ASU software - pre-pre-release impressions

Joseph Reeves iknowjoseph at gmail.com
Tue May 20 14:11:15 CEST 2008


I've just booted it for the first time, can't really say anything
about it yet, but the boot screen is perfect for me as an
Archaeologist :)

Joseph



On 19/05/2008, Ian Darwin <ian at darwinsys.com> wrote:
> I have been using a FreeRunner for a few days with a pre-pre-alpha
>  snapshot of the ASU software. For those who have been off-list for a
>  while, or who have not been looking at the Wiki much, the April
>  Software Update switches the Window Manager from matchbox to
>  Enlightenment (E17) and the main applications from the GTK-based apps
>  (developed by OpenMoko and OpenedHand) to QTopia (but using X11, of
> course).
>
>  The new phone is in the same case, so it looks and feels a lot like a
>  GTA01. I think the partition numbers for dfu-util have changed; newer
>  versions of dfu-util allow you to use the partition names instead of the
>  numbers. Beware.
>
>  The Home Page (aka Launcher) can now be displayed either in an Icon Grid
>  (conventional cell phone style, e.g., Blackberry, and the traditional
>  QTopia format) or a "slider" style (the latter demonstrated by MokoNinja
>  here:
> http://people.openmoko.org/ninjutsu/freerunner1.4.swf
> (flash
>  required).
>
>  The small home/current-apps menu has been replaced by a larger
>  slide-down top panel, listing the current apps, and containing the time,
>  battery panel, GSM on/off, qwerty keyboard on/off, Configuration, and
>  the Enlightenment menu.
>
>  Neither of the above is, AFAIK, cast in stone.
>
>  I must admit I have mixed feelings about the switch from OM/GTK apps to
>  QTopia. However, I recognize the need to get something "finished" in a
>  reasonable time and I infer Sean et al felt the need to go this way;
>  in hindsight, building the whole thing from scratch is a daunting task,
>  and something that QTopia has been honing for several years.
>
>  The QTopia apps do have a somewhat more conventional "cell phone"
>  feel to them (see my screenshot of the Contacts "Overview" page here:
>  http://www.darwinsys.com/tmp/contacts1.png).
>
>  So, I think we're in good hands here. On to the "experience".
>
>  Short form: functionally, it works.  Among other things, the phone wakes
>  up reliably on incoming rings (assuming it's booted and suspended, of
>  course), and GSM voice works after a resume.
>
>  There are still some minor glitches. I hope I'm not out of line
>  reporting these here, given how pre-pre my software is, but Steve has
>  been asking me to report on this list since my FreeRunner arrived. I
>  remind everybody reading this to remember that this is PRE-PRE-RELEASE
> software. None of this intended as criticism of those who worked under time
> deadline to make this early release ready for the show I was presenting OM
> at!  Nonetheless these are things that I would not like to have fall through
> the cracks.
>
>  1) Incoming calls do wake up the phone, but by the time the dialer
>  appears on screen, several rings have gone by, and, by the time you
>  press Answer and get it recognized, the screen hasn't responded, the
>  Answer button changes to Hangup, so if you double-clicked it, you can
>  easily hang up on your caller without intending to.
>
>  2) The ASU software features a qwerty-keyboard. It is switchable between
>  alphabetics and numerics; unfortunately the gesture  needed to do this
>  (a triangle drawn counter-clockwise from lower left) is a bit hard to
>  get right; hopefully there will be a  button to switch this. As well,
>  the current version of ASU uses QTopia's input manager, offering what
>  looks like a predictive style but is  actually doing a dictionary
>  lookup; I find this very distracting compared to a plain do-what-I-type
>  keyboard, and would welcome an easy way to turn this off (I thought
>  Lorne Potter posted this once, but I couldn't find it).
>
>  3) It's easy to accidentally start an application (thus slowing down
>  what you're trying to really do) while scrolling the home screen in icon
>  grid mode.
>
>  4) The Preferences that are in the top slide-down panel's Wrench icon
>  should presumably be merged with the Preferences App.
>
>  5) The shutdown dialog does not have a cancel or Back button.
>  And, it often doesn't actually shutdown.
>
>  All for now. Again, please remember that this is very early access.
>  And don't let my nit-picking distract you from the fact that it's
>  looking good for something that was merged only a few weeks ago!
>
>  Ian Darwin
>
>
>
>
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