Has anyone designed any screens/components to work on e-ink screens?
I'm writing some apps to run on e-readers (Sony PRS-T1 & B&N Nook) and wondered if anyone else had already thought about e-ink specific designs.
I want to write widgets that scroll using buttons to move between groups of items instead of scrolling.
If no one has already done this, I'm going to subclass AdapterView (as I have cursor's which contain the data already), to create e-ink version of GridView, ListView & a HorizontalListView.
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aspellclark said:
Has anyone designed any screens/components to work on e-ink screens?
I'm writing some apps to run on e-readers (Sony PRS-T1 & B&N Nook) and wondered if anyone else had already thought about e-ink specific designs.
I want to write widgets that scroll using buttons to move between groups of items instead of scrolling.
If no one has already done this, I'm going to subclass AdapterView (as I have cursor's which contain the data already), to create e-ink version of GridView, ListView & a HorizontalListView.
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Interesting. I am not aware of such implementations, but I am curious about what you are trying to accomplish in terms of design.
There is a usability issue when creating custom components that do not follow the "look and feel" of the OS's native widgets. However, if your widget consists of an aggregation of native components (or subclassing without redrawing yourself) with added functionality you should be fine, since you can assume the original vendor had the e-ink display in mind when they designed the widgets, and your widget's design will match that of the device on which your app is running.
The rule of thumb for e-ink is to keep contrasts high. Unless you are targeting a very specific device, you won't be certain that the e-ink display will support grey scale or just B&W (or maybe color on some fancy e-ink displays).
Just my 2 cents.
really, the big difference I can see so far is that you don't want animated scrolling, so I want to make controls that use buttons to jump a page of items at a time.
It will be difficult for me to retain the original look and feel for both nook and sony ereaders, bu I am going to try to keep as close as I can.
Related
I have a new Sprint Touch Pro 2 with 6.5 and 2.5, stock ROM. The Today screen works. However, as a smart phone, it really isn't usable as-is. There is a total of 9 quicklinks, and the start menu is a mess. If you move things in the start menu, you break the quicklinks, so best to leave things where they land. Whatever it is that works to organize the interface needs to show unread e-mails, voice mails, and texts on the home/today screen, and a link to contacts, not that lame people thing. I get around this with the stock interface by dropping people out of the slider and pointing one of the top quicklinks to contacts. When I click on a new text message from the slider, it's pretty clumsey if you ask me. I have to look around for delete all etc. Lots of mouse clicks. I've been looking around at the likely suspects and would value your input.
Edit:
1. SPB Mobile Shell 3.5: I installed it for the third time and worked with it. My impression is that it is more about personalization and special effects. My impression is the pieces are not logically woven together to create an environment. First there is the home tab, with exactly 3 home pages, one left, and one right. There are a collection widgets that I can put on them. Second, there is a launcher. The Launcher has some impressive graphics for launching things. However, is seems to represent their concept of organizing the Start Menu into folders. You can see them if you click on the Start Menu. To me, it was confusing. The third area is the Carousel. It is very nice idea for organizing things, but it's pretty much pre-defined. I won't be coming back here because it doesn't match my needs or organizing the many apps the way I want to. It's easy on memory, 42%.
2. I worked with iPhoneToday, today. It has things like voicemail, e-mail, texts, etc. on a bottom row which does not scroll, so the important stuff is always visible. It's perfect for organization. You can add home screens at will and even label then on the top. You can change programs and the tabs they use. You can point them at the .exes or the shortcuts in the Start menu. You change the icon spacing and even have them scale to get more on a line. It's the easiest on RAM coming in at 39%. From an appearance standpoint, they really try. True to it's name, it closely resembles the iPhone. (Rubic's Cube) It uses the same size square icons for everything from volume, battery, etc., to e-mail, texts, etc. It just puts a number on the cube. You look around a bit to find what you want. It would look pretty good to someone who hasn't seen Sense. There are not real docs. The basics your will figure out by simply guessing. The other types of formatting are not as straightforward as CHT. The best source I've found is the wiki http://iphonetoday.wikidot.com/the-menus and to ask questions on the thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=633618 where people have been very responsive and helpful. Before I tried it, I just thought it was for iPhone wanabes. Not so. Unlike Sense and Mobile Shell, it is in fact a very well thought out environment when you're looking to use your phone as a single device to organize your world.
3. CHT 2.0: Sense by itself doesn't make any sense. Since people have been hammering me to try CHT, I've been following the CHT threads, 1.85 and 2.0. Normally, it makes sense to go with the newer one because that is where development would be, but my concern is the new 2.0 seems to have worn out the Cookie Monster, and he would be too worn out to support it. However, I decided to try 2.0 since the he wrote every line was gone through and made squeaky clean, and he did stick around long enough to wean the product.
Of the hundreds of posts I read, many say it's pretty resource intensive, and not so good for multi-taskers. (Like me) That makes sense, since it adds functionality to the an already pretty good size Sense UI, so that became my expectation. I started thinking that if it adds say 10%, it would make sense that things would get shaky, pretty quickly. Thus it made sense to test before and after adding CHT. The percent RAM usage came in at exactly 52%, and remained there even after using it for awhile. Since iPhoneToday can be run inside Sense, I'm doing that now. What doesn't make sense is it only requires an additional 2% of RAM.
As for multi-tasking, I'm running out of porkers to load and I'm at 72%. (See attached images) After these screen shots I added Oprah and iPhoneToday, which is a UI on top of a UI. After playing around, I was able to get it to 77%. That's more apps than a 5 person office runs at a time. It still loads things fast. Initially, I thought scrolling perhaps was degraded slightly, but later I did before and after and even that wasn't affected. Maybe I don't have to worry.
As for the CHT UI, I read the User's Manual. It's only 12 pages, and 1/3 has to do with installing it. It's simple enough to where if you read it once to understand the paradigm it uses, you won't need to refer to again. I plan to run iPhoneToday inside of Sense/CHT and organize both to see which I like the best.
Edit It was tough to choose between Cookies Home Tab 2.0, AKA CHT 2.0, and iPhoneToday. You can't lose with either because the struggle is to pick the best of the best, rather than pick your poison. iPhoneToday is light, fast, and smooth. It would win if I were a fan of the iPhone interface, but I'm not a fan of anything except functionality and efficiency. In the end I went with Cookies Home Tab 2.0 for these reasons.
- It allows me to use widgets, and place them wherever I need.
- It allows me to place quicklinks called FreeLinks anywhere
- It allows me to have levels (scroll up and down) as well as pages (scroll side to side)
- If it doesn't support what you want directly, you can indirectly. Example: Let's say you want QuickLinks on all of your pages, line the iPhone, but not on the home screen where you have your clock weather. Just make the upper rows on your home screen invisible. Lets say you want one row of QuickLinks to be the same on every page. Simply pin them.
- There is no practical limitation that I've found as to how you arrange things. I can't say that about anything else I've tried.
- Configuration is easier to understand. The book is only 12 pages, 1/3 is install, another 1/3 is common sense, and the other 1/3 tells doesn't lead you step by step, it gives you the concept of operation. Because of that, once you read it, you'll never have to refer back to the manual.
I may not have gotten any help from the thread this time around, but other threads and people here have helped me plenty. Apparently, it was my turn to give back.
Enjoy!
PS: I also played with ThrottleLauncher and the WP7 clone. It didn't make the cut because its organizational capabilities are far too limited for someone like me (IT Architect) who has lots of apps. It's more for people who's life revolves around a close group of friends, music, and social networking. This is not a problem with ThrottleLauncher itself, but rather the design of the WP7 architecture. The real phone has the same problem.
Forgive my ignorance here. I bought the GTab from Woot solely to learn about Android and tablets, I just got my ipad2 and thats the one I planned on getting the most use out of, but honestly I thought it would be good to have an Android tablet in the house.
Of course, the default OS was painful, so I put on TNTLite and ran some apps and was pretty happy. I haven't used it much since. I am still trying to find a way to stream video to the tablet (and hopefully someday out to my TV, to retire my laptop).....and am not sure which app to use. For Ipad I can use Air Video Server.
BUT ANYWAYS...
The default portal screen on TouchNTap was, I thought, pretty cool....weather, news links and time with your apps available on the bottom row.
Tell me, is there a similar type of portal app you can use on the Gtab? Is there a way to make it just be an alarm clock or a picture frame until you pick it up and want to start using it as a tablet?
TNTLite is cool, and I installed ADWLauncher (I think that is the name), but all I am seeing is now a windows desktop-looking thing. Can you use that front-end with TNTLite? Or is it just adding widgets to a "home screen" like a clock, calendar, web browser, etc.
Thanks!
Take a look at this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=854175
If you want to alter TNT Lite to your liking, it's actually fairly straightforward - once you understand the layout.
When that firmware is run, it layers on a 100% stock image first, then I make the alterations later. You can alter either the updater-script (where the deletions are) or the /system folder (where the additions are) to tweak it to your liking. For example, if you want to keep the TNT launcher, just delete this line from the updater-script:
Code:
delete("/system/app/HomeScreen.apk");
That would add the TNT homescreen back, on the next firmware flash. This is just an example.
Sideload and Switch Home Screens to Get Back Default
HeadRusch1 said:
The default portal screen on TouchNTap was, I thought, pretty cool....weather, news links and time with your apps available on the bottom row.
Tell me, is there a similar type of portal app you can use on the Gtab?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need a "similar" portal app unless you just want it. Just sideload (move the files from your PC to the sdcard via USB cable and then click/install the apks from the sdcard) the original HomeScreen.apk, Weather.apk, Clock.apk, and News.apk - then use the Home Switcher to switch to the Viewsonic HomeScreen - if you want that to be your default.
I've done this since TNTL 2.0 because I also like the look and the options.
Other apk's that will fit into the default HomeScreen package are GroceryList and TaskManager. MediaPlayer will also go into the Viewsonic HomeScreen.
In case you didn't back up the original VS default portal files - I've attached them.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who likes the original VS portal.
Thank you
I'm going to be messing with this to see if I can get it to work......however, I do have one question, and its off topic:
Is there any way to put the Gtab into sleep mode the way that an ipad goes to sleep, so you just tap the screen to wake it up? Or have it so that way it has a permanantly on clock display or a rotating picture frame function with clock?
I'd like to buy the dock for it, but not if I have to hold the power button to wake it up all the time, I realize its a little thing but it is somewhat an annoyance.
First post, but I did my research and couldn't find anything similar.
I'm wondering what the feasible limits are of editing Android. Here's the situation:
I'm thinking of buying the Sony Walkman Z, but would want to create a new interface to make it more music-centric. Would it be possible to create a rom/skin/theme which would act almost nothing like android, but still run android apps?
something like this:
homescreen is fairly normal, clock+link to internet.
swipe left launches music/video app(which I'd like to make custom too, just a pipe dream)
swipe right is list of selected apps (not anticipating having more than the 16 one page could display)
swipe up displays full list of apps (like normal)
shortcut keys work as normal.
don't really need notifications(no texts/calls, don't tweet) so top bar can go away. really that's it. minimalist so as to keep the music the main focus.
A: is it possible?
B: is the skill level required ridiculous high?
C: are there any developers out there willing to take on a challenge?
Thanks so much,
GrIdiot
How do gui designers usually design for Android apps? For iOS apps, I've seen them create a mock up for each device that the app will support (ie iPhone3GS, iPhone4S, iPad2, iPad3) and they supply four sets of drawable resources. I haven't done iOS development so I'm not sure how to translate this process into Android for someone I'm working with. They want to approach it from the same way, by finding the most used device of each density, creating mock ups for them, and giving me the resources that fit those screen sizes, all without obeying the Android principal that all resources should be relative to eachother (ie MDPI -> HDPI you multiply the DP of the graphics by 1.5). For instance, they wanted to give me HDPI resources that fit the galaxy s3 and XHDPI resources that fit the Nexus 10. This approach is basically creating resources by screen resolution, which I know isn't the right way to go. I've tried to explain that the rule for the relationship between each resources size shouldn't be ignored, but at the same time I'm not sure what to tell them when they want to create mock ups. Is there a standard screen resolution for each density that can be used for this purpose? How do other people approach this issue? (I can clarify if this isn't making sense)
"Newbie" looking to create a "standard" android theme. Some starter questions
Hello,
I am not new to Android but I have had a tough time finding a "native" way to create themes. I do not want to use a theme launcher or an alternative home app. I just want to use the standard android home app and create a theme for it. I took a brief look at the theme starting page above but none of the links I tried work. I just want to use the standard android theme (it fits my tastes closely enough) and change only a few things (for now). Here is what I want to change:
Wallpaper (so that it changes periodically through a "slide show"... only one shows currently... I have already some of these)
Lock out Wallpaper (so that a different one shows every time like it currently does... I have already created these)
Replace specific icons (I already have the icons I want to use)
Possibly replace colors of one or two apps (such as texting).
Is it possible to do this?
I have done some initial exploring on my own. My phone came with one theme (and the default theme) and that is it. I found it on my phone and decompiled it. It appears a bit more complex than I was hoping though I understand most of it. There are lots of extra icons I do not want to replace so I have a few questions which are number in parenthesis. First, there appears to be some sort of pseudo java code. I know both C++ and C# and have used them extensively. However Java isn't nearly as familiar. It does not however seem to quite fit the Java syntax I have seen and used in the past.
The files that contain this pseudo java code also seem to define the file names to use for each icon followed by a hex code which I am assuming is the activity that the file is associated with. However, I have not found where it defines the lock out wallpaper. (1) If I only specify specific icons, will the default android icon be used or do I need to identify them all? (2) If I need to do them all, is there a location to download the standard theme for Java 6.0.1 (the version on my phone?) (3) Is there a standard format for themes that can be used by the Android Home/Launcher? (4) Is someone going to update the sticky post above with more recent file links?
I found this icon pack generator tool. (5) Does it create "standard" icon packs that can be used without a third party launcher? I still would like to integrate my own wallpapers and lockout wallpapers though.
primem0er said:
Hello,
I am not new to Android but I have had a tough time finding a "native" way to create themes. I do not want to use a theme launcher or an alternative home app. I just want to use the standard android home app and create a theme for it. I took a brief look at the theme starting page above but none of the links I tried work. I just want to use the standard android theme (it fits my tastes closely enough) and change only a few things (for now). Here is what I want to change:
Wallpaper (so that it changes periodically through a "slide show"... only one shows currently... I have already some of these)
Lock out Wallpaper (so that a different one shows every time like it currently does... I have already created these)
Replace specific icons (I already have the icons I want to use)
Possibly replace colors of one or two apps (such as texting).
Is it possible to do this?
I have done some initial exploring on my own. My phone came with one theme (and the default theme) and that is it. I found it on my phone and decompiled it. It appears a bit more complex than I was hoping though I understand most of it. There are lots of extra icons I do not want to replace so I have a few questions which are number in parenthesis. First, there appears to be some sort of pseudo java code. I know both C++ and C# and have used them extensively. However Java isn't nearly as familiar. It does not however seem to quite fit the Java syntax I have seen and used in the past.
The files that contain this pseudo java code also seem to define the file names to use for each icon followed by a hex code which I am assuming is the activity that the file is associated with. However, I have not found where it defines the lock out wallpaper. (1) If I only specify specific icons, will the default android icon be used or do I need to identify them all? (2) If I need to do them all, is there a location to download the standard theme for Java 6.0.1 (the version on my phone?) (3) Is there a standard format for themes that can be used by the Android Home/Launcher? (4) Is someone going to update the sticky post above with more recent file links?
I found this icon pack generator tool. (5) Does it create "standard" icon packs that can be used without a third party launcher? I still would like to integrate my own wallpapers and lockout wallpapers though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've moved your thread to Q&A as I think it is more appropriate. So you want to keep the standard android launcher, depending on your device you could install a rom that has substratum support. This will allow you to keep your normal launcher but theme every aspect of your rom
sawdoctor said:
I've moved your thread to Q&A as I think it is more appropriate. So you want to keep the standard android launcher, depending on your device you could install a rom that has substratum support. This will allow you to keep your normal launcher but theme every aspect of your rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about my device would it depend on? If I even understand this question, my first guess would be my OEM. since...
I really don't know what you are talking about. Wouldn't the rom depend on the OEM? What if my OEM doesn't provide substratum report (not that I know what that is).