iLiad The iLiad OS Project UI discussion

[carandol]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

odd.. usually (with big books especially) with mobipocket the actual page count turns out to be lower than first reported (i recently read Stephenson's Quicksilver in .mobi, and that lost almost 25 pages when i got to page 940)

I've never had it happen that way. Maybe it depends on what size the font is set at. I usually have mine a couple of sizes up from standard.

[carandol]

There's lots of good ideas flying about here -- spoilt for choice! Everyone uses their iLiad in different ways, so you never know when a change is going to ruin someone's common use habits, and when those habits have actually been steered by the current limitations of the interface. For instance...

When I was at university last year, I used my iLiad for taking notes in lectures. I quickly realised that the standard method of creating a new page was too slow -- by the time the new page was created, I'd missed a huge chunk of what my lecturer was saying. So I started making PDF notebooks of 100 pages, so that I could just turn the page rather than having to create it. But since it's really easy to hit a button when writing with the stylus, I would lock the keys, which meant that I needed the toolbar at the bottom in order to turn to the next page quickly.

So, on reading some of the ideas for removing that bar, my first thought was "but I need that for turning pages quickly when writing!" But then I thought, Hang on a minute. What I *really* need is the ability to lock all the buttons except the page turning bar. Or maybe even just the four below the screen. Or maybe just turn the whole display upside down!

[axel77]

As this goes obviously into the "highly configureable" direction, I'd think we should focus on, how to make it configureable in an easy way. Preferable through the UI as well, not through config file editing.

Also I don't quite know if the posters present here are representative for joe-normal-user. I think its logical that this has a tendancy to become something like "from geeks for geeks", and that isn't bad per se. I think we should only be aware what we are going, and for who we are doing.

[Iñigo]

I really like jharker's proposal.
Just a minor comment: imo fullscreen should go on "page" submenu, and should be activated by default when opening new docs.

Also, I can't get the desktops idea for the iLiad.
As most of our apps/docs should be opened maximized, which are the differences between changing desktop to show other contents and minimize current app and maximize next in the apps/docs ring? why to waste bottom buttons for a not-so-useful-feature-in-iliad?

My hot dreams include a tiled wm like awesome [1]... don't know if it is posible or even interesting for people.

Best regards,
Iñigo

[1] http://awesome.naquadah.org/

[-Thomas-]

Not fitting into the viewer toolbar discussion, but I had an idea how to re-structure the content lister toolbar to allow for more functionality. To handle renaming, moving, copying, tagging of files etc. we basically only need two icons: one for selecting one or more files and one for the action we want to apply on these files. I thought of a context menu popping up to choose the desired action.

One more remark on copying and moving files: What if we represent this tasks just like cut, copy and paste in a text editor? Namely, to move a file you would have to "cut" it in the origin folder, go to your destination folder and "paste" the file there. Similar for copying. This should be easy even for non-techies.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by axel77

As this goes obviously into the "highly configureable" direction, I'd think we should focus on, how to make it configureable in an easy way. Preferable through the UI as well, not through config file editing.

Also I don't quite know if the posters present here are representative for joe-normal-user. I think its logical that this has a tendancy to become something like "from geeks for geeks", and that isn't bad per se. I think we should only be aware what we are going, and for who we are doing.

Although I work in the software industry, when it comes to the iLiad I would consider myself more of a "joe-normal-user." I think you hit on a good point in that the changes need to keep ease of use and ease of customization as a prime consideration. Many of the users on this board really push the envelope in what the iliad can do, but we need to keep in mind that probably most of the users of the device don't stretch it to quite that degree.

In my opinion, in the push to add features/functionality we need to keep in mind the intended purpose of the device and focus on that as the core. In my mind reading, annotating, sorting, searching and note taking are core functions that should be the focus. Just my .02.

[jharker]

Originally Posted by Iñigo

I really like jharker's proposal.
Just a minor comment: imo fullscreen should go on "page" submenu, and should be activated by default when opening new docs.

Thanks! I actually prefer fullscreen by default, but I don't think we should implement that, because it would be a significant change for most users. Also, as the Mobipocket viewer doesn't do fullscreen by default, and we don't control the Mobipocket viewer, we wouldn't have a consistent UI.

Also, I can't get the desktops idea for the iLiad.
As most of our apps/docs should be opened maximized, which are the differences between changing desktop to show other contents and minimize current app and maximize next in the apps/docs ring? why to waste bottom buttons for a not-so-useful-feature-in-iliad?

You're right, there's really no difference to the user between "different desktops" and "switch applications". And in fact, in practice I think we'd probably implement it as "switch applications" in the software.

The basic idea here is that the iLiad should be able to open more than one document at a time, and switch between them. I was under the impression that most people thought this would be an extremely useful capability...? If people don't, I'd love to know, because this OS should be good for everyone.

The solution to a lot of the "how to please everyone" problems is to simply make everything configurable. Advanced users (like us) can customize to suit their own preference, but basic users want it to "just work" and not to be surprised.

So this discussion really has two components:

• What new features should the UI have?
• What should the default configuration be?

My thinking is that we'll eventually create a detailed configuration utility, with two shortcut buttons: iLiad Classic, and All Features. Users can select one to start with and then customize from there.

My hot dreams include a tiled wm like awesome [1]... don't know if it is posible or even interesting for people.

I think a tiled wm would be interesting, although I personally don't consider it useful. It might not be too hard to implement, though. You could try compiling Awesome for the iLiad using the SDK and see how it works...? The iLiad currently uses Matchbox as a window manager, I believe, so it might be as simple as killing Matchbox and running Awesome?

Matchbox runs the toolbar, but it's a very modular program, you might be able to leave the toolbar and kill the window manager.

The ContentLister is currently designed to only allow one open program at a time. When it's rewritten to allow multiple windows, Matchbox will just have them all fullscreen and show only the top one, while you could set Awesome to open them in tiles, each 1/4 of the screen...? That might be interesting, I'd love to see it!

[jharker]

Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar

Although I work in the software industry, when it comes to the iLiad I would consider myself more of a "joe-normal-user." I think you hit on a good point in that the changes need to keep ease of use and ease of customization as a prime consideration. Many of the users on this board really push the envelope in what the iliad can do, but we need to keep in mind that probably most of the users of the device don't stretch it to quite that degree.

In my opinion, in the push to add features/functionality we need to keep in mind the intended purpose of the device and focus on that as the core. In my mind reading, annotating, sorting, searching and note taking are core functions that should be the focus. Just my .02.

I agree very much with everyone who said something similar to this. We want the iLiad to be easy to use for the normal iLiad tasks, without anything that's non-intuitive or a huge departure from the current UI. At the same time, we need to add features (like search) that many users want.

I think my suggested arrangement does this pretty well, but I would really like to hear criticism and improvements of it. If you think it's going in entirely the wrong direction, please say so...

We can't really start work on these changes until there's a community vision of what our goal should be. Otherwise it'll turn into a piecemeal kluge without any sense of rhyme or reason.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by carandol

I've never had it happen that way. Maybe it depends on what size the font is set at. I usually have mine a couple of sizes up from standard.

I've seen it happen both ways. It seems to depend on the size of the book. What I've seen is that short books get over estimated as far as the number of pages, and long books get under estimated. I haven't look at it closely enough when changing font size to see if that makes any difference. It probably does though.

[Iñigo]

Originally Posted by jharker

Thanks! I actually prefer fullscreen by default, but I don't think we should implement that, because it would be a significant change for most users. Also, as the Mobipocket viewer doesn't do fullscreen by default, and we don't control the Mobipocket viewer, we wouldn't have a consistent UI.

Excuse my ignorance, don't use .prc so much... but can't FBReader replace MobiPocket Reader, even with drm files?

Originally Posted by jharker

The basic idea here is that the iLiad should be able to open more than one document at a time, and switch between them.

Yes, that's much a basic feature for any user.

Originally Posted by jharker

The solution to a lot of the "how to please everyone" problems is to simply make everything configurable. Advanced users (like us) can customize to suit their own preference, but basic users want it to "just work" and not to be surprised.
So this discussion really has two components:

• What new features should the UI have?
• What should the default configuration be?

My thinking is that we'll eventually create a detailed configuration utility, with two shortcut buttons: iLiad Classic, and All Features. Users can select one to start with and then customize from there.

Sorry, but don't think a "customize everythong" should be a good approach.
Maybe the 2-mode you mention is the way to go, like eeePC basic & advanced desktop. "iliad Classic" and "iLiad Community"... sounds good.

Originally Posted by jharker

I think a tiled wm would be interesting, although I personally don't consider it useful. It might not be too hard to implement, though. You could try compiling Awesome for the iLiad using the SDK and see how it works...?

Too busy now, but I will try next week when I come back home from travels.
I tried the vmware image to compile some apps many months ago but with no luck... I'll try again.

Originally Posted by jharker

The iLiad currently uses Matchbox as a window manager, I believe, so it might be as simple as killing Matchbox and running Awesome?

Uhmmm... didn't someone compile fluxbox some months ago?
Oh, yes, Yokos did it:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20620

Originally Posted by jharker

The ContentLister is currently designed to only allow one open program at a time. When it's rewritten to allow multiple windows, Matchbox will just have them all fullscreen and show only the top one, while you could set Awesome to open them in tiles, each 1/4 of the screen...? That might be interesting, I'd love to see it!

"...love to see it"... uhmmm... well, maybe that's precisely the problem, if iLiad screen is splitted in 4 tiles I don't think we could see anything... hehehe

Best regards,
Iñigo

PS: wouldn't we put all this comments on a wiki to improve the discussion of ideas in an ordered form?

[carandol]

Originally Posted by Iñigo

Excuse my ignorance, don't use .prc so much... but can't FBReader replace MobiPocket Reader, even with drm files?

Sadly not. FBReader won't read DRM'd files.

[zerospinboson]

The basic idea here is that the iLiad should be able to open more than one document at a time, and switch between them. I was under the impression that most people thought this would be an extremely useful capability...? If people don't, I'd love to know, because this OS should be good for everyone.

Well, yes, but I would probably only use 2 open files at most, so having 4 windows/desktops wouldn't be very useful to me most of the time.
Also, considering the "memory full" warnings on the DR+uds, I doubt having 4 files open simultaneously will run very smoothly.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by jharker

I agree very much with everyone who said something similar to this. We want the iLiad to be easy to use for the normal iLiad tasks, without anything that's non-intuitive or a huge departure from the current UI. At the same time, we need to add features (like search) that many users want.

I think my suggested arrangement does this pretty well, but I would really like to hear criticism and improvements of it. If you think it's going in entirely the wrong direction, please say so...

We can't really start work on these changes until there's a community vision of what our goal should be. Otherwise it'll turn into a piecemeal kluge without any sense of rhyme or reason.

I think the suggestion is pretty good. From an ease of use standpoint I believe that Sony has done a pretty good job and if we can stay focused on the core uses of the device and optimize around that we should be in good shape. In my usage I could see having a couple of documents open at once, but probably not more than three so my views tend to be toward the simpler side of things. Having just played around with DR1000s I think irex took a step back, if that's possible, from the iliad in the user interface department.

As someone who typically is reading more than one book at a time I believe Sony's bookmark page is brilliant. It's simply a view of all books that have bookmarks associated with them. They do kick the most recently read book to the top of the list which is nice, but other than that it's just a list of all bookmarks and what book it is in. It makes it very easy to jump back and forth between material. I haven't seen this on any other device and it is an incredibly useful view.

[romanas]

Im just "joe-normal-user." like it was said before and i fully agree jharker improvements. I think i could use 3 docs at one moment. 4 for me is to much.

[M@rcel]

If I may add a suggestion to the multiple-document-discussion: It would be great if a single document could be opened multiple times for fast switching between different pages of a single document.