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While I was fascinated about the idea of a new UI for WM, the introduction of PointUI was a bit of a damp squib. The story of PointUI is like the story of the emperors clothes: its far from perfect but nobody wants to speak out against the overwhelming hype.There are a few things about the interface that irritate me. Hope fully the updates will take care of this:
1. You cant close any programs from within the UI,only minimise. You get to see running programs after looking through many menus only to find that you have to exit/minimise the UI to really close the program.
2. No app shortcuts. The first screenshots of the UI gave the impression that you could access shortcuts via pages which could be accessed through a simple left or right sliding motion. The current setup puts it just below a properly configured HTC Home with 6 tabs. Whats the point of seeing two versions of the time and the calendar?
3. Screen locking is ridiculous. In this day and age of slide to unlock programs with dpad unlocking and additional information displayed,it seems the prog prioritised being different rather than being practical, especially with the apparent lack of a clock.
Then again, I could be wrong....
hmm
i think PointUI are just in its early stages, however i do agreen with some of your points. We just need to give the developers some time. they have started off with a great base.
they have a fix for the first problem you listed
check the pointui forums for it
its still in beta..so i'm still awaiting how the final product will be
im sure they'll be making some major improvements and additions to it
Vukile said:
1. You cant close any programs from within the UI,only minimise. You get to see running programs after looking through many menus only to find that you have to exit/minimise the UI to really close the program.
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press title of the running program ... you get to the same screen as going through the running programs.
but with the rest i agree its very inefficent to start a program ... efficent handling has to be priored ... not just eyecandy. so i don't use it anymore...
if you are in a program tap where the start button used to be top left and you will get the option to force close.
I also find it better when changing the setting object navigation to slide navigation for getting to my apps.
however
One must admit that it does have an amazing UI. i feel is much better than the iphone UI
# 3 is also addressed by allowing 3rd party screen lock progs like S2U2. Their latest official build 1.01b enables this. I applaud their efforts. Not because its free. Not just cuz its new. But because it is pretty well thought out and performs more smoothly than any other shell app out there, esp w.r.t. animations and transitions.
I second that. I have good expectations for it.
jomo25 said:
# 3 is also addressed by allowing 3rd party screen lock progs like S2U2. Their latest official build 1.01b enables this. I applaud their efforts. Not because its free. Not just cuz its new. But because it is pretty well thought out and performs more smoothly than any other shell app out there, esp w.r.t. animations and transitions.
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If you like PointUI,then youll love SPB Shell. My main problem with this UI is that I can get better efficiency with HTC Home and a couple MortButtons shortcuts. I can access anything faster with that combination than with PointUI. Its not a revolution,its a fancy skin.
Does anyone else find the scrolling to be annoying? How it's inversed and extremely painful to scroll through large content?
chunga168 said:
Does anyone else find the scrolling to be annoying? How it's inversed and extremely painful to scroll through large content?
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Its supposed to be like that. Like you are grabbing the page and flicking it. Have you tried "flicking" its fun.
In fact, I don't like ftouchflo because it doesn't seem to allow me to flick like I want to.
Things I don't like about PointUI:
1) clocks, calendars all don't need to be on seperate screens. Would be nice to have a home screen that shows time/date/appoints/etc and the be able to flick over to application.
2) Not integrated (same problem I have with the cube). Along with the cube, its useful getting to stuff, but when you actually open the program it usually requires a stylus.
Thins I like about PointUI:
1) Smooth scrolling and animations. Honestly its amazing.
Vukile said:
1. You cant close any programs from within the UI,only minimise. You get to see running programs after looking through many menus only to find that you have to exit/minimise the UI to really close the program.
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Try the new patch on the point UI forum posted by the devolepers 2 test, it has the x buttom insted of the - minimise buttom and it closes the programmes ....
@ Vukile: Don't count me in the camp of people who need to have access to "everything in as few clicks as possible". I'd rather have a simple to understand, clean, uncluttered interface, even if it takes a few extra gestures/taps to do it. Very frequently used stuff should be quick, and less frequent, further away. While I understand how some want to have every function within one screen, I'd prefer otherwise. So, I actually like the promise of this more than SPB Shell...But to each his/her own.
@ Chunga168: I also intuitively prefer the iPhone/PocketCM type scrolling, however, the method they have implemented is actually better for long lists. If you have to "iPhone flick" to the bottom of a long list, it could take a while. Being able to have it scroll while holding is actually faster for some. It's a case of preferences IMO, so I hope (and expect) they will implement both and make it optional.
I dont know...ive been trying everything from spb products to all kind of invented cubes...but i guess i will stay longer with pointui because IMO its so interacitve and fast...but a hiccup here and there is normal...but the developer is going to take all of our [email protected] to improve...
Well I've really enjoyed Pointui. It's good that there are developers taking a good look at the Windows Mobile UI, although to be fair HTC themselves have been working on obvious improvements, and Lg might be worth keeping an eye on.
Pointui.Home is beautifully animated, looks good and feels good to use, the developer team seem pretty dedicated, and it has the potential to be an amazing phone interface.
However that is my niggle, see to me, my Artemis is not a phone with a PDA attached, but a PDA with a phone attached, and for all it's graphical loveliness Pointui.Home actually makes using my PDA more complicated. I enjoyed Spb Mobile Shell, it's NOW screens were great, and it's version of finger friendliness with big chunky thumbable buttons worked well. Funnily enough the reason I stopped using it was because it was bloated and buggy, and I wanted to give HTC Home a good run for it's money.
But to me Aesthetics are important, it's nice to use a good looking interface, and Pointui seems to be top for that, but I'm already tempted to remove it, and even tempted to forgive Spb's faults.
Fantastic and I cant wait for some updates, but I really don't like it forcing the left soft button into its own home button!!
daverage said:
Fantastic and I cant wait for some updates, but I really don't like it forcing the left soft button into its own home button!!
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I agree, it should at least give you the option of choosing what you put on the soft keys. It sits on the top bar anyway, why map it? Only seasoned users of PDAs will appreciate the need for simplicity before aesthetic,much in the same direction that Android is headed. Try this exercise for example : uninstall a program using the PointUI and then try it the old fashioned way. The old way is quicker.
does the calendar on the main screen suppose to highlight the days with appointments,etc.? If not, then the calendar is not very useful, and there should be an option to turn it off. Same thing with the analog clock.
A better app launcher is definitely needed. I have suggested in other posts having an icon based launcher a la iPhone when you press the botton down arrow button on the screen, or at least on the main scrolling screen, give us about 4 user definable icons for apps...or have BOTH.
PointUI has a pretty nice interface but is really not that time efficient.
Has anyone tried to remove this program?... Its a headache! I had to find various reg entries and delete them to fully remove it
daverage said:
Fantastic and I cant wait for some updates, but I really don't like it forcing the left soft button into its own home button!!
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that is something you can easily change
Just airing my views for some reason on here.
I don't understand why people put a 6.5.5 rom on their HD2. I have tried it for a few days and immediately flashed back to a 6.5 rom.
1) Its pointless having the start menu icon at the bottom of the screen when we already have a hard key start menu button at the bottom of the phone.
2) The sofkey buttons are big and horrible and make everything look unbalanced.
3) I could understand flashing a 6.5.5 rom to a phone with a smaller screen because of the finger friendly interface, but its not needed on the HUGE HD2 screen. I have never had any problems touching any button on a 6.5 rom.
5) A lot of the text is truncated in the soft key buttons and in other menus making the UI look unfinished and unattractive.
6) By making the rows of menus more spaced out to make it finger friendly, the UI suddenly becomes more unattrative and more scrolling is required. All too big and spaced out.
Rant over
I like it. I have big hands, and now with 6.5.5 it's even easier to use (for me).
What about 4?
tboy2000 said:
Just airing my views for some reason on here.
I don't understand why people put a 6.5.5 rom on their HD2. I have tried it for a few days and immediately flashed back to a 6.5 rom.
1) Its pointless having the start menu icon at the bottom of the screen when we already have a hard key start menu button at the bottom of the phone.
2) The sofkey buttons are big and horrible and make everything look unbalanced.
3) I could understand flashing a 6.5.5 rom to a phone with a smaller screen because of the finger friendly interface, but its not needed on the HUGE HD2 screen. I have never had any problems touching any button on a 6.5 rom.
5) A lot of the text is truncated in the soft key buttons and in other menus making the UI look unfinished and unattractive.
6) By making the rows of menus more spaced out to make it finger friendly, the UI suddenly becomes more unattrative and more scrolling is required. All too big and spaced out.
Rant over
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TOTALLY agree! 1000%
Disagree 1000000%
Looks much nicer at the bottom, its not too big, top menu looks sleaker, I never use the start button on the device. Everything else looks nicer. MP3s work on alarms.
Its basically the same as 6.5 but with improvements, so thats why I dont think its stupid to have it.
The standard theme is ugly, but there are loads of really good looking themes, next you'll be saying the scroll bar on sense is too big on the HD2.
I agree 100% With the o.p.
6.5.5 makes manilla looks like a kludge at best and the little it does improve is out weghed by complications it adds to many apps. not to mention the waste of screen space. i think they should have just increased the size of the taskbar slightly.
I agree too. I had it for just over a day and rather than getting used to it, I found it fuglier by the minute! I'd rather 6.1 than 6.5.5.
Aterlatus said:
What about 4?
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srsly OP, lurn too kount!
lude219 said:
srsly OP, lurn too kount!
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lol - you're pulling someone up about counting? I think spelling's quite important too
as i said in another thread, the photon build of windows mobile 7 would be an interesting experience on an HD2
Couldn't agree more. I find the buttons on the bottem terrible. To big, no advantages and they really mess up the balance of your screen.
Agree, specially the unnecessary big buttons at the bottom..
I like the buttons on the bottom, just change the theme. Square and shiney goes along way.
oops yes I forgot 4. Silly me.
I really perhaps (with my arm twisted) see the benefit on a SMALLER screen but with the HUGE screen of the LEO, there is just no need to make finger friendly with big ugly buttons and other enlarged aspects.
Yes you can make the buttons vanish but the text is still truncated in aspects and the whole screen looks bottom heavy too.
for some people 4 is just simply unlucky... anyway. call me heretic if You want, but for me 6.5 on leo is just perfect. best of both past and present of winmo. sense on top of it powered with cookie's tab and john's editor makes it even more sweet and usefull.
see... nowadays I just visit these forums only to read what's going on. I've stopped tweaking it (my leo) as it is great now.
I can't disagree enough..
for me 6.5.5 is what an operating system should be..
there are some things that need a bit of tweaking, but it's still very much work in progress.
As to the bottom buttons, you can easily get rid of the start and X (either or both ) very very easily..
otherwise it works perfectly for me
tboy2000 said:
Just airing my views for some reason on here.
I don't understand why people put a 6.5.5 rom on their HD2. I have tried it for a few days and immediately flashed back to a 6.5 rom.
1) Its pointless having the start menu icon at the bottom of the screen when we already have a hard key start menu button at the bottom of the phone.
2) The sofkey buttons are big and horrible and make everything look unbalanced.
3) I could understand flashing a 6.5.5 rom to a phone with a smaller screen because of the finger friendly interface, but its not needed on the HUGE HD2 screen. I have never had any problems touching any button on a 6.5 rom.
5) A lot of the text is truncated in the soft key buttons and in other menus making the UI look unfinished and unattractive.
6) By making the rows of menus more spaced out to make it finger friendly, the UI suddenly becomes more unattrative and more scrolling is required. All too big and spaced out.
Rant over
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Click to collapse
Agree. Only flashed 6.5.5 once, didnt like the look. It looked a bit messy in the home screen and also had some problems with some apps. Flashed back to 6.5. Nice and easy......"simples"
I like what the stock theme on the touch hd mini has done with the 6.5.3 start button, I would just like to see something official to see what the htc sense guys have done with it, seeing as they don't get to play with 7 either.
what is so special about the 6.5.3 start menu. any videos or images?
Someone needs to develop a new home screen manager. One that instead of just moving left to right moves up and down as well. This way screens are always just one flick away instead of 2 or more depending on where you are at. It would be like a cube where the main homescreen is in the middle and the other 4 screens would each be in a direction (up, down, left, right). Moving from one of those screens in a direction (up, down, left, right) would result like moving from the home screen. So more than just a cube. A little more complex. I'll develop it if someone can help me along. Just an idea i had when looking at the linear movement of the ui.
Unfortunately I don't have any of the required skills or time to match even 1% of the ability of the Android development community but I'd definitely second this request. A very unique idea and I really like it.
BTW, a big thanks to the devel community. Without you guys fulfilling my gadget whore needs, I'd be buying a new device every week!
This is cool..maybe even an option in the notification bar to switch screens while in an app? Like the Linux desktop cube?
Sent from my Floyo Tazz using XDA App
Rather than write something from scratch, maybe you could try to contribute this as an option in ADW.Launcher?
This has already been done before on a certain rom. I remember it being ported to the vogue android. I cant remember the phone it was ported from though. Blur or something.
Gde home had exactly this feature
~ The Nameless Creator
Actually there were a few Windows CE based home mangers that had this feature. I also would love to have this. I asked a while back and got no response as to if there is anthing out there that did this.
wouldnt it be kinda hard to keep track of which screen is in which direction? like it seems orientation would feel very complex. but maybe not, i dunno
SLOflatlander said:
wouldnt it be kinda hard to keep track of which screen is in which direction? like it seems orientation would feel very complex. but maybe not, i dunno
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I could see something like dots on the edge of the screen kinda like how launcher pro does it.
SLOflatlander said:
wouldnt it be kinda hard to keep track of which screen is in which direction? like it seems orientation would feel very complex. but maybe not, i dunno
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Click to collapse
Wait'll you see the home screen replacer I'm building based on a tesseract.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract
You just need to turn your head sideways to keep track of what face you're on.
Who doesn't want 24 home screens?
For a 4 or 5 way slide/cube desktop, look at Dx Top. It has not been updated for a while but is stable and can use themes built for many of the other desktop replacements.
I have been running it over many ROMs and it works on all so far. Was a little funny with the app drawer on SkyRaider, it kept rebuilding the icons for some reason, that might have been due to installing too many icon packs.
Thanks for the support on this guys and the answers. i'm going to do some research and see what can be done/ported or if needed then created. Just trying to do like most people and think outside the box. Its what makes android 1000x better than the iphone/ipod scene. They are so restricted. i mean come on. 1 button. But keeping on topic, i really appreciate no flaming on the topic.
I love my Dell Streak. But one thing I find really annoying is why the popup menus are so slow? It was on the official 2.1 and now the official 2.2 has the same problem.
For example, long pressing on the homescreen brings up the wallpaper/widget popup menu - it fades in so slowly as though the phone is struggling. All these types of menu across the OS are slow. Scrolling down these menus is even worse.
I have a 600mhz Android phone too, running 2.1 - it has no problems with these menus.
Is there any fix for this?
I got that on the 315_12332 version of 2.2 and anything thay poped up over the home screen like adding anything, especially adding widgets and trying to scroll down the list was a nightmare, and quick texts with Handcent was a nightmare to reply back with cos the keyboard would slow right down. That's when I check out this link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=848487 and it made the phone soooo much faster, better and smoother to run! To some it might not be a simple fix but it was simple enough for me after a bit of reading, even though I'm new to the whole Android flashing scene.
Hello,
SGS2, has a bit lag with touch dragging over the screen.
I will explain : try to touch any movable object on the screen, for example a scrollable internet page.
Now try to move your finger up and down, up and down, for a couple of time,
you will feel a little bit delay of the moving object.
Now, I did try MIUI for example, and the problem doesn't exist.
So, this is absolutely software issue, I guess the kernel is responsable for that.
Is there any solution for this one ?
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1161262
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
gusoldier said:
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1161262
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
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Thanks, but this is not exactly what I meant.
Even when the screen begins to move, and you are moving your finger, the screen is moving lazily after your finger, and not like it was stuck to your finger as it suppose to be.
Maybe is't a performance issue, but, again, in MIUI for example the screen moves as it was stuck to your finger.
Also for me it seems to stutter for the first second or so after touching the screen, then going smooth as butter. I haven't tried any custom roms so I don't know if it's a software issue or not.
isotoper said:
Thanks, but this is not exactly what I meant.
Even when the screen begins to move, and you are moving your finger, the screen is moving lazily after your finger, and not like it was stuck to your finger as it suppose to be.
Maybe is't a performance issue, but, again, in MIUI for example the screen moves as it was stuck to your finger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try that app, as I remember something like that, and changing it to 0 or 5 fixes it.
Or try a custom kernel with the fix applied.
this might be because the touch system is figuring out if you're doing a CLICK or a DRAG or a SLIDE or whatever. it will take around half a second for it to figure out if you just touched the screen once or you held down the screen and slide it across.
Some kernels address this issue , most roms will have it fixed and those who don't just flash different kernel , only stock rom will have this problem.