Hey all,
a very short time ago - at least compared to most others here - I've have started playing with 'additional interfaces'. The Cube, PointUI, S2U2, HTC Album, additional helpers like FTouchFlo, etc.
These are all nice things, that goes without saying, and props to the devs. We got some really good software devs here, software hackers, tweaks, graphics guys, just good thinkers, etc.
Now what is the problem, you might ask. The problem is, it's all so very disconnected. Yes, you combine them all and make nice things, but setting it up isn't always easy (though some cooks do a great job of it), configuring it all to work nicely together is tiresome, the interfaces are not consistent with eachother, etc. We're all messing and mucking about as one man shows (or few men shows).
Now just think if we all put our efforts together, I think we could make the future ourselves.
Let's take gesturing for instance. Instead of how it works now, a general gesturing library could be made, which first off, provides more gestures, diagonals (instead of just horizontal/vertical), curves (like rotating in HTC Home), circles, etc. And now instead of just using these for general commands like now (keep that for unsupported apps), make this something each app or screen can configure/assign themselves. No more conflicts between different 'touch apps', and also very important, the gestures are the same, unlike the somewhat different gestures that are now used for the different apps.
Another thing is the interfaces. A consistent look (to the already consistant feel from above) would make the whole experience better. A general interface library could be made providing all the code for the transitions/animations, and interface parts like buttons. Everything graphical goes here, so we can all use it. Skinning everything would then also be a breeze.
With these two basic parts we could already go a long way, but the ultimate goal would be taking all the good of all projects, improve on those, and leave out the bad. For example, the cube is nice, but it's awfully limited. There could be a lot more in it. There's nothing special about HTC Album, it's just 'nicely done'.
I hope you can all imagine a bit what I mean with all the above (I try not to go into too much detail). We would all have to work together on this, but if we did, I'm quite sure we could build something that could completely replace the WM shell and would leave the iPhone as well as WM7 (if it ever comes) biting the dust. In the end, everybody who'd work on it may even get payed if we license it to a provider. I truely believe that the whole would be a lot bigger than the parts are now.
I'd expand more on 'my' vision (I'm sure other people have it as well), but it's not much use at this stage yet.
The furure is now, the future is XDA!
yess!! amen!! <3
anyway, why don't we all make open source apps? i mean i think it would be cool to make everyone work on one amazing thing..
It's an exciting notion for sure. I definitely have 100x more faith in the people here to come up with something worthwhile than I do in Microsoft, that's for sure.
That's the problem with the new applications: consistency.
personally I'd love to see pointUI release an API for its interface library. I think they have one of the most responsive and usable touchUIs. I posted this on their forum but didn't get a response.
I think this is a good idea as we have so many different gesturing projects reinventing the wheel. With a unified starting point, it could help new projects get off the ground faster.
Biggest problem: Not everybody is willing to share source codes.
Does anybody knows Xbox Media Center (XBMC) for the Xbox 1? Something like this for PPC would be the breakthrough imho..
Yes i totally agree. Having libraries that other developers can use is a great idea, or sharing code would be good. I made a post few days back about sharing the libraries but i didn't get any reply. I think i didn't make my point as clear as you
I am currently developing some apps (fringer friendly), but i am having lots of touble researching, developing POC, etc to make gestures, transitions and animations etc, which is really time consuming and takes more time from concentrating on the core functionalities of the applications.
So yes developing reusable libraries is definitly a great step that this forum can take.
Might i add, why dont we start a developers group here limited on devs who want to contribute with their code, idea to build these libraries? Where we can discuss the design and architecture of the libraries, export functions etc, needed controls etc.
We might also come up with great framwork that devs can use and sell it (as u mentioned). OpenNetCF did that, they created a large number of controls, .Net wrappers for Win32 APIs, etc, it started out as an opensource project, but then they started selling these their framework.
Hope other developers here become enthusiastic about this idea as we are
TacoLoco said:
Does anybody knows Xbox Media Center (XBMC) for the Xbox 1? Something like this for PPC would be the breakthrough imho..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I started working on an similar application sometime back but dropped it cause i didn't have much time and development resources (especially cool graphical effects) to do it. Actually it was more of the MS Media Center clone.
Well this is a great place to start... we can group together and start working on an application like that....
mrabie said:
Yes i totally agree. Having libraries that other developers can use is a great idea, or sharing code would be good. I made a post few days back about sharing the libraries but i didn't get any reply. I think i didn't make my point as clear as you
I am currently developing some apps (fringer friendly), but i am having lots of touble researching, developing POC, etc to make gestures, transitions and animations etc, which is really time consuming and takes more time from concentrating on the core functionalities of the applications.
So yes developing reusable libraries is definitly a great step that this forum can take.
Might i add, why dont we start a developers group here limited on devs who want to contribute with their code, idea to build these libraries? Where we can discuss the design and architecture of the libraries, export functions etc, needed controls etc.
We might also come up with great framwork that devs can use and sell it (as u mentioned). OpenNetCF did that, they created a large number of controls, .Net wrappers for Win32 APIs, etc, it started out as an opensource project, but then they started selling these their framework.
Hope other developers here become enthusiastic about this idea as we are
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are saying pretty much what I mean. Though the gesture thing wouldn't really be like a library, more like a service with an interface.
Anyway, setting up a dev group like this would IMHO be great (and I was thinking this myself) - we do need a larger group though. After all, if we don't want to, we don't have to share the source code, we can keep it in the group, or use a 'read-only' licence, or LGPL or something (though I'm personally not too fond of the GPL license).
I am convinced, that given enough time, I could do all of this myself. I am also convinced, that many other coders here could. But why should we?
WOW
well im no programmer or developer,just a guy with a titan, but I think you guys are talking about the perfect ui. sort of a modular system where the base ui has all the key functions and you could just plugin the core features of your choice without the need of base code for things like scrolling and gesture,etc... this makes me wonder why no ones done this yet. maybe I can learn abuot developing so I can help. incredible ui idea. thanx
I'm a designer and i'm in for this project!
Let's beat the crap out of the iphone and wm7!
Let us use the good parts from that interfaces and make it better, slicker, more beautifull!
gr. bram
Chainfire
i think there are more people getting interested in the idea... hope that more devs, designers gets interested too
Totally agree, maybe we should start getting the developers/designers (thanks bram_smulders!)/cookers and so on in this project...we could list apps, that are developed in and through this community and maybe - with a little moderation - the developers could agree on some standarts...i think that would be first step...
I'd be willing to help as well, I haven't done too much on the PPC. I've messed a little with the minshell and mintask examples in the wince6 sdk; they compile and run but don't function as expected btw.
help needed ?
Hi all, chainfire as said what i was thinking about thoses different and very nice UIs.
I'm not a developper, just a system IT, if i can help to beta-test the products of your project on my trinity..I'll do it w/ best feedback.
Hi,
I'm a french VB.net developper (even on WM, of course) and I can help that way. if u want !
let me know ( cyril [at] rebreyend {dot} com )
Input
I wouldn't mind working towards the goals outlined for a project like this. I'm especially fond of a gesture library of sorts, as well as a fully functional kinetic scrolling lib.
You can always PM if anything gets started .
I think also that instead of starting from scratch and make another PointUI Home we can try to expand an existing project... Maybe PointUI could have wrote a simili-SDK ? (or someone else ?)
I'll try to contact them, and come back here to tell how far i've been trashed
Anyone have an idea of who has already written something open source ?
P.S: Sorry for my english.
I want to focus on developing GUIs but I'm not sure where to start. I just read through a few pages of http://source.android.com/ to get more information and it was helpful but I'm still not sure what my skill set should be. I also went through Google's new App inventor and finished all the tutorials but it still seems like a toy.
I can: design interfaces, code javascript, implement XML (weak on C and Java but I get it), create anything using photoshop or any graphic application, color-coordinate, test and implement and write--I can write technical instructions fairly well.
So... that said, what's a typical Android designer's skill-set?
Thanks.
Patience, mellowness and a strong constitution!
The Android development platforms so far available are pretty poor if you're used to something like Visual Studio. The best option seems to be Eclipse running the Android ADT plugin. There is plenty of documentation about how to get it all up and running and it is quite easy to install and configure. The app inventor is a toy for non-developers to create simple applications and it works well for what it is but as soon as you want more complex UIs or more complex code, especially when it comes to using external libraries, you will need to get into Eclipse.
You have the right skills, in fact I would say UI and graphics design is the weakest area for many developers. It is for me. I can write beautiful functional code that does amazing things but my UIs suck unless they are simple. I always need to find someone who can help me with that. In my experience, and I have a lot of commercial code development experience, good UI design is a widely missing skill. It therefore pays well and is highly sought after. You might consider specialising in it?
Be careful going from C to Java. Java is still a pig of a language, do a little googling for "problems with Java" and be especially careful of the fact that Java passes everything by reference unless you use cloning. If you don't always write very loosely coupled methods and are good with encapsulation, this will bite you and often in very difficult to understand ways. I recommend running through each method with only this in mind before you consider the first version of the method complete.
My advice to you is to get Visual Studio Express (they're free), either VB or C#, it really doesn't matter, and become proficient with object oriented programming, proper error handling and scope of objects and variables. Do these things, and assuming that you have the right mindset to create good code, and you'll protect yourself from all the usual bugs that amateur developers introduce.
Then move back to Java. Java is a lot easier to be proficient in when moving from something like VB or C# because whilst frustrating, due to the things you'll miss, you will at least know rather than "not know what you don't know", if that makes sense.
If you are serious about doing this for a living, buy some books by Steve MacGuire.
"Writing Solid Code"
"Debugging the development process"
If every develope could do what these books teach, we would have a much more capable software world.
Good luck!
I have the same question? What do you think will be future programming? Developing web apps like Facebook or Android apps?
How is with work today?
I did banchelors from computer science, and want to try masters now, but I need to choose developing Androids apps or Webapps. I am pretty good at C#, JavaScript, XML.
There's a lot of milage in mobile apps, will be good for many years but there is no doubt that the future is web apps.
Excellent! What a great response. Source.android has a lot of information on what a developer should know but I still can't find information on Android GUI design--specifically. Any advice on this?
Thanks.
I think everyone should learn some c/c++ or other native language. Most will say im crazy for saying this but to appreciate what comes with the languages u mentioned above(which are all managed code) I think you should learn power and use behind native code.
c#, java, .net are all good places to start, i would not go with vb. If you choose to start with c/c++ you will be able to do any of the above easily. Tho others think its harder to learn...I say others bc i have always preferred c/c++ to the above.
Simonta... You rock!
Many Thanks.