Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

lol john, you know that analogy was flawed.. but I had to click the Thanks button for making me LOL anyway :D

I've been hearing many explanations\excuses about not having portrait mode in N900. In general I've 'accepted' the current condition.. but I feel that none of the answers really 'clicked', maybe because none of them have been really candid\open in the delivery.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Yes, exactly! I should have been clearer in adding: the widgets/buttons/text-boxes/etc would not be allowed to breach the boundaries of the two boxes -- they must fit entirely within them.

I love the 'book' anaolgy. We'll hence-forth call it the a book-ui. The idea is that items can fit on two square pages, and these two square pages can be easily oriented landscape or portrait through a simple rotate.

This solution is quite elegant.

... and with that the Book UI concept was born ...

YARR!
}:^)~

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Well, I really hope that you're half-kidding with this. :)

Making it crappier for the main use case, to support another use case, it's not a tradeoff without any loss. The beauty of the Home canvases now is that you can do free and pixel perfect layouts. Place items exactly where you want, as many as you want, and the items can be relatively free sizes. Align items with the wallpaper image etc.

Following the clever analogies, what pearl of wisdom could I come up with...

Either you can be the architect of your own home, and design it the way you like, make the walls and measurements down to an inch. And "it only works in landscape", the building would topple down if you turn it. Or you can build your home out of a couple of huge lego blocks, in which case you can also turn the whole cube around 90 degrees.

Ok, it's the best analogy on the internets. Or then not.

(And yes, there are of course other ways to solve this.)

But please, it's not zero peanuts.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

So right now, the real question is not anymore :
do we need the portrait mode on the N900 ?
but : How built the portrait mode on the N900 ? :rolleyes:

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Can someone help me to understand something very basic here

WILL THE COMMUNITY HACKED ROTATION SUPPORT WHICH IS ALREADY AVAILABLE FOR MAEMO 4 WORK IF ENABLED ON THE N900?

I mean if some one re-engineered the current rotation support on to the n900 will it work?

Thanks

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

The current rotation is x rotation base, quite like the maemo 4 version was. So, most of that work is already done. All applications need to do is set their window to support portrait mode.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

As to the other comments, let's just say that we are investigating options on how to extend the currently limited support of portrait mode. Whether that would extend significantly, we would definitely also support portrait in switcher. On desktop I don't see rationale for it for multitude of reasons, most having been mentioned already before, but for example bg image being an addition to the already mentioned examples.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

So my question is that will the community be able to hack that x support to the default applications including the desktop? It doesnt have to be perfect but will it atleast work like the current rotations support in n8x0 tablets?

Thanks

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

The background image issue is not an issue at all: in portrait it becomes an up/down slide rather than a side to side slide. It's actually a more natural motion (IMO) for the thumb anyway (similar to a vertical kenetic scrolling list). The important info (the widgets) would be clearly readable at the correct orientation and easily accessible.

A few more use cases (just to throw it out there):

• Changing tracks while jogging after pulling the unit from the pocket. Jogging with both hands tied up is very difficult.
• Changing tracks while riding a bike. Ok with one hand, dangerous with 2. Generally I quickly skip tracks, not play with playlists, and I often do this without looking, on empty rural roads. It's rather safe
• Using the device as a 'remote control' for ones PVR or HTPC.

Just thought I'd throw those in there. Anyhow, as before, we'll see what the market says.


YARR!
}:^)~

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

How is the background orientation becomes a problem?

It should rotate along with the rest of the on screen items. Just like paintings hung with string to nails on a wall, they just follow gravity.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

@konttori

I know it's difficult to imagine given your perspective why it might seem pointless to have portrait more supported. I can give you my honest testimony.

From presonal experience using a ipod touch, I know that I spend around 60% of the time in portrait mode and 40% in landscape while using the device. Some things are just more comfortable to simply casually do with one hand, and most of my actions are casual.

YARR!
}:^)~

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

rofl cap'n, you've said the cursed word... now your opinions will be worthless in this forum :D

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

I'm sorry, but are you now really thinking about the problem at all?

Imagine your Home screen in landscape, filled with widgets, with text, going horizontally within the widgets, say one widget being full width on the home canvas; and an image of a wallpaper, say a picture of some seascape.

Now how exactly would that look like in portrait?

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

I think you should go back and [re]read some of my previous posts regarding the widgets.

Vertical background, horizontal widgets. Don't like it? Blur the background out, or make the background fade to black. Easy.


YARR!
}:^)~

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

This has suddenly got as awkard as me being next to a really hot girl as well my girlfriend....

Can I re-register as Col. Corrupt? :D

YARR!
};^)~

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Just because some widget with wide lines you don't want to support portrait mode? We totally understand that some widgets are not meant for portrait mode... but give us the choice. If we really want that widget to act well in the portrait mode we will reduce the width and make the single line show in double lines. Dont act like apple and tell us what to do and what not. We totally understand that you had to prioritize your resources. But what we don't like is telling us to use the landscape mode only. We believe the community can easily hack rotation support and everyone will be happy. Just don't tell us what to do and what not.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

OI,

Jogging is one of the main sports I perform. Instead of using an iPod touch with Nike+ for jogging I'd rather have a device like an iPod nano with my favourite jogging tracks. It is very easy to skip a trick with iPod nano. However what is really nice on iPod is the way it big brother takes track of your music taste. Rating, most played tracks, playlists, favourite tracks, browse on genre/artist/album, and so on.

Now, during jogging there is one thing I want to do and that is: jogging. I don't want to take device out of my pocket (do you know how **** that runs?), look on my touchscreen instead of concentrating, or skip through huge lists of music to find that one track I want to hear. That is why I have an armholster for my iPod touch. Mind you, the thing is still too heavy to be comfortable, but it works. I could control the iPod touch from my arm, but during running that isn't feasable and the accelerometer keeps hesitating back and forth.

Instead, while running I pick a 'mix' (something long which already is mixed and good) or I control the iPod music using my wrist watch remote control. This would easily work for Nokia N900 as well. In fact, I'd say voice commands are in future the only viable way to control your music player during sports.

For remote control I understand, but that is just legacy issues. You don't have to point the device to the PVR or whatever as it goes via WiFi or BlueTooth. It does not matter in which way you hold or point the device, and the touchscreen buttons can be shown in either way.

IO.

Almost no backgrounds are 1:1. 800x480 resolution is not 1:1. So your background is not exactly the same anymore. While for some backgrounds this won't matter, for many it will.

Well with the source open we as community have that freedom. Just don't expect Nokia to plan to deliver such unpolished experiences to the default experience. Do you see it before you, someone trying out the device and experiencing some ugliness like this? Certain media like Engarde would love to write about that.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

I'd rather have no portrait mode on the Desktop screen than being able to only have two widgets on it which cannot be wider than 400 Pixels. Think RSS reader or twitter widget - I'd want them as wide as possible.

Or let me have three or four widgets on one Desktop.

How is that supposed to look when rotated to portrait mode?

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

You could always disable what you don't need.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Like Portrait Mode? :rolleyes:

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Or enable what you do need.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Yeah, seriously. When I am walking around and I need to do something quick on the screen, I very much prefer to have one hand free just in case. That's the reason I chose a E71 over an iPhone (and why I didn't end buying a N97): because I can use it decently with one hand, and very speedy with two hands. The situation is different when I am sitting in my house, then I could spring out the keyboard.

Another reason: around here in the third world (a market Nokia likes) there are plenty of people waiting to snatch your phone and run away. Common targets are people that have their two hands busy. And I feel my phone safer when I grab it fully with my hand (I have big hands, though). When I carry something with two hands, it is very easy to grab the phone by the middle and snatch it away.

And finally, and tbh, I find the N97 keyboard....not so good compared to the E71's.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

You know what the problem is? That users will want to have that mode anyway, regardless of it seems difficult or not. It is understandable that there were priorities in the development of the N900, but at least more portrait support should be considered in the roadmap of software upgrades of the N900. Then you can tell the users "we don't have it now, but we will have it in XX months".

As I said, in the N97, I don't have the prettiest solution, nor the best on-screen keyboard (T9 ugh), but at least I have something. Very different from not having it at all. If we can get at least it (maybe borrowing from the phone as you mention), then great. Something is something!

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Just an idea, and I don't know if this will go over well, but....

How about a completely different desktop layout in portrait mode?
I mean: different contacts, different backgrounds, different widgets, the works.

This idea came from watching all of the n900 videos, where all the home screens for most of the users are already cluttered - this would give users 8 home screens to work with instead of 4. It would also let users arrange things as they want in either mode, since the widgets don't transfer anyway.
The *big* downside: If users want to access some widget they put in a landscape-orientation while holding the phone in portrait mode, they will have to rotate the phone, which will get kind of annoying after the first couple of times.

OR

When the phone is switched to portrait mode for the first time (or landscape mode for the first time), all the desktop widgets lose their positions and clutter at the bottom of the screen (annoying, I know). The user is then given an option on each thumbnail to "lock" its position in that location (kind of like drag-lock, but more location based). That way, say I wanted a widget in the upper left corner in both portrait and landscape orientation. I would just move it there in landscape and rotate the phone and "lock" it in place in portrait. It would be annoying the first time, but from then on out, the desktop would look like I wanted it to. This would solve the problem of making the software figure out where to put widgets and instead leave that choice to the user (and that's what we're all about, isn't it?).
The *slightly smaller* downside: widgets that span the whole screen in landscape will not work well at all. Widgets even slightly bigger than the width of the screen in portrait mode will break it. Possible solution: a toggle that would make such widgets automagically "hide" in portrait mode.

A "tweak" to the last solution I proposed: instead of having the widgets lose positions, the software could *attempt* to reorient them and indicate to the user that the layout is a temporary one that they can tweak and customize. I know quite a few people that wouldn't bother changing the order of the widgets around. It would also give a more polished "feel" to the rotation and not give the user a "darn, now why did I do that" sort of moment when the icons lose position.

Just throwing that out there...

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Thanks Elimoon8, that is already a bit more sensible. Separate free layouts for portrait and landscape would already solve some parts of the layout puzzle. It doesn't yet solve the wallpaper (which also could be separate for both), or very wide widgets like the Mauku widget (where resizing would need to happen).

In general, as Konttori also said: yes we're actively working on increasing portrait mode support. Perhaps I could chat with Quim over how much of that roadmap we could share already.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Yes, half. :)

And, I realized the analogy was absurd, but I couldn't think of a good one, so I just rolled with it. I still think it made the point though ... while the stated N97 style of home-screen rotation may not be ideal, it's better than no home-screen rotation at all, IMO (and apparently in the opinions of other people here). But, what I was replying to came across as "we don't like the N97 style of home-screen rotation, so we didn't give you home-screen rotation at all".


While, I do recognize that there are cases where something that is half-done, especially in a user interface, can be worse than doing nothing at all ... but it sounds like the N97 style was good enough for Nokia to ship it, so I don't think that fits this argument.

(and, I don't think you're giving us zero peanuts, that was just part of making the point)

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

I know it does simplify things quite a bit, but I can just see myself trying to check a weather widget and realizing that I left it on the 2nd home screen in landscape orientation. :(

I just don't know.

Side comment about possibly why people want portrait mode:
I think it's just because it feels more like paper. We grew up using paper in portrait orientation. I know, for one, when I want to read something and not interact a lot (like just reading the news/online articles), I would prefer to hold the device in portrait mode. Note that even most websites are designed like sheets of paper. Logic follows, that more of the content could be seen in a portrait orientation.

Even responding to a quick text message on the go, I would prefer a portrait mode keyboard, rather than a landscape one. Note that I *would* be using both hands in my portrait mode cases: one hand to hold the phone, the other to type, scroll, etc.

If I were to get deeply into a text messaging session with someone, or go to a website that requires a lot of user interaction (Facebook/social networking sites, for example), I would definitely pull out the hardware keyboard and proceed to use that.

I don't know, I think it's just something psychological. It's almost as if pulling out the hardware keyboard is a commitment to devoting time to whatever activity you're planning on doing.

Also, I'm sorry it makes things harder on you guys, and I can't exactly explain why, but portrait mode "feels" right for some things (for me at least).

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

I'll mention another of ysss' accursed word (android/g1) ... but this works just fine in Android. They cheat a little, which you can figure out from using it a little bit ... but it does have a grid of home screen objects. The grid is basically a 4x4 grid, and objects can take up 1 or more grid spaces (have to rectangular, but it could be a 4x1 grid, a 3x3 grid, etc ... application icons, by default, are 1x1 though).

You can rotate it, and the grid just rotates. And the image behind it. You do get different views of the background image when that happens (the closest way to describe it on a NIT would be: the background image is 800x800, and you see different sub-sections of that based on whether you're in portrait or landscape ... or, if you don't like that android-ish method you could simply re-scale/re-stretch the image on each rotation).

Part of their cheat is that: it's a 4x4 grid, in the middle of the screen. 4x4 rotates quite easily. The other cheat is that the bottom of the screen (in portrait)/right side of the screen (in landscape) is taken up by the application tray, which helps hide the fact that the grid is only 4x4, and not the whole screen.

In Maemo, you'd probably say that the grid is (in pixels) 480x480, centered on the screen. The area to either side of the grid could be for special things, or just for "see through to the background image" area. They could even be for certain universal buttons (answer call/dialer, browser, calendar, reject call/screen saver), and the other area could be for status symbols (an envelope if you have email, something else if you have SMS messages, something else if you have a missed call, something else if you have a voice-mail, etc.; click on the status icon to pull up that application).

Within the 480x480 area, you'd divide that up into however many grid spaces you want, as long as each space is square, and evenly divides the 480x480 area (so, for a 4x4 grid, each space would be 120x120). And then you can allow widgets to take up a 2x2, 3x2, 2x3, 3x3, 4x1, 1x4, or maybe even a 4x4 area (assuming you did a 4x4 grid).

And, note that those last two paragraphs are JUST for the home screen, not for the user interface in general.

I don't know about anyone else, but that'd be good enough for me, for the home screen. I could use it for quick status checks and to launch other applications, and not have to care what orientation it's in -- in any orientation, it will still work. No worries about how I'm holding it, no worries about reading the text or recognizing icons that are rotated away from horizontal, etc.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Want some peanuts? :)

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Yes. Well. The N97 is a fine product and S60 5.0 is a fine piece of software, I don't want to say that. But ... um, lets say that perhaps there are even better solutions to this problem. ;)

I'm all for enabling methods for the community to try out Home in portrait and trying to find clever solutions for the problems in hand.

I'm not all for shipping by default "to normal customers" with non-optimal solutions. In those cases, from my perspective, no feature at all is a better solution than a poorly thought out and implemented feature.

The hooks to detect portrait mode are there, as seen in Call app and in Conboy. But enabling it would basically require enabling portrait in the Dashboard view, because they are so integrally linked.

And that's a whole other can of worms: what would the Dashboard show in portrait mode, if the user came to Dashboard from landscape mode and then turns the device: do we ask each application to re-render itself into portrait. What do those applications do that cannot re-render themselves. Are there portrait and landscape thumbnails there at the same time. Or vice versa, if the user comes to Dashboard from portrait view. Do portrait applications still have a landscape app shaped thumbnail. Are the thumbnail contents rotated 90 degrees around. Do the users get surprised if the thumbnail icon they press in the Dashboard does not elegantly zoom into the full screen view (since the Dashboard would then have the thumbnail of the incorrect orientation [many apps look different in portrait and landscape] etc.).

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Well, you could specify that it's a free layout per orientation, but the same contents for each of the pages. So that if your weather is on the first page, it is there on both orientations: it could just be in a different position in portrait and in landscape.

And yes, I agree and I think we all agree that ... I hope that it doesn't feel that we would be disputing that there wouldn't be uses to portrait mode, that it wouldn't be a good feature to have. One hand usage etc. are all fair and true. So no need to convince anyone that it wouldn't be useful. It would be useful.

... Remember, this is not step 5. ;)

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

I can see ragnar's points, and I think what he proposes would be fine. The instructions for enabling portrait mode for community members should be clear enough for non-developers to follow (like myself) with a boldfaced note that some features will not be as smooth as in landscape mode (or some features may be downright broken).

I *do* think, however, that we *can* find solutions to those problems and eventually push it as an update for "normal" users. It just might take a little time.

I disagree with johnkzin that an unfinished portrait mode should be enabled by default for "normal" users. Apple, with their iPhones/iPod Touch devices, follows the logic that giving "normal" users access to only *fully* developed features makes for a better "experience" overall. I know the people in this forum are quite different than the iPhone/iPod Touch market, but believe me, most of the people owning those device love them a lot. Why else would they pay ridiculous fees to mobile contractors to keep the devices?

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Here are three scenarios:
1. A contact widget with the photo of the contact and his status. - you could just rotate that 90 degrees, no problem here.
2. A widget that spans the whole width in landscape like mauku - shrink it to fit the size in portrait mode, it's still useful because you could see if there is a new message, but if you want to read it you'll have to do that in landscape
3. Long widgets that don't have text in them - like OMWeather it could reorient itself automatically with five icons in a row or in a colon.

You could give rotation posibility to the widgets and leave it to the developers how they'd look like in portrait and landscape modes. They could transform in something different. Like for example the twitter widget could display the whole tweet in landscape mode or just the number of new tweets in portrait mode.

I also like the idea to be able to place the widgets in different positions in landscape/portrait modes. No need for a new wallpaper imho.

In the Dashboard the apps that have portrait mode could reorient themselves automatically.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

I've been thinking about the widgets on desktop problem myself over the days since I saw the first videos, and in my mind have come to similar solutions as ragnar and elimoon8. That is, the user could move widgets to separate positions on portrait and landscape mode, and those positions would be remembered once set.

I propose that resizable widgets should allow the user to resize them separately in the two orientations (so if I resized it in one orientation, it would not affect the other orientation). That way you could have a one-line very wide widget in landscape mode that the user could chose to resize to a less wide two-line widget in portrait.

There might be a problem with non-resizable widgets which are wider in landscape mode than 480px. Maybe it should be a style guideline that no widget can force a minimum width greater than 480px.

I would suggest by default when you first rotate, individual widgets rotate around a point that makes sense, probably their mid-point, rather than falling to the bottom of the screen or similar. Maybe the widgets could also auto-resize so that at least all four corners are reachable to allow resizing. That would create a good first estimation, but then the user could tweak their position and size to suit the new orientation. Just to repeat to make clear, the positions and sizes would be remembered per widget separately for portrait and landscape. There could be some fancy transition eye candy if desired between the two states, so that the eye doesn't lose sight of the widget one is interested in when rotating.

As ragnar says, it's probably best to keep widgets on the same page in both orientations. Otherwise you might be looking at, say, a scrolling RSS widget, change orientation then find it disappears because it's not present on that page in the other orientation. For the same reason, I don't think the user should be allowed to hide widgets in one orientation vs the other, even if they cannot find an optimum position for the widget in both orientations, as that would later cause confusion, I'm sure.

Regarding the desktop wallpaper, I think by default just use the same wallpaper, but allow the user to use different wallpapers for the two orientations if they wish. That way, if they had text on a wallpaper (which would normally appear sideways on the other orientation), the user could choose different wallpaper that made sense in the other orientation.

In my mind, I think I would prefer to still swipe left and right to reach different pages in portrait mode (rather than up and down as suggested above), although without actually trying with a device I'm not 100% sure.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Falling to the bottom of the screen sounds like a chore.

Would it be hard to simply rotate the icons and text, without rotating the widgets? So there's no need of widget resize\replacement\movements. They all stay where they are, except the text and icons are rotated 90'.

This can be used as temporary measure until the rest of the system is ready to adopt more portrait-friendly usecases.

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

for me would be enough if Nokia added to portrait mode even only sms(read, write)...and calculator.. but hey, anything extra is welcome as long as it works

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

maybe a part of reply inhere :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhrGxyVfEZ0

I think it's interesting to see it

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

I like the touch focus and the virtual fish :D And that are some fast typing thumbs ;)

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

lol... Virtual fish? Where the frak did that come from?

}:^D~

Re: Portrait mode use cases
 

Elimoon8, Ragnar, Your ideas for the widget rotate are simply great and awesome.

I realy like thath.

For the background, rather than using a default 3200x480 ((800x4)x480), why not use a 3200x800 ((800x4)x800?

And for widgets too wide, we could make like for software: 2 UI

Right, remains there any problem finding a solution?