Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
please fell free to comment... I've only loosely followed this conversation, so please forgive any oversights or re-hashes. However I did notice two things 1) Google Summer of Code 2) Finger Splash application So, here is my input. Google wants *high quality* projects that will hopefully have far reaching benefits. So, instead of bickering over minor details that are hard to come to a deterministic conclusion via email. Why not write the proposal for something along the lines of advanced input system for mobile devices. Part of the proposal could be to do some research on the most common letter sequences and incorporate that into the design. Think different languages and a pluggable expandable architecture. Think possibly shortcuts to common words. Think predictive text. THINK! Instead of trying to hit the nail on the head before you even get your hands dirty, why not take all of the ideas and develop prototypes, then see how they stack up in the real world with real people (ie different thumb sizes). Bottom line, think BIG. Make this project something that Google will notice. Make it something so that text input on a mobile device (an area that is HUGELY lacking) takes a HUGE step forward. Having something like that would bring great publicity to the OpenMoko platoform. ___ 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?
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 2007/3/24, Karsten Ensinger [EMAIL PROTECTED]: 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?
Karsten said: Unfortunately the thumb is the one of your fingers which has the biggest fingertip. This limits the number of action areas ... some special sized thumbs (means: big hands). Hi Karsten et al, Thumbs and fingers... I've never programmed with a touch screen, but I'm interested in trying my hand (ha). How accurate is a finger on the Neo touch screen? Does the sensor average the pressure to a single point or register a many points over a wide area? Could a drawing program reasonably use finger input? Would the screen be quickly filled with a mess of big fat lines or could one do some descent sketches with an index finger? What is the smallest distinguishable 'A', 'L', and smiley face? Alex -- 亚 | [EMAIL PROTECTED] 历 | http://genaud.net 山 | GPS: [ 55.67N 12.588E ] 大 | PGP: CCC7 D19D D107 F079 2F3D BF97 8443 DB5A 6DB8 9CE1 ___ 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: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
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]: 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: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
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... Guy ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
Hi all, I'm interested to do a projet for OpenMoko and submit it to SOC, but i dont know who is the person that i have to talk at OpenMoko... Does some one knows it? My plan is to develop something on text inputhttp://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wishlist:Text_Inputi already have some base ideas and need to discuss it to know if they are possible... tanks Guy ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
Hello, On 3/22/07, --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm interested to do a projet for OpenMoko and submit it to SOC, but i dont know who is the person that i have to talk at OpenMoko... Does some one knows it? Have you seen this pages yet?: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Summer_of_code http://groups.google.com/group/google-summer-of-code-announce/web/guide-to-the-gsoc-web-app-for-student-applicants I don't believe the mentors for the OpenMoko project have came out yet. But even if they haven't, you don't need to know who they are to submit an application. Text_Input is already listed on the ideas page, so you are partially ahead of the game. hth, Steve ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
On Thu, 2007-03-22 at 19:30 -0200, --- wrote: Hi all, I'm interested to do a projet for OpenMoko and submit it to SOC, but i dont know who is the person that i have to talk at OpenMoko... Does some one knows it? My plan is to develop something on text input i already have some base ideas and need to discuss it to know if they are possible... tanks Guy Great...you should bite off one discrete task and write-up a smart proposal that accomplishes this task. Bonus points for adding your thought to the wiki. I think you would benefit as well as discussing this on the development mailing list and getting input. Generally, after you submit your proposal, a mentor is selected. Cheers! Jon -- Jon Phillips San Francisco, CA USA PH 510.499.0894 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.rejon.org MSN, AIM, Yahoo Chat: kidproto Jabber Chat: [EMAIL PROTECTED] IRC: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
Jon Phillips wrote: Heya Mickey, on the official openmoko side, how many students is openmoko shooting for and how many qualified mentors are there? Not that I have an official in at google, I'm just curious? Right now we are 4 mentors and we aim for 8 projects, provided a) we get so many slots assigned by google and b) if there are enough convincing applications. Cheers, -- - Michael Lauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://openmoko.org/ Software for the worlds' first truly open Free Software mobile phone ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
Michael 'Mickey' Lauer wrote: Jon Phillips wrote: Heya Mickey, on the official openmoko side, how many students is openmoko shooting for and how many qualified mentors are there? Not that I have an official in at google, I'm just curious? Right now we are 4 mentors and we aim for 8 projects, provided a) we get so many slots assigned by google and b) if there are enough convincing applications. Cheers, Just curious, but what are the qualification for being a mentor? Are they going to be official FIC/OpenMoko employees or phase-0 devs or whoever volunteers? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko - SoC--- is there a mentor?
Just curious, but what are the qualification for being a mentor? Are they going to be official FIC/OpenMoko employees or phase-0 devs or whoever volunteers? In principle anyone who volunteers, however it should be a seasoned developer familiar with both the technical side (i.e. I expect that every mentor of an application would be able to write it himself, if he wanted...) as well as being able to guide a student through a project -- read: social skills are a necessity. Cheers, -- - Michael Lauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://openmoko.org/ Software for the worlds' first truly open Free Software mobile phone ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
