nanogui: Thread: Re: [linuxce-devel] Using microwin on Palmtop's (i.e. small screen and touch panel).

Simon Wood wrote:

> Has anyone initiated a discussion on what a UI for this class of machine
> should look like and how it should work with a touch panel/small screen.
>
> The obvious problems are:
> 1). Single 'button' mouse concept, i.e. touch the screen

Just be careful with thinking in terms of mouse concepts.  A mouse is a
desktop device, pretty well-suited to that environment.  If we try to make
the touchscreen behave like a mouse, we'll get hit with the limitations of
both the touchpanel and the mouse.  Mice are better, and more natural, at
some things like click-and-drag, and touch panels are better at others like
those involving a precise connection between pen and screen (such as
handwriting input, but I don't mean to limit the concept to just that).  I
wouldn't want to throw away the best features of both in our haste to get a
usable UI.

Then again, it's extremely difficult to come up with a good new UI that
isn't rooted in tried-and-true (read "desktop") concepts, and any UI is
better than none.  And you're certainly not going to see anything brilliant
from me in this regard - I suck at UI design.

> Overall I quite like the WinCE UI, it's just the slow response
> and frequent crashes that I don't... I'm sure LinuxCE can do better.

IMO, I don't think the WinCE UI makes very good use of the limited screen
real estate.  That task bar is a big waste when the systray isn't filled to
capacity, and the scrollbar thing is something that is much better suited
for a desktop.  It's not a horrible UI for a palmsized device, I just think
it could be better.  It works reasonably well for the handheld PC formfactor
(again, IMO).

Mike Klar