Portrait mode use cases - Page 29 - maemo.org

daperl | # 281 | 2009-09-11, 18:00 | Report

Originally Posted by zerojay View Post

Maybe you should re-read the part of the text I quoted again. Opera mobile wasn't mentioned in it, nor before it, only afterwards. Also I'm not aware of Opera mobile running on too many devices that find themselves attached to *monitors* on a regular basis.

You're right, I'm a complete a*shole. A thousand trillion apologies. Have an excellent weekend.

JayBomb999 | # 282 | 2009-09-12, 03:32 | Report

To continue beating this topic to death, I'd like to mention something that I haven't seen addressed in much detail yet.

The music player is one of the most obvious candidates for vertical usage in my opinion. Look at the layout of this application. The play/pause/fwd selections are at the bottom-left of the landscape screen. Considering that most people are right handed, and that the headphone jack will be plugged into the right side, it isn't very convenient or ergonomic to use with one hand. For righties, it's pretty much required to use both hands for even the simplest navigation.

Being the owner of several portable music players over the last few years, I am used to portrait navigation of albums, songs, playlists, etc. and I'd bet this is true for most consumers. Holding in one hand, flicking/selecting with your thumb just makes sense. Not to mention--how most of us are conditioned.

The media player, browser, maps, chats and ANYTHING which utilizes a 'list' format would benefit greatly from having a portrait mode.

Ultimately _not necessarily immediately_ I would love to see a platform-wide portrait option.

Last edited by JayBomb999; 2009-09-12 at 05:02.

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slight | # 283 | 2009-09-12, 15:23 | Report

Of course 600 or 800 pixels is too narrow for a desktop, I was referring to 4:3 and 5:4 monitors like mine which is 1280x1024 and is great in portrait , no horiz scrolling.

That's beside the point though, what I'm saying is portrait is optimum for reading, which is why books are portrait.

attila77 | # 284 | 2009-09-12, 16:02 | Report

Careful with those book analogies. Books have a lot of history and many of the properties we take for granted are there because of technological requirements of centuries past and not some fancy ergonomy studies.

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Tommy | # 285 | 2009-09-12, 16:39 | Report

From my point of view this looks pretty good

.....no need to flick the button http://www.slashgear.com/wp-content/...ashgear_24.jpg

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ysss | # 286 | 2009-09-12, 16:46 | Report

Just a quick note..

I think some of the less text-oriented apps can be made single-hand-friendly just by repositioning their buttons to the lower 1/4 of the screen. For example:

- camera
- music player
- timer\clock (stop watch, etc)

So it's not all about making 'portrait mode', but rather making them 'single hand' friendly.

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crustie | # 287 | 2009-09-12, 17:15 | Report

If I may just reiterate a point that was brought up by a few forum members previously, I would really really prefer a T9 phone keypad with predictive input over a mini-qwerty keyboard in portrait mode. The keypad that I have in mind is something similar to what is already found in symbian s60 v5, except.... please take away the obtrusive interface that fills up the entire screen, and let the keypad slide up from below in an iphone or htc winmo style to occupy the lower half. I think a phone keypad is excellent for short quick inputs with one hand when I reply an sms or add a new calendar event, while the dedicated hardware keyboard is optimal for typing an email with both hands.

I think an elegant solution to the non-uniform UI problem with the support of both portrait and landscape modes is to make everything landscape by default, and rotate to portrait only when keyboard is closed AND the phone is rotated such. It is an interesting take of the conventional phone with hardware qwerty whereby the phone is portrait by default and turns to landscape when keyboard is slid out

Last edited by crustie; 2009-09-12 at 17:19.

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slha89 | # 288 | 2009-09-12, 17:30 | Report

29 Pages discussing about:

> Portrait mode use cases

One reason. One hand handling. Nothing to discuss (for a phone).

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pelago | # 289 | 2009-09-12, 19:36 | Report

Originally Posted by Tommy View Post

From my point of view this looks pretty good

.....no need to flick the button http://www.slashgear.com/wp-content/...ashgear_24.jpg

Thanks Tommy. Although ideally we'd need that screen to also work in portrait mode, if this isn't getting a bit self-referential!

christexaport | # 290 | 2009-09-12, 20:00 | Report

This is important for Symbianers because our OS has been optimized for one hand, and it is a selling point that many can't ignore. The ability to choose which aspect ratio to use for viewing the device is an option many don't wish to give up. We are all different, and the choice needs to be there soon, or it will be an Achilles heel for Maemo, IMO.