UI long term development perspective: physics engine

Ian Stirling openmoko at mauve.plus.com
Sun Apr 1 13:59:05 CEST 2007


Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:

> Well it's probably going to be a while before I can code again...but I
> would love to see / help form a project to improve OpenMoko's UI. In my
> opinion, we need to create new "verbs." Click, double click, drag, drop,
> etc... are not exciting anymore. The are relics from the Desktop world
> that embedded systems should try as fast as humanly possible to rid
> themselves from. 
> 

Click, drag, drop, ... are based on the fundamentals of a pointer interface.

Touching something you want is very natural, and throwing away 
everything just because it came from the PC is insane.
As is adapting everything that comes from the PC without question.

There are some obvious new 'verbs' - for example chording. The existing 
touchscreen can only detect single touches, but it can detect jumps, 
which gives you in essence another button or several.

And then there are conflicting 'verbs' - for example, drag and draw-glyph.
I suspect in most cases draw-glyph may be more appropriate - even if 
only as dragging on a screen small enough that your finger obscures 
large fractions of it is silly.




More information about the community mailing list