View Full Version : [Canola] Canola2 portrait version would make the N810 a great audio player
So I've been contemplating getting a new DAP for a few days instead of just buying a big MiniSD card for the N810. For some reason the N810 doesn't appeal to me as a media player, I couldn't quite put my finger on it but it just didn't function that well as a dedicated audio player, even with an awesome application like Canola. So before I go spending a few Benjamins on a new DAP I decided to delete all my videos from the N810 and drop a chunk of my music library to see how it functioned (I hadn't tested it with more than a few songs before this). Canola truly is a quality app with a wonderful finger interface, which is why I was so confused that the N810 didn't feel like a good audio player.
So finally today it hit me. The problem with the N810 as a good portable DAP is that it is designed to be used with two hands. When you are walking around town and you want to break out the N810 to select a new album or change track, it takes a considerable amount of attention to be using both hands with the device to navigate through Canola's interface. Whether you are holding with one hand and using a finger on the other to poke at the screen, or holding it with both hands using your thumb. Once I realized this I understood why something like an iPod Touch felt like a better audio player, because you can hold it in one hand and navigate the entire interface with a single thumb. I turned the N810 sideways and realized how it could achieve the same simple navigation. When the N810 is sideways, the thumb (at least mine) can reach any area of the screen with relative ease. Its also easier to hold the N810 sideways with one hand because you can reach all the way around the back.
So of course I really wish the Canola team would make a portrait version of Canola. I think it would improve the (already good) experience that people are having with Canola, and help convert the N810 into a really viable media player. I have the feeling that the reason that it has not been done already is that the OS doesn't support vertical text (among other more complicated problems), is that right? If there aren't actually any technical limitations preventing this from happening, then I hope the Canola team will sit down and seriously discuss the possibility of a portrait version of Canola. Oh and one other benefit is that the portrait orientation is generally better for long list views like media apps tend to provide.
Please share your thoughts!
For no other reason other than the heck of it, I edited a screenshot of Canola's home screen to portrait orientation... as well as 15 mins and paint will let you do -
http://i28.tinypic.com/15x5s7k.jpg
CyberCat
2008-02-08, 02:43
Yes!!!!! I absolutely agree with you 100%. I've already thought about this in general with the N810, I think many more apps should support portrait orientation (web browser for example), especially single-finger usage. Even though it (currently) wouldn't be possible to make it "dynamic" (i.e., like the iPhone, turning the screen when you physically turn it), it could still have an icon or menu option, SOMETHING that let's you switch back and forth. Even Palm has had this feature for years in many of their programs! I definitely think that Canola should make a portrait version/option in their software. In fact, I think that portrait mode should be the DEFAULT mode!
Let's hope it's possible and they can make it happen soon! :D
yeah you guys are right. i think that portrait mode is something should be worked on in exactly the capacity that cybercat mentions - a general feature for several applications. one thought i had was button switching or maybe even some sort of algorithm incorporated using the camera as a mechanism for detecting motion - just a thought since i know the camera doesn't have much use to me.
Hi Guys,
Couple of exciting things. (and maybe another couple of not so exciting)
So of course I really wish the Canola team would make a portrait version of Canola. I think it would improve the (already good) experience that people are having with Canola, and help convert the N810 into a really viable media player. I have the feeling that the reason that it has not been done already is that the OS doesn't support vertical text (among other more complicated problems), is that right? If there aren't actually any technical
Believe it or not, Canola can support rotation. We have internal demos with first page on portrait, then goes to landscape for pictures and so on. This is also nice because it wouldn't require TOO much work on the UI Design, just some adjustments in the player, and we would be ready to go.
So the exciting news is that I have been talking about this with the guys for quite a long time. There's also a "lyrics" plugin that would use this already... but it's low in the priority... because:
not so exciting news is : We would love to do a theme with rotation support, but there's so much to do to make canola really a stable / full featured application was we wanted that this is not going to be tested more right now.
So in a sense, At least me (don't know the other team members) think this is great, and for sure I would make a good use of it. Specially because I fell bad with the list having a small amount of space to scroll, best usage of space (in widescreen the list is quite much not using screen space)
BUT I tend to disagree with you guys in one point :
the industrial design was not meant for that : / unfortunately. While it does serves you.. it's quite uncomfortable for a lot of people (smaller hands) to hold the device in the portrait (and click around) for people with not so big hands. This works quite nicely on the ipod touch or even the iphone because of the shape and the thickness and more : the absence of bevel around the screen. But of course this could reach some users... =)
But we believe devices will evolve and we are ready for it =) Maybe we surprise you guys with a Theme that works like that... =) I think that would show some EVAS / EDJE power around .. .to create a how new application look and feel (with turnings) just by using themes =)
About the camera: could be done, but there's no guarantee to have a good precision to the fact that you are turning from landscape to portrait only : / movement can be traced, but with the camera facing forward... I don't know how much trouble could it be.. because canola is already using a considerable amount of CPU.. so a "continuous" process calculating the turning doing image processing... is a big NO WAY =)
I wish I could post here some videos of the turned ui. but this is not canola, so I can't :/
=)
Hi handful, thanks for the prompt response. I'm really excited to hear that you are considering a rotated version of Canola. I somewhat disagree on your thoughts about people with small hands as I really don't consider my hands to be large at all. They are probably small-medium, and I have no problem getting to every area on the screen. The only problem area I see is the lower right corner of the device, because you thumb is stretched almost all the way to get there it is hard to hit something with a lot of accuracy, as long as you don't smash a tiny little button down in the corner it would be fine. You could even put a button down there as long as its decently finger sized.
I hope you can talk to the team and have them consider moving a portrait UI higher up on the priority list. I really feel like it could give a significant boost the ability of the N810 to function as well as a dedicated media player. I would love to scroll through my album covers list in portrait, or through my lists! One thing about scrolling while on the subject. I feel like the inertia scroll decellerates to quickly. Its probably a personal preference, but maybe it could have an adjustable level of deceleration (you could call the setting 'Scrolling Friction"), or just have it changed a bit by default.
On a slightly unrelated note, I know this probably isn't the fault of Canola, but more the ability of the N810 or the graphics subset that serves it - I can't stand vertical/horizontal tearing with moving objects. I don't know why, it just seriously ruins the quality feel of the applications. To think that moving on screen squares can't even hold their shape consistently is kind of a upsetting. Though when you are scrolling through lists in the most basic of lists within OS2008 there is still tearing, so I suppose its not something that could easily be fixed.
On a slightly unrelated note, I know this probably isn't the fault of Canola, but more the ability of the N810 or the graphics subset that serves it - I can't stand vertical/horizontal tearing with moving objects. I don't know why, it just seriously ruins the quality feel of the applications. To think that moving on screen squares can't even hold their shape consistently is kind of a upsetting. Though when you are scrolling through lists in the most basic of lists within OS2008 there is still tearing, so I suppose its not something that could easily be fixed.
Believe me: we work with maemo since before the 770 and when the n800 came.. we were really really sad about the tearing.
And you're right it does destroy the quality of applications, if you see animations on the 770 you will feel the smoothness of not having tearing (even 770 being slower on cpu) basic scrolling, menu animations are REALLY smooth on it because of no tearing.
Unfortunately, this has been largely discussed in the Maemo Dev lists, and it's a final thing It's not possible to be fixed. Seems a hardware issue. I don't know the technical details but is what you see.. the screen can't refresh fully at the expected time frame.. and you get "teared" graphics all over (even when doing fade outs)
You just found out why the settings only go half of the screen. There was no point in making it just on the right, but it just absurdly annoying to scroll the whole thing and looks even worst.
The thing behind not being able to see in lists, is because of the shape / less blocking things of text, but the tearing is there for everything (like I said even fade in or fade outs)
About the device: well, that's exactly it. I consider the ipod touch to me at the maximum optimal size for that, of course you can use the n810 but it does demands more physical effort for using it. The landscape is the natural way. Of course you (and me) like the portrait, but it's not that simple, and demands from the whole team a time that we don't have right now, and it's not about putting it higher on the priority list.. it's because first it needs to work well on every application, then we think of more ways of using. One step at time ... trying to do things even without doing the easy way first can be misleading...
About the friction, yes.. if you compare to the iphone / ipod it does stops earlier. We tried a lot of combinations and this is the best speed x performance x accuracy that we found so far. We can and will improve in the future... but not having a quite sensitive screen like the other devices makes this a little bit harder...
BR
Marcelo
Well I'm looking forward to future Canola updates, it feels like finished quality application, and the fact that it is that good but still in beta means the final quality will be even better which is exciting : )
Thanks for letting us know that you are considering the portrait view, I'm looking forward to it with eager anticipation.
Well anyway I've been trying Canola on the N810 and I really like the album art view, the only problem is the Canola-Tuning isn't picking up my albums very well. Which source is it grabbing images from? Two of mine have come in upsidedown and backwards, probably a problem with the image itself and not the way Canola is displaying it. Most of them are simply not there even though they are already on my computer, or a media player like UKMP is able to find nearly all of them on the web. How can I help Canola chose the right ones?
Oh and I swear I read somewhere that Canola was supposed to support UPnP, maybe it was actually for another application and I just got them mixed up?
Covers: hold still that the step 3 of 5 is coming =)
You will be able to select between the (several) that canola-tuning downloads. In such a easy way =)
About source: Amazon (Last.fm)
Better results: the responsible for canola tuning still updating it and improving results... but I think for optimal ones.. people should write some extensions for tuning that uses different sources then amazon.
Also in step 4 we are going to add "pick from file" so if everything else fails, you can just browse somewhere.. download to your device's memory and pick from there... and save as album art.
Step 5 we plan to integrate tuning (everything but the download of album, that I already explained why it can't be inside of canola, or officially supported)
Yes, Canola has UPNP support. It has been under testing for a couple of weeks, and we were just "improving" it to make it load faster etc.
Once it's "ready" for prime time... you will be able to install from the website the plugin for it.
BR
It all sounds good, any word on when you expect the next update?
The key to getting tuning to get the right covers is probably having the correct tag information so I'll update that and give it a whirl.
CyberCat
2008-02-08, 06:40
Handful, I was wondering if it might be possible to at least consider for future versions making the scrollbars in song mode actually work. Right now they seem to be just for looks, I guess so you can have a visual idea of how large lists are, but you still have to scroll through the list manually. This is a pain for long lists! Do you think that the scrollbar can be made real, or at least have the option for it in future versions? That's actually probably one of my biggest gripes with Canola so far.
CyberCat:
We were experimenting with this (in the first release) you could more or less touch here.
But they are really not scrollbars. they are just indicators of what you have.
We have a different idea for this problem, maybe you guys will like.. maybe you will hate.. but the thing is that we don't want to fall into the regular OS problems:
how to make a usable finger scrollbar without using ridiculous fat area for that?
That's the reason behind the kinetic.. not mimic iphone or something.
But the kinetics does bring problems about browsing through huge lists, for that we will have more or less a "track bar" on the bottom where you can :
Jump alphabetically to any point (if the list is alphabetically order) or just a track bar to jump to any point.. Also give you in the last item, some icons to jump for the beginning of the list etc.
I know you can always ask "Why? why not do just the simple scrollbar?"
Well, =) why be just like the normal UI if the concept is completely different?
=)
BR
as for me, portait mode for canola, as well for other apps would be great, however not every app needs portait mode.
as for one hand operation -> i'm afraid i have to agree with handful, i cannot fully operate my n800 with one hand+thumb. i just cannot handle it safely enough, i'm afraid it could slip out of my hand.
as for me, portait mode for canola, as well for other apps would be great, however not every app needs portait mode.
as for one hand operation -> i'm afraid i have to agree with handful, i cannot fully operate my n800 with one hand+thumb. i just cannot handle it safely enough, i'm afraid it could slip out of my hand.
That might be the case with the N800, I didn't consider that. The N810 seems to have no problems though.
CyberCat:
But the kinetics does bring problems about browsing through huge lists, for that we will have more or less a "track bar" on the bottom where you can :
Jump alphabetically to any point (if the list is alphabetically order) or just a track bar to jump to any point.. Also give you in the last item, some icons to jump for the beginning of the list etc.
I know you can always ask "Why? why not do just the simple scrollbar?"
Well, =) why be just like the normal UI if the concept is completely different?
=)
BR
I agree and like the idea - Canola is reaaly shaping up well, and the UI is so intuitive, and yet so fresh. Just sticking with old notions of scrollbars (and menus) - why ? Its nice to see a fresh idea which works as easily or better than the old ones.
One suggestions - since I like the clean screen model of Canola - can the track bar at bottom be a hidden widget, so if user clicks on the bottomm area of screen (maybe a small arrow or finger to indicate pointing area to indicate a hidden widget), then the track bar pops up at the bottom, with the alpha listing etc. This is so that for users with small song lists (like me), we can stick to the clean interface as it is now, and if needed popup the track bar widget as required by a simple click.
Just a suggestion... Marcello, I want you to do as you think best - since so far I am a very happy camper with Canola's UI decisions.
That might be the case with the N800, I didn't consider that. The N810 seems to have no problems though.
Yes, am using a N810, and holding it in portait mode one-handed is as easy as anything, and well balanced in the hand too.
I would ceratinly love to see Canola in portrait also.
Hi Nil,
Yes, indeed that's why is taking so long, how to do it without blowing up... and most important, in a vertical list.. how to make it without making it look strange when scrolling something in vertical you have one indicator going up and down and other left - right.
: /
asqwasqw
2008-02-16, 20:44
you know on the subject of kinetic scrollbar, it really isnt much of a choice, imo, because a scrollbar in the corner is nuch harder to scroll with, in general, the kinetic scrolling allows you to go through long list more easily and more pleasantly, and on the topic of a portrait style, its almost not an option to have anything else, as anything else would be a hassle looking through long lists, and things other than playlists (which btw i'm still wondering about a bit)
the kinetic scrolling is just the smart decision, personaly i have used WinMo, and Palm, Symbian(and others on phones) and they are much harder to work with because scrolling is a pain, kinetic scrolling allows you to just go through to find a song you want to listen to, without knowing before hand what it is, and if you do know, then you can jump to it, with a quick swipe. the track bar seems like something that would almost be required to use w/out kinetic, but when put together as you would here, they compliment each other so well, (wow it took a long time to get to that point)
side note about the portrait thing, try FBreader with a book sideways, it can be a little hard to read, so remember that you have a trade off, keep the same size text and see partial, or have it scroll across, or make the size smaller. that of course only applies to some people
another side note i guess, i think hiden widget does it well, for the trackbar that is, or at least thats what i think your talking about, but i may be wrong, and the undertaking of making canola portrait is no simple business, and in fact is very difficult in my opinion, but nonetheless i hope that you will endure and follow through with the idea
good luck
EDIT:
i dreged this up from somwhere
http://gadgeteer.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/canola_2.JPG
i notice the 5th icon...
Yeah, and it's in final test stage =) The guys are trying to make it find most of the upnp servers, boot fast.. and be stable of course..
And the best thing for the OS enthusiasts: fully open source =)
About the portrait mode.. yes.. there's a lot of small things to take care, and just "doing" can be a bit of a tragedy. (now that I have actually runned across my old designs again). The home menu is the first thing that would be needed to change to s aimsple grid. (too much iphone -like argh) but there's no other way to go, but in the player, and other views we would need to change the tabs to up and down, fit small titles to the top... re-organize a lot of screens that only make sense because of it's widescreen factor...
But of course, there are solutions for all those problems.. the problem is lack of time.. and of course : the software get's slower and we cannot afford that now =) we want faster not slower =)
Anyways.. I got your point... and I agree with it..
asqwasqw
2008-02-17, 21:07
got my point... hmm, i was wondering if that was possible, cause there was a lot of pointless ranting, but its nice to see someone has done it
well, i understand, and i think i may have mentioned that somewhere, i wish you good luck, and i think you should have an open forum, for ideas
Hi Asqw....
There's a "plugin request" but then we should ask reggie to make it sticky =)
Br
Marcelo
I see a big problem with ugly tearing when scrolling vertically in portrait mode. This would look great on the 770 but not on the N800 and N810... :(
Yeah Pycage, you also got the most important point : /
as the lines are "vertical" when using on portrait, it would be like hell.
That's why we were looking into XrandR (one of our guys published a video rotating screen on the n800) but the problem stills ; /
But, why not have everything in place for the future? :)
BR
Marcelo
Here our rotations experiments on deeper level, we have done it in 2 levels, on evas and on X :
http://labs.vivi.eng.br/blog/?p=39
BR : )
Quicknote : I'm glad to see that at least the rotation got some favorites in planet maemo :)
Because it's funny.. the only subject that gets really buried in the planet is Canola :) we for sure have some haters :) that's a good signal at least for me lol. I think I will go there bury my enemies ... (joking)
Br
Marcelo
For the people who can't hold N800 sideways: Maybe I just have big hands, but I slip my 4 fingers of left hand through the kickstand, and I can hold it quite securely. And my thumb has range to reach all but bottom 1/2" comfortably
Thanks for continuing updates handful, looking forward to the next Canola release.
Yeah, no problem =) I was using today the N810 with a Canola application in portrait... well, the scrolling is not so bad, but is not as fast as in landscape. But it was not done by us, so I cannot tell if it's in maximum speed on our architecture.
BR
Marcelo
hei :) what about a video of how canola deals if it was thrown in a 480x800 screen ? :)
Click here to see it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0aFQXybPR4)
if not available try here : http://marceloeduardo.blip.tv/file/735138/
To some people here in the forum : this is the good side of doing the things the right way and not hacks :) things just work :)
Laughing Man
2008-03-11, 20:59
Nice. Though with mamenoa we'd have to install another OS right?
Hi Laughing : no, look at the beginning is chinook (os2008) it was made for mamona but works on chinook :) but it's not ready for end users :)
Br
Marcelo
Holy cow! Does that also allow for running microb (or any app for that matter) in vertical mode ?
Hi zeez : yes, it rotates the whole maemo (take a look in the beginning of the video) the only problem is : the softwares were not done for that, the whole ui was not done for that so you will suffer a little bit. But I think browser will work slightly better than the others apps using hildon!
install to test the hildon :)
Br
Marcelo
sleepkyng
2008-03-12, 19:21
awesome! you guys are great!
http://cs.uns.edu.ar/~np/temp/screenshot01.png
This is an image of my N810 using xrandr with Canola2. The only place where it doen't work pretty well is in the playing screen, where several widgets overlap, but it is usable.
Nickar: yeah, we will bake a theme for that :)
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