GTA03 wish list (was: What US plans are people using?)

[steve]

We had a many debates about this: finger fans on one side, stylus guys on
the other side. In the end the spirit of openness prevailed. Since its open
source we cannot require or determine or impose any kind of "thou shalt not
use thy finger" or " thou shalt use the stylus" 

Generally speaking I think a good portion of us in OM, would like to see a
finger thing, falling back to stylus when the finger simply cannot do the
job.

So internally a flexible pragmatic philosophy, externally, folks
can do whatever floats their boat. as it should be.

So, the Box contains a stylus. 

-----Original Message-----
From: community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org
[mailto:community-bounces at lists.openmoko.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Dean
Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 10:00 AM
To: List for Openmoko community discussion
Subject: Re: GTA03 wish list (was: What US plans are people using?)

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Stroller <linux.luser at myrealbox.com>
wrote:

>   One of the objectives of openmoko is to no need to use the stylus
>   at all ...  When devels talk about "mokofy" (port to openmoko) some
>   aplication one of the chalenges is to use it with out stylus.

Either this is NOT a real goal of Openmoko or the developers suck at
it. There are SEVERAL applications on Openmoko that require a stylus
(many of the games, for instance). As far as I know, the criteria
"Openmoko apps must be usable with fingers" has never been set.


>
>  http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2008-April/016014.html

Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but the person who said that isn't a
developer, let alone someone with the authority to ensure the
developers comply with that directive on Openmoko released
applications.

>
>  I was VERY pleased the other day to read this, as I find it fiddly to
mess
> around with a stylus.

I hate the stylus with a PASSION too. In my opinion, this is NOT a
GTA03 issue but a GTA02 issue. There's debate ove the box contents of
the Freerunner. If the box does NOT include a stylus, I think the
software applications MUST be written in a way that is functional
without it. I'm of the opinion that everything needed to use the
device must be included in the box. You don't NEED an SD card to use
the Freerunner but you DO need a battery. If the software that will be
"Openmoko" REQUIRES a stylus, I think it's really a crappy thing to do
for Openmoko NOT to ship one with the box.

Making this decision is, in my opinion, important NOW.

>
>  Despite previous phones I've owned having stylus holders, I have always
> lost them. I guess a stylus holder simply doesn't actually _hold_ so well.

The idea of a device that "does everything" is to eliminate the need
to carry around an address book, an ipod, a GPS navigation device, a
calculator and so on. Without a way to tuck the stylus away it's
adding to the number of items a person has to carry around (and
track). I personally carry my Neo, my wallet and my car keys (which
actually CAN work as a stylus, as long as I'm not driving). I don't
carry a pen and I don't carry a stylus. A dependancy on the stylus on
the applications would INCREASE the number of things I have to carry
around (which to me, decreases the value of a Neo).

>
>  Apart from this, it always seems to me much more natural to use my
fingers,
> but of course on previous phones the on-screen buttons are too small.
>
>  I would love a link, if anyone has one, to official developer
documentation
> stating the no-stylus requirement.


As far as I know, there isn't one. In fact, I think the guildelines
for application development are either non-existant, incomplete or
flat out disregarded. This is something that raises a bit of
uncertainty... What toolkits are supposed to be used? (GTK is in the
default image, but Illume is an Openmoko project that uses EFL...
Should EFL be considered a part of the default Openmoko stack? What UI
conventions are there? Some Openmoko apps use popups (like adding a
new contact from dialer) where as the vast majority of others use a
tab based system (like adding a new playlist in Media Player).

>From my perspective, there's not much organization on what actually
should happen on Openmoko to keep things consistant (keeping in mind
that the KDE/Gnome working together like crap is a BIG reason
GNU/Linux looses mass appeal - people demand consistancy. It's why
Apple's products are instantly recognizable and revered for being
"sexy".)


>
>  Stroller.
>
>
>
>
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