Suggested Pandora Gui - "tango"


chad78

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With thanks to everyone who has helped me with advice on the GUI, Joppa, Sinbad, Chip, Rokdcasbah, and everyone else - as well as to the Tango library for their icons (which are free to anyone). Here is my concept of a GUI for the Pandora. Brief explanation to follow - but in-depth discussion was started here.


The home screen - user controlled widgets
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The “Grid” Mode of the Apps tab
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Apps Grid again - now with less eye candy!
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The “Slider” Mode of the Emu tab
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The “Grid” Mode of the Emu tab
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The "Alt+Tab" Shot / Active App Picker
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TABS, (from left to right):
Home (described below), Applications (OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, TuxPaint, PDF Viewer, ComicBook Reader, ImageViewer, Calculator, Calendar, etc.), Web (Firefox, Email Client, Chat, SIPPhone, Feed Reader, Contacts list), Media (Mplayer, VLC, Internet Radio, Podcasts, Voice Recorder), Emus, Pandora (Native Games - Native apps that don't fit anywhere else), Prefrences (Wallpaper, network settings, power save, control panel type stuff).

CONTROLS:
Shoulder buttons change pages of icons, or change icon on slider mode. Tabs/groups are on the bottom for easy tapping. All icons are tappable (touchscreen) or selectable through the D-pad and main face button (X, A, rhombus, whatever it is). Right and left on the D-pad scroll through icons on the “Slider” view, or among the icons in "Grid" mode. The extreme right and left center of the screen, when tapped, will move to the next screen in Grid, and the next icon in Slider. Analog stick scrolls through icons as well. Main button selects. Secondary button gives info about the selected icon. A keyboard shortcut can switch among selecting the icons in the main window - the fixed icons across the top (Options, WiFi, Volume, Battery, Help) - and the tabs. The Options menu is where users select from Slider, Grid, or List. You can press buttons 2 - 9 to select a given tab, and press 1 to go to more tabs to the left, 0 to go to more tabs to the right.

HOME TAB:
(Similar to the Home of the Nokia Maemo-powered N-Series Internet tablets, Apple’s Dashboard, iGoogle.com, etc.)
Widgets are user controlled. Using the touchscreen, they can resize and move the widgets on the screen. Widgets are selected and deselected using the options menu. Widgets could include News Feeds, Weather, Internet Radio, Media player, Search box, mini-games, (tictactoe, Sudoku, etc.), maps, contacts, chat, email, etc..
The boxes become “solid” when selected. (The Search box is selected in the picture.) This draws focus to the selected item. The Pandora Logo seen the bottom right would, if you click on it, take you to the Pandora homepage (assuming you are online) - http://www.openpandora.org/
The Search box has a drop down menu, just like the Firefox search box, hence the little down arrow. The current icon - the Pandora icon - searches your Pandora - the onboard storage, as well as any flash cards or USB drives that are attached, (assuming they’ve been indexed). It would just be a name search - not a content search. So think Windows “Search” box from 98 - not Mac OS X Safari, or Google Desktop. You could select Google, Yahoo, Live, ThePirateBay, whatever search engines you install. But again, those only work while online - so it defaults to Pandora search, (maybe you can pick the default search). (Despite Pleng’s protest... *ATTENTION CRAIGX - Hook up with Google and set Google.com as the default browser's homepage and Google and Pandora's default search engine - this could mean another means of cash flow from Pandora, other than hardware sales!* (A point of clarification - users could still select any homepage and search engine they wanted to be their default - but the *shipping* default would be a affliate [aka sponsored] version of Google which would pay CraigX for every search / click-thru. It would not limit the user, and would not change the user experience in any way from CraigX *not* getting paid for it, and including a Google option anyway.)
The Weather automatically updates whenever you are online. I forgot to add the “Currently” info, but you get the idea. You type in the zip code (for US - postal code, city & country, etc - for other countries), and it tells you the weather.
The News Reader can be set to whatever RSS/Atom/Podcast feeds you want - again, automatically updates when online.

SLIDER MODE:
(Similar to the PSP firmware menu, and Apple’s CoverFlow)
On Slider, three icons are seen at a time, the selected icon is in the center. It is in full color, completely solid (100% opacity), drop shadowed, glowing, and larger than the other icons. Two other icons are visible on either side. They are 75% the size of the selected icon - the fade to greyscale as they approach the sides of the screen, and they are 75% opacity - no shadow or glow. *Note - the screenshot is representative of the last game played, or of a favorite game for that emulator. You're scrolling through emulators (systems) not individual roms (games). A couple dozen at most - not thousands. Perhaps screenshots should be replaced by shots of the systems, as pictured in the Grid mode shot.

GRID MODE:
(Similar to the traditional desktop of most user oriented operating systems)
A grid of icons that are spaced into two rows of 4 icons each, the name of the file underneath. Collected into pages that can be scrolled through by tapping the extreme sides of the center of the screen.

BTW - these are just mock-ups. so the icons used, like for the different systems, are not finished products. This is all just my suggestions (altered, of course, by people's feedback) in a visual form. I know the resolution / coloring sucks on some of the stuff. It's just a mock-up. If I were actually making the GUI things would be much better looking.

I want to add a mock-up of the List view, and maybe the options screen. Again, thanks to everyone for their comments, critiques, and suggestions!
 
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Looks really nice! I would like to make an alternative skin for it.
 
chad i think the gray line below the tabs might be taking up more space than is nessecary .

I don't know you might be able to get a third row of icons in without that line.....
 
Another thing, you might want to use some kind of resize method (such as HQ2X or Alien Skin Blow Up photoshop plugin) because some icons have a bit resizing artifacts.
 
cb88 said:
chad i think the gray line below the tabs might be taking up more space than is nessecary .

I don't know you might be able to get a third row of icons in without that line.....
Seconded.

I was just thinking if general desktop widgets would be practical or useful in any way. Something like KDE's Plasma, which can use widgets in a variety of languages and even Dashboard widgets.
 
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jaycee900 said:
More great work Chad! Love the pictures of the machines on the emulators tab! Man i missed picking up all those machines somehow!
Well, the names are the names of the fake emulators I made up for the shot. Let me give the you name of each system, and you may have had more than you think.

From top left to bottom right.
  • Bedouin - emu for Nomad - Sega’s shortlived handheld version of the Genesis. It’s just a Genesis emulator.
  • Duck Diamond - emu for Swan Crystal - The last version of the WonderSwan Color, with an improved screen - so it’s a WonderSwan and WonderSwan color emulator.
  • game.rom - emu for game.com - shortlived system from Tiger Electronics, featuring a touch screen, PDA style menus, and a dial up modem! Crazy for its day.
  • GeoNeo Pocket - emu for SNK’s NeoGeo Pocket Color
  • GizEmu - emu for the Gizmondo - Another shortlived handheld - Tiger Telematics doomed system that was shot-down by the mob. Which sucks because it had a freaking ton of potential, 400 Mhz ARM CPU, GPS, VGA Cam, BlueTooth, SMS/MMS messaging - damn Ferrari flippin’ Eriksson!
  • GP33 - emu for GP32
  • GP2Y - emu for GP2X
  • Micro SP Advance - emu for Game Boy Advance
 
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Very, very nice. This is exactly the kind of interface I want. I'm sure whoever actually programs it can make it skinable and provide for various icon size options. Personally, I'd keep the 8 icons per screen and just make them larger (remember, 4" screen!).

Since nearly all emus will have their own ROM selection interface, this setup is all you really need. If the UI programmer wanted extra credit, they could build in a universal ROM selection frontend with screenshot / box art / control layout support that would work with any command line supporting emu. But hey, I'm not picky :D
 
I don't like the 'slider' mode, having to navigate game by game is too tedious, imagine a list of +1000 games... I prefer the "grid" mode much more.

The widget idea is familiar to me. I already did a mockup with widgets a few months ago.

I like your design :)


I wanted to code an interface very similar, and fully skinnable using xml files and by the use of compiled plugins. But at the end I abandoned the project because I'm very confused about how the Pandora will work, i.e: if it will run X11 or framebuffer and a lot of things I didn't get answered..and if they did, are still confusing me...
 
efegea said:
I don't like the 'slider' mode, having to navigate game by game is too tedious, imagine a list of +1000 games...
The slider mode is only for selecting the emulator you're going to use, not for picking out the individual ROMs. I don't think most people will have more than a dozen emulators on their Pandora at a time.
 
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Chip said:
The slider mode is only for selecting the emulator you're going to use, not for picking out the individual ROMs. I don't think most people will have more than a dozen emulators on their Pandora at a time.
Oh, ok, sorry, I thought it was to select individual roms..
 
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efegea said:
Chip said:
The slider mode is only for selecting the emulator you're going to use, not for picking out the individual ROMs. I don't think most people will have more than a dozen emulators on their Pandora at a time.
Oh, ok, sorry, I thought it was to select individual roms..

That's okay - the screenshot does make it look like that - I had to explain that in the last thread as well. I'll ad that to the explanation at the top of this thread. Sorry about that.
 
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Chad you read my mind this just what I would like to see on my pandora esspecially the rom selection, i hope like hell there will be an option like this. great work!!
 
NL? What state is that?

Also: very nice. How 'bout making the tabs work with the number keys? The slider works with the d-pad? How about slelecting icons on the Emus screen - you only have eight icons on the screen there, could set that up Zodiac style, using the analog nub to choose an icon and the d-pad to slide between screens of icons. This gives one-touch activation, rather than going through the list.

Could use the grey bar at the bottom for multitasking - showing active applications.

edit: RTFM
 
Looked at it in real size, other than the news feed having small text I think it looks great, a light and simple gui that looks pretty easy to navigate also if they are lose widgets or likewise with the news reader etc and skinable then everyone should be able to get the look and feel they want.
 
shmuck said:
NL? What state is that?
Why New Liberty, of course! I really don't know what fictional "state" Liberty City of GTA fame is in, but I figure since it's supposed to be New York City, the state would be New Liberty. (The desktop on the Home and Grid screens is a screenshot from GTA IV. And notice, in the News Reader news, Rockstar is porting their entire library, including, of course, GTA III, GTA Liberty City Stories, and GTA IV, to the Pandora!)

QUOTE

Also: very nice. How does this work with the key layout? I assume that the tabs work with the number keys. The slider works with the d-pad? How about selecting icons on the Emus screen? You only have eight icons on the screen there, could set that up Zodiac style, using the analog nub to choose an icon and the d-pad to slide between screens of icons.


I'm not sure what to do with the D-Pad versus analog sticks debate (it's a debate in my head, anyway). Part of me wants both inputs to behave identically. The other says that since the D-Pad does the sliding on the Slider mode, then it should do the sliding between pages on the Grid mode, (which is what I think you are suggesting). I could see it going either way. But I think, ultimately, the one function per button side will win out, and therefore your suggestion would make the most sense. As would using Console pictures instead of game screens as icons for the emus, as many have suggested.

QUOTE

Could use the grey bar at the bottom for multitasking - showing active applications.



Possibly. My thinking on the grey bar was that it helped to show which tab was selected by both visually "pushing back" and separating the non-selected tabs, and proving room for the selected tab's icon to grow. But since many have correctly pointed out that it's just a waste of space, I'm strongly considering ditching it.

That said, your suggesting brings to light another issue - how to show active programs. An issue I don't currently have an answer for.
 
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I like it, though I'd like to see customizable grid size. For instance I have 20 emulators on my gmenu emus tab (in a 6x4 grid), and have no problem with the small icons on the gp2x 3.5 inch screen. Hate the idea of flipping through 'pages' of emulator icons.
 
chad78 said:
That said, your suggesting brings to light another issue - how to show active programs. An issue I don't currently have an answer for.
How about an overlay widget with thumbnails of the apps (like the alt+tab widget) that shows up somewhere when a key is pressed? You can't run that many apps at once anyway.

naples39 said:
I like it, though I'd like to see customizable grid size. For instance I have 20 emulators on my gmenu emus tab (in a 6x4 grid), and have no problem with the small icons on the gp2x 3.5 inch screen. Hate the idea of flipping through 'pages' of emulator icons.
Up to the developer to make the icon size/grid size customizable.
 
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what if instead of pages of icons, the grid had a scroll? Although it's also a good idea the "pages" thing (I see it more like multiple desktops), the iphone/ipod have it and works very well
 
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