) and had a look at the notes application (this was the first application I found which offers text input). The keyboard contained only lower case characters and there was no obvious way to get upper case letters. I was also missing a possibility to remove mistyped characters. So the first impression was: an intuitive user interface looks different to me. Although the character distance was very small, I managed to get a hit rate of more than 90 percent for hitting the intended key. The word prediction was great when writing simple english stuff, but absolutely useless, when typing german. In addition to this, it missed most of the complicated english vocabulary I tried. I could not find a way to switch a dictionary, so this was not an option. Survey (after half an hour of testing and three complete screen lockups): I don't want to put down the implementation of the Qtopia keyboard at all. I have much respect for the quality one can see. But to me it seems as if the keyboard was not designed for finger use in first place. A hit rate of 90 percent (when using an adult fingertip) is barely acceptable. The usage is not yet intuitive (how to do a backspace, a delete, use upper case letters, use special characters (like @,$,,/)?) and due to the look alike of a regular hardware keyboard and the expectations caused by this, the frustration is high, when one can not handle simple things without looking for help (is there a helpfile for the keyboard input? I only found help for the application itself but not for the usage of the keyboard). The GUI of Qtopia itself looks very impressive from a design point of view. But I am missing something like a bubble-help (e.g. press and hold a key and get a small hint of what the meaning of the key is), although this is not specific to Qtopia but is missing in Openmoko also. It is NOT always true that a picture says more than a thousand words (at least not pictures of 64x64 pixels). Maybe I am too biased, but most of the critics we discussed months ago became manifest in this implementation of a screen keyboard. It is smart, but needs tricks to handle the problems of imprecise finger touches, lack of screen space for great numbers of keys and fault tolerance. This leads to a learning curve one has to master before being able to use the keyboard as such. If the user has to master a learning curve anyway, why not take a completely different approach, which is designed exactly for the problems first and foremost? If the approach is different enough, the user will accept/expect a learning curve (and will tolerate it, if it is not too steep). A car is not the adequate vehicle when travelling on a river, even though it is possible to adapt one. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Virtual QWERTY Keyboards to be used with Fingers...
Sean Moss-Pultz wrote: On 3/1/08 Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:47:31 +0100 Karsten Ensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] babbled: If I remember correctly, all participants of the discussion came to the conclusion, that a regular qwerty keyboard is not sufficient no matter how clever you pimp it, due to restriction of precision of finger typing and lack of screen space. i disagree. reality of the qtopia predictive keyboard and actual use of it disagrees. talk and theory is fine - actual code that works is disagreeing. users of that code are disagreeing. I have to agree with Raster here. Trolltech did an amazing job on their QWERTY (onscreen) keypad. I highly recommend you trying it out on the Neo if you haven't already. Personally, I think it's the best touchpanel keyboard on the market now. Bar none. Sean I am afraid, I have to admit that I have NOT tried the Trolltech stuff at all. Maybe because I thought I would deceive the openmoko movement by trying other stuff on the Neo. ;-) I will give it a try until next weekend and will change my mind if it is as cool as you claim. Regards ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Community Update
Doug Sutherland wrote: Okay this is what confuses me regarding this GPS source code. [...] Why you would need the vendor's code is beyond me. They provide the specs. The specs are all you need to write your own drivers. [...] I am baffled why there should EVER be a need for any kind of binary file for a GPS. What does it do exactly? Is the device not a serial device? Can't you just write your own serial code? Some time ago, someone (I can not remember who it was) mentioned that the current GPS chip of the GTA01 does some calculations in software (means within the driver code), which is done by firmware in other GPS chips. So there is no NMEA output from the chip itself but from the driver only. This intellectual property seems to be the cause for all this legal issues. If I remember correctly, this was the reason to switch to another GPS chip for GTA02, because the new one does all the calculation in firmware and therefore the driver code is trivial and open. Regards Karsten ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: state of the project message sent upon subscription
Mark wrote: The bottom line is this suggestion is exactly what I was asking for in the first place, with the one and only difference being that I was asking for that information to be posted to the announce list. But my request was somehow unreasonable and this one is not? Because you asked for something different (quote from your original message following)? As someone who has been waiting on pins and needles for months for this phone, I too am wondering why there has not been an announcement of some kind, since up to now they've been saying October and we're 3/4 of the way through the month. If it's going to be January or later, that's fine (and that's probably still optimistic, considering what I've been reading on the lists), but they really should keep us posted. It's extremely inconsiderate to keep everybody in suspense like this. This was sent by you at 23rd of October. As I already mentioned in a mail to the community list, Michael Shiloh sent an update of the release date at 28th of September. You obviously missed that and blame others for this fact (at least it seems to me as if you blame others). It is hard for me to believe that you are REALLY waiting on pins and needles, if you missed that message, but that is my personal opinion and can be completely wrong. I am following this list (and most of all the other lists on openmoko) nearly from the beginning and I really feel sorry for the guys at openmoko. They tried to share as much information as possible with their customers (and possible to-be customers in the future), what is an uniqueness within this market environment, and what do they get in reward? They got flamed, users were harsh on them, not-yet-customers menace (is that the right vocabulary?) to get lost as customers if openmoko officials do not react like they think the not-yet-customers deserve it, there is even the fulmination to spread FUD to all friends about the Neo if they do not get what they demand, etc.. What do you expect as a result to this??? I would expect lesser information, lesser participation from offical side, only spreading dates which are already verified to meet and absolutely no vague estimations at all. In other words: That what you already get from companies like IBM, Apple, HP etc.. If that is your intention, go on and do your worst. Regards from a disenchanted ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: community@lists.openmoko.org
First of all, on 28. of September Michael Shiloh made the announcement that the GTA02 will be delayed at least until mid to end of december. EVERYBODY should have been able to find this announcement easily. So please do NOT complain that this information was not given early enough. [flame] If you weren't subscribed then, why haven't you searched the archive before asking (and especially before complaining that no information was given at all)? [/flame] Also do not complain that the Wiki is not updated immediately. Most of the incriminated articles were written by community members and not by official openmoko employees. So it should be the responsibility for that members to keep them updated. If they are to lazy to do this, they should have linked to an official side instead of stating a fixed date. Whatever you do, but do not blame others. And because a lot of people claim for announcements, one should take into account that announcements should only be made for something, which is already finished. Everything else just generates vaporware (and we already have to much of that kind of products). This is at least true for commercial products and the Neo is still in development, hence not a commercial product YET. I am already a customer of FIC (GTA01v4) and will definitely also get one of the GTA02 gadgets. In addition to this, I also started to write an application especially focused on the Neo. But it appears to me as if most of the people on this community list just complain about THEIR OWN DREAMS not coming true. If you want to take part into the community, get a GTA01 and start making your dreams come true, but please do not complain that all the fruits within your neighbours backyard (aka. GTA02) are sweeter than yours (aka. GTA01). I am deeply grateful that FIC let me take part in this early phase of development, but I am really pissed of by all this people here which got a hand by FIC and now try to rip off the complete arm (sorry for my bad english but I am not well trained in english sayings; that was another german one translated into english). The Neo is, was, and will be, a product for geeks and therefore never was intended to be a mass market product. Geeks do not look at fancy glamour but for useful attributes. But also geeks do not want to buy faulty hardware (software is a different beast, in particular if it is open source). If you want a fancy glamourous mobile, go and get an IPhone. If you want to hack an open source mobile, go and get a GTA01. If you want to have the jack of all trades aka. GTA02 there is nothing left but to be patient. And it won't get any faster if you ask every week when it will be ready. And only dumb managers expect to get a precise timeframe if they ask a developer how long it will take to solve a not yet known problem. And ... no it is not smarter to ask for a vague estimation, because that would be reading tea leaves and nothing serious. And ... no it is also not smarter if you accept an vague estimation just to maintain hope. You only will get disappointed, because no developer will met a former estimation he made, ever! I apologize in advance for every indignities someone will find within my mail, which HE thinks is aimed at him personally. Regards Karsten ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: T-Mobile MyFaves
Alex Rickabaugh wrote: I'm quite excited about getting an OpenMoko phone when it's finally released, but just one question: does anyone know if the T-Mobile MyFaves functionality will be supported? What part of MyFaves? Talking to your favourites with special conditions? That is a feature of the net infrastructure (or to be more precise: a feature of the billing process). Using funny pictures as a kind of avatar for your favourites? That would be a feature of your phone. Using the one-touch stuff? Also a feature of your phone. Administrate your favourites (Faves)? Use the browser on your phone and do the administration via Web. Otherwise it's a feature of your phone. If it is a feature of the phone, someone has to implement some kind of software for openmoko phones to provide this functionality. I am sure that picture avatars and one-touch (at least out of the missed calls list) will be implemented even without MyFaves in mind (so not limited to five Faves). The administration stuff? I doubt, but who knows? Take the browser instead and do it the Web way. ;-) Regards Karsten ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Import Duty - I have refused my delivery.
The amount seems to be VAT. According to EU (EC) rules, VAT has to be paid at the point of crossing the EU border for goods meant for selling to customers. For calculating the taxed value, the cost of shipment to the border is INCLUDED. If shipment from the border to the destination within EU (EC) is NOT declared, the complete shipment cost is valuable for tax calculation. If you bought the Neo for business reasons, you can get back the VAT (but you already knew that, don't you?). If you are end customer you ALWAYS have to pay VAT (if the value exempts tax-free allowance). For PRIVATE customers there are NO exemptions. In addition to that, if you import stuff yourself, you have to pay the VAT yourself also. When UPS called me for clearance (they checked that I was willing to pay the VAT), I checked with the local custom office and got the explanation I cited here. Your milage may vary. Regards Karsten [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thomas: Actually, speaking as someone who imports electronic components and peripherals for prototype systems from the US all the time, I do know what to expect when I import. Importation of computer devices and peripherals to the EU is indeed both VAT and import duty exempt - it appears that the description of the goods, compounded with the value statement, has led to this issue. It is indeed OpenMoko's error in not understanding the rules and I hold them responsible for not disclosing that fact. When I can import USD$50,000 prototypes for computer peripheral units without paying VAT and without paying import duty, I expect to be able to do the same for a USD$450 prototype. Not to get into a flame war but, for your reference, VAT is 17.5% in the UKand I ordered the Advanced... Have fun! David. *From:* Thomas Gstädtner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *Sent:* 03 August 2007 13:12 *To:* David Prior *Cc:* community@lists.openmoko.org *Subject:* Re: Import Duty - I have refused my delivery. Well, you chose to live in the wrong country (or the wrong continent). You should know what expects you if YOU IMPORT a device. This is not the fault of OpenMoko (Inc.). Also there is no duty on computing devices and mobile phones in the EU - so I guess you are wrong. GBP60 sounds like VAT (15.5% in UK), seems you have ordered the basic device, so this IS VAT, no duty! VAT is levied by your country, not by FIC/OpenMoko and if you chose to import you WILL have to pay VAT every time - and the one you import from doesn't have to find out for you how much it is (as it is charged by the customs, not by the company). 2007/8/3, [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Just thought you all might like to know that OpenMoko shipments are attracting import duty in the United Kingdom. Despite paying USD104.99 for 'expedited' shipping, my order arrived with a demand for GBP57.19 in import duty. This should either be factored into the shipping charge or, as these devices are technically 'computer peripherals', described as 'computer peripherals' in order that they do not attract import duty. I have REFUSED my delivery and it is being returned to the depot and, presumably, will be returned to sender. I either want a new shipment that does not attract import duty *or* I want a full refund. I know these are developer releases but I would have hoped that OpenMoko would have sorted out the international shipping issues properly. I'm annoyed! David. This email and any files attached are intended for the addressee and may contain information of a confidential nature. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that this email was sent to you in error and you should not disclose, distribute, print, copy or make other use of this email or its attachments. Such actions, in fact, may be unlawful. In compliance with the various Regulations and Acts, General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited reserves the right to monitor (and examine for viruses) all emails and email attachments, both inbound and outbound. Email communications and their attachments may not be secure or error- or virus-free and the company does not accept liability or responsibility for such matters or the consequences thereof. General Dynamics United Kingdom Limited, Registered Office: 100 New Bridge Street, London EC4V 6JA. Registered in England and Wales No: 1911653. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org mailto:community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community This email and any files attached are
size comparison Neo1973 and Nokia 9300
Maybe someone is interested. A side by side picture of the Neo1973 and a Nokia Communicator 9300. http://www.album.de/bild/482861/img-0566.cfm Regards Karsten ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
GMail, silence and other problems
Hi guys (and girl(s)), as far as I can say from my experiences, there was NEVER a break in delivery of message worth to mention the last days. It also seems as if only GMail customers complain about a disruption of operation. During the time, where the GMail customers complained to had an outage, I did not receive any duplicates. Since then I get a lot of duplicates from GMail senders again. So it seems to me as if there are still problems with GMail. Just to let you know. Regards ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: picture viewer
Why is eveyone trying to fit everything into one use case? It will be really hard to remember every special move to get a specific feature working. Why not introduce a command mode one can reach with the same move and then entering a letter to get a special mode where every move is manipulating the item in a comparable manner. To be more specific (the chosen taps and letters are just for example): Whenever the user does a double tap, he enters command mode signalized in the status bar. Then he uses his finger to write a letter Z (means: moving the finger horizontally to the right, diagonally from the end of the horizontally move down to the left and again horizontally to the right) to enter zoom mode. Now every move downwards zooms in and every move upwards zooms out. Another example would be letter M for moving. Every drag would then mean to move the underlying item. Letter B for browsing. Moving rigth and left means forward and backwards one item. Moving up means a page forward, moving down a page backwards. Of course the user has the ability to determine the amount of items for a page. Several other modes could be possible, just use your imagination. Of course it's not as fast as having all commands/possibilities concurrently, because one has to change command modes. But I think it's more intuitive to learn one mode by a time than to wonder what happened when you mix several manipulation modes by accident due to making a wrong move. To remember a single move for changing into command mode and several letters for the specific modes is easy. Within a mode, using the moves should be intuitive enough to get learned by doing within seconds. Especially when you use opposed moves for doing one thing and reverting the result. Another advantage would be, that one is not forced to use more than one finger at the same time. Regards Karsten Ortwin Regel wrote: Interesting... However, what about zooming out again? Also this would take too much time while possibly being too fast for my grandparents. Holding the second tap is a bad idea but dragging it around might be a good one. All in all, how about this: drag finger -- drag viewable area tap, then tap again, hold and drag -- zoom in and out tap sides -- change to next/last picture (can be changed to requiring double tap in config) What is missing? The gesture that brings up the on slideshow menu where you can escape from the slideshow, rotate the picture, jump to first/last with simple buttons. The only reasonable thing I can think of is a double tap in the center of the screen. What to use the wheel for in that menu? Scrolling through pictures quickly, of course! Ortwin On 4/20/07, Steven Milburn [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you want smooth scrolling, how about this mod to what I said earlier: On the double-tap to center-and-zoom, hold the the second tap. The pic slowly (human speed) zooms and centers to where you're touching. When you've zoomed in enough, lift the finger. This would be similar to the way CTRL-wheel on Adobe pdf's zooms and centers. --Steve ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
Hi Guy, the linchpin of you concept is the keyboard layout. If you use unsuited layouts initially, no one will invest the time to get it right for themself, because one can't easily experience the advantages of the concept when making first impressions. Although I am not an expert for language forensic, I assume that the biggest part of your work will NOT the implementing part, but the research for a propper keyboard layout for english and portuguese at least. A lot of fine concepts in open software got never used due to the circumstance that the first available implementation couldn't impress the users enough to encourage them to invest their time to improve it. As you said on your web page, your concept is a composite of the ideas your found on the wishlist. If I identify the original ideas correctly, your solution will need more time to get used to as the single original ideas will do. So you have to offer a significant added value, which would be a working keyboard layout for at least the english language (I assume that the majority of users will be native english or correspond in english mostly). And do think about the implications of different layouts for the user. For every language one has to learn a completely different position of each letter. What is left from the advantage of the single stroke architecture if one has to search for the next character each time after changing the layout to a different language? We end up at the same point we started: the layout is the linchpin (and - in my opinion - also the weak point) of your concept. Regards Karsten --- gsilva85 wrote: Karsten, i agree with you about the layout of the chars ( on my example they was put aleatory )! but at this point I'm just introducing another concept of a finger based keyboard. I'm not able to know whats the better place for each char optimized for English, Germany or even to Portuguese (my native language, I'm Brazilian...). For this use cases I'll try to implement some way to easy develop/change the layout of keys (like i said at bottom of my page). Anyone could make their own layout optimized for his language, share with community then you download to your phone, when you need it probably you press some predefined key on this keyboard, select what layout you want and dynamically change to it. This concept is already presents in phones, like when you change the input method to letters, number, symbols, t9... what do you think? Guy PS:don't worry I'm still encouraged to submit it to SoC : ) 2007/3/24, Karsten Ensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi Guy, following your explanation, I will get c, z, g and q as characters when tapping on 1, dragging to 3 and dragging back to 1. When I want to have c, g and q, I have to tap on 1, drag to 2, lift the finger, tap on 3 and drag to 1. If I want to have c, g and c, I have to tap on 1, drag to 2, lift the finger, tap on 3, drag to 2, lift the finger, tap on 1 and drag to 2. Depending on the needed character sequence, your new concept can result in the same amount of taps and drags as the original finger splash concept. So everthing depends on the intelligent placement of the characters on the keyboard layout. Let's come to the usability aspects. If I look at the finger splash, the tapping on 1 will result in a button overlay which will hide the complete 2 at least (maybe also some parts of 3, depending on size). So there is no way for the user to see what is on the right side of the 2 button. This leads to a drag into the blind to get the z. This seems to me as not user friendly enough to get accepted widely. One has to remember the whole keyboard layout in mind while typing. This would lead to the idea to NOT enlarge the buttons when one taps them. The user would be able to see what he gets, when dragging to the next button. Unfortunately the size of the buttons can't get big enough to hold characters with an easy readable fontsize due to limited physical screen size. This seems to be a dilemma. Making the buttons bigger means less buttons per row and column, means less benefit from the dragging feature. Maybe the KISS pattern matches here (KISS = Keep It Small and Simple). Although the ability to type more than one letter with a single stroke has charming aspects, the learning curve of the keyboard usage should be as steep as possible and to me, the current concept seems to be to much in need of an explanation. What I have only shortly mentioned before, is the fact that you have to analyse the inherent syllables of the language the user will use. You have to place the characters in a way, that one can type as much words with one or two strokes as possible. So the keyboard layout will vary from language to language. What about users using two different languages at the same
Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
Hi Guy, first of all, please do NOT feel offended when I criticise some aspects of your idea. I am definitely prejudiced due to my addiction to the finger splash idea on the openmoko-wiki. The decisive difference between the finger splash idea and your idea seems to be the fact, that one can input several characters by a single stroke. Due to the restricted place we have on screen and the fact that we want to be able to use the input with a single finger, the number of action areas is limited to three of four in a row. If you take an arbitrary mobile phone in your preferred hand and try to use the keyboard (it doesn't matter if it is a real keyboard or a touch screen), you will use your thumb for typing normally. Unfortunately the thumb is the one of your fingers which has the biggest fingertip. This limits the number of action areas to less than four, if you take into account that a lot of people use their hands for work and therefore have some special sized thumbs (means: big hands). Your solution should fit for the majority of users and not only for people with hands sized like children. With three action areas in a row, the number of characters reachable by your idea will be just two. This two characters, to me, seem not to be a viable advantage over the finger splash idea nor legitimate the more complicated usage (one has to meet the correct boundaries to prevent typing more characters than wanted). Maybe you should adapt the complete finger splash idea as is and try to find a mentor for that. The original author of the finger splash mentioned that he will not be able to start with implementing his idea very soon and encouraged others to start with it. Why not you? Regards Karsten ---gsilva.85 wrote: like someone said i wrote something about my ideia and put on wiki... http://www.inf.ufsc.br/~guy/text_input.html what do you think? forgive me if you found some erros in english because i don't speak it very well... ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
Hi Guy, following your explanation, I will get c, z, g and q as characters when tapping on 1, dragging to 3 and dragging back to 1. When I want to have c, g and q, I have to tap on 1, drag to 2, lift the finger, tap on 3 and drag to 1. If I want to have c, g and c, I have to tap on 1, drag to 2, lift the finger, tap on 3, drag to 2, lift the finger, tap on 1 and drag to 2. Depending on the needed character sequence, your new concept can result in the same amount of taps and drags as the original finger splash concept. So everthing depends on the intelligent placement of the characters on the keyboard layout. Let's come to the usability aspects. If I look at the finger splash, the tapping on 1 will result in a button overlay which will hide the complete 2 at least (maybe also some parts of 3, depending on size). So there is no way for the user to see what is on the right side of the 2 button. This leads to a drag into the blind to get the z. This seems to me as not user friendly enough to get accepted widely. One has to remember the whole keyboard layout in mind while typing. This would lead to the idea to NOT enlarge the buttons when one taps them. The user would be able to see what he gets, when dragging to the next button. Unfortunately the size of the buttons can't get big enough to hold characters with an easy readable fontsize due to limited physical screen size. This seems to be a dilemma. Making the buttons bigger means less buttons per row and column, means less benefit from the dragging feature. Maybe the KISS pattern matches here (KISS = Keep It Small and Simple). Although the ability to type more than one letter with a single stroke has charming aspects, the learning curve of the keyboard usage should be as steep as possible and to me, the current concept seems to be to much in need of an explanation. What I have only shortly mentioned before, is the fact that you have to analyse the inherent syllables of the language the user will use. You have to place the characters in a way, that one can type as much words with one or two strokes as possible. So the keyboard layout will vary from language to language. What about users using two different languages at the same time? They will have to pay the price for this. One language will fit perfectly to the keyboard while the other will not (most of the times). I myself will definitely use german and english at the same time every day, and I think most of the non-english natives will do the same. German and english do not have a lot of syllables in common when counting the frequency with which they appear in day to day communications vocabulary. But whatever I comment here, it's my personal and therefore biased opinion. I do NOT want to discourage you to start your own implementation, because an old man think he found a fly in the ointment. Take my comments as food for thoughts and nothing else. Regards Karsten --- gsilva.85 wrote: Karsten, you are right except for one thing on my idea: you are considering only a row and only a drag from left to right (or right to left..) in this case only 2 characters will be draw. But think if you press the '1' drag to '3' and drag again to '1' we got one press with four characters at output but on finger splash to produce 4 characters (in the better case) we have to press 4 times. And you can drag not only to left or right but up, down... did you understood? I thought to adapt this to fingers splash: when the 'splash' appear if you continue dragging over the buttons of the splash it possible continues writing that chars (like the speed script concept) but even with this we stay limited to only 7 different chars in a drag... please fell free to comment... thanks Guy [...] ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: What moblie service to get, part 2
Hi Mike, 3. Data plan it is. You can't add a data plan to a prepaid card. So either you have a prepaid voice card + data plan card, or you suck it up and sign up for a voice plan as well. Is there really such a thing as a data plan card ? I can't find that on the gophone section of the cingular site. It only lists: $1530 days $2590 days $5090 days $7590 days $100365 days 5. It seems to be a grey area, using a phone that they don't provide. I can see a good argument for calling the OpenMoko a SmartPhone. Which is great 'cause theres a $20/month unlimited data plan for smartphones. But there's no way to limit whether you can use it for tethered/laptop data access so who knows if they'd want to slap the tether fee on you. just in case fortunately I don't think they're that clue-full. I have a feeling that both tmobile and cingular are going to do whatever they can to prohibit the openmoko phones. And I'm thinking the cheaper smartphone data plans will only work on cingular's devices, right? Like the device has to do something in order to be able to make use of it- some technical limitation? Otherwise I don't know why cingular sells two different plans, the smartphone 5mb is $9.99 and the Data Connect 5MB is $19.99. I don't get how else they'd be different. Would the neo be compatible with both? Who knows? I hope someone from the openmoko project reads this thread. 6. It seems that you can only order a plan [get a sim card] with a phone. That's not such a financial problem if you're just getting a cheap voice plan, because there are lots of cheap/free after rebate voice phones you can get and not use. But to order a data plan from Cingular [of any of the tweleve types] you have to order a phone that is valid for that plan. OK, you're saying no matter what plan I sign up for with cingular, even prepaid, I have to buy a phone from them too, right? I can't like, go on ebay and buy a cheap used phone and still sign up with cingular, even prepaid? The one useful piece of info I may have then, is to tell you about the service I have now. I have ecallplus.com, which resells cingular. They have a few GSM plans, and you can bring your own phone... So if your sprint phone breaks you may have a cheaper path to GSM through them for your holdover. Although I am from Germany, I don't think the plans here are that different to yours. Flat plans are only available for post-paid contracts. Some pre-paid contracts allow GPRS connects charged by 10kB blocks. That means that you won't get charged for data connects per minute but per transfered data blocks (both directions!). The mobile companies do not make their money with phones. It is more the opposite, because they subsidize the phones to get them attractiv to potential customers. Long running contracts are the consequences. Look at the long running contracts as a kind of credit agreement for buying a mobile phone. If you do not take a subsidized phone, you can get a discount on the rates or alternatively a shorter contract period. None of the companies take care how you spend your money, as long as you spend much of it to them using their lines. The difference between the SmartPhone Connect and the Data Connect plan is mentioned in the details. With the Data Connect you are able to synchronize your office stuff with your smartphone via mobile connections (although it will be limited to Microsoft software, I think). SmartPhone Connect lacks this feature. That seems to be the reason for the different rates. To get one of this plans you will need to take an additional voice plan too. My advice for you would be, to ask your local phone shop guys for a contract without a subsidized phone and the possibility to add a data plan later on when you need it. If you will use the phone for regular data connections, ask for the possibility to get a flat data plan later on. Not all of the offered voice plans allow the addition of a data plan, so take care when you choose one of them. It should be possible to get a short running contract if you renounce the subsidized phones and take a plan which is non-flat (means: pay per use). Regards Karsten ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
