maemo.org - Talk - Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

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- - Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind! (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=15004)

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benz145 (Post 127080)

or they could also use arrows at the bottom of pages like on the Application Menu.

Thats a good idea !

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

First off, amen to the rant that started this post. And personally, I don't even consider it so much a rant as much as it is a wake up call to really work better towards a unified user interface. It was very clear to me that whomever led the team for 2007 got an ability to step up (or was moved out for someone else) for 2008. Now, before 2009, can we see something in the way of standarized UI conventions, because that will go a long way towards heightening the user experience of the tablet as a whole.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cvmiller (Post 127060)

Personally, I would rather see a user definable choice (in control panels, perhaps), which would let the user decide if they want finger or stylus control.

I know I fall in the stylus camp, and would rather see more menu items (stylus size), than fewer. But I know there are others who prefer finger-ing.

But I agree the Maemo guys need to give developers a central preference check API, which depending on the user's choice, the app will select finger or stylus method.

Craig...

Excellent idea; and one that I hope can be done as well.

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Milhouse (Post 127079)

Just get rid of scrollbars - all applications should support page scrolling... the fat scrollbar is an abomination, and the mix of control methods is indicative of a complete lack of any unified vision within Nokia - this should all have been put to bed with OS 2006, certainly OS 2007.

+1.

But, I have found that by letting the outside edge of my right thumbnail grow like a finger-pickin' guitarist's nails then I can nail scroll quite well.

Maybe we could adopt this as a secret sign - a sort of geek equivalent of the Free Mason's rolled up trouser leg.

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

I hope that they release some additional updates to OS2008 instead of making us wait a year until 2009.

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

Another vote for user preference. I'm a stylus person, I hate the huge menus in OS2008. Mind you, I like FB reader's thump scrolling and would like that to be included in more apps such as the browser. HOlding the thing in 2 hands the side of my thumb just thumps the screen and it scrolls.

Zebee

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

Any suggestions as to how we actually make some of these ideas happen instead of just talking about it?

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

Who is "we"?

Unless Nokia sort an API then there's not much people can do. If the current OS setup hardcodes menu sizes then it does.

THe only ones who can sort really are Nokia. I suppose if an app has internal menus that they have that much control over they could make a setting, but how many do?

Zebee

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

I very much concur with the rant. I do so miss the 'smart' UI which would detect if the user was navigating with his/her thumb or the stylus and display menu and entries accordingly.

It would be nice if the OS2008 team worked on this a bit to get things back to the way it was in OS2007 (at least)

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Milhouse (Post 127079)

One of the things I like about "modest" -- most (but not all) of the scroll bars are fat enough to use with your finger. Maybe a little too fat, but better than the stylus sized ones.

Better would be:

a) a thin (stylus sized) scroll bar
b) finger scrolling, with inertia

Then, the scroll bar acts as a progress/location indicator, but the finger scrolling eliminates the need to have a fat scroll bar.

But, until they implement inertial finger scrolling on all of the apps, I would like to see more apps with fat scroll bars.

Best, I think, would be user choices for all of the modes (selectable in the application's menu, just as full screen and "view tool bar" are selectable within the application's menu):

1) Scroll bar is: a) fat, or b) thin

2) Dragging causes: a) inertial scrolling, or b) selecting text/image area

of course, I'd also like to see a way to force a context menu to come up, since it's a pain in the *** to force on microb... but that's a whole other can of worms.

Re: Finger or stylus, PLEASE make up your mind!

Hi everybody. Benz145 and others are certainly on this issue, the design is part finger, part stylus currently.

For the OS2008 release, compared to OS2007, we added a lot of support for finger usability. Due to many reasons, not really design-related but mostly pragmatic, we couldn't go and change every application and every widget to be finger-usable. But then again, I personally think it's better to start somewhere and think in the long term. The alternative to the realization that we couldn't change everything at once would have been not to do anything.

However, I guess you can certainly interpret the first changes as the signal towards the developments that will continue in the future. :)