Notices

Canola team,

Here's some suggestion style feedback on the interface/ease of use. I'll happily submit any of these to your site/tracker if you wish, but some of these i'm curious to know what you/others think first. If everyone ignores them i'll just submit them anyway

Bit of a long post, sorry if I ramble.

Text Size of Time Elapsed/Remaining

Sitting 2-3 feet from the N800 screen mounted to my car windscreen, I can no longer quite read the track timings. I'm pretty sure I could in version 1, and it's good to be able to. Could these be a little bigger, and if you felt that it compromised the overall look, could they be tweakable somehow for those that wanted it?

OPML Import for RSS Feed List

The best first feature of any RSS capable application in my opinion is the ability to import an OPML file (ideally stored locally) to get a list of feeds into the application easily. The worst thing about apps like Videocenter, which I otherwise quite liked back in Bora, was having to tap in 20-30 URL's by hand. Any chance of letting me import my OPML podcast feed list?

Double Tap to avoid Accidental Selection

Sometimes when scrolling it's all too easy to accidentally tap a second time and end up opening a new track when you're trying to listen to one already. I've come to like the standard Maemo interface where a highlighted item needs a second tap to confirm that i'm selecting it. It occurs to me that this might work quite well on the scrolling albums and menus, or again, as a tweakable option? I admit, this might not feel so smooth in practice, but it's an idea. I hate losing my place in a 2 hour podcast, but I'd like to be free to browse album covers whilst listening.

Jump Back using Task Switcher Icon

Handful, i've read your blog post from 11 Dec about the switcher now not being used as a major task switcher, but it strikes me that when it is in the "4 little blobs that look like the top menu" state it would be great if tapping it would jump back to the top menu. It seems so logical I even tried it a few times expecting it to happen.

From "Now Playing" it takes 5 taps to get back there. It took similar work in Canola 1, but we had the option of hitting the audio icon to go straight back - I suspect a lot of people liked that. I realise that hitting the hardware menu key has this effect, but part of the beauty of your interface is that its all there on the screen. It would seem to make perfect sense for the switcher icon in "4 blobs" state to have the same effect as the menu hardware button.

And finally i'll say yet again, i'm really enjoying using C2, and i'm very impressed with your positive attitude towards feedback, constructive or otherwise. Keep up the great work, but also make sure you have a break some time over the next few days

Cheers,
Tom.

Hi tom,

Thanks for the info, let's talk about them :


"Text Size of Time Elapsed/Remaining"
>> actually I knew car users would be the ones to be really bother with that size, and we didn't change it for the car users because we have a little nice surprise for you coming, the car mode (that gives a new bigger UI for most used features in the car) as well carman integrated.

But as any suggestion I'm writing down this one on my list because I also do find them small, so if more users comments on this, we will study a change.

OPML Import for RSS Feed List
Double Tap to avoid Accidental Selection
>> Yes, we did that in Canola1, and it is on the list of canola 2, is only needing time to implement and test strongly. so don't worry about that will be there =) Also I am asking some browser buddies to make a extension to make easier to add to canola feeds etc.


"Sometimes when scrolling it's all too easy to accidentally tap a second time and end up opening a new track when you're trying to listen to one already. I've come to like the standard Maemo interface where a highlighted item needs a second tap to confirm that i'm selecting it. It occurs to me that this might work quite well on the scrolling albums and menus, or again, as a tweakable option? I admit, this might not feel so smooth in practice, but it's an idea. I hate losing my place in a 2 hour podcast, but I'd like to be free to browse album covers whilst listening."

This a real issue, and I hear you. But while I think this needs something I think we will go with a area dedicated for select and other for scroll. two clicks in a sensitive scroll list don't works quite well as they would on a scrollbased list as you're used. Anyways this is by far... my main concern now, how to improve the list, reduce accidental scrolling / click and of course making it simple and visually appealing.



"Jump Back using Task Switcher Icon

Handful, i've read your blog post from 11 Dec about the switcher now not being used as a major task switcher, but it strikes me that when it is in the "4 little blobs that look like the top menu" state it would be great if tapping it would jump back to the top menu. It seems so logical I even tried it a few times expecting it to happen."

Yes, you got to the point the icon was supposed to be the main menu, or the task switcher, but in the end I decided to give more "focus" to the music application, but now with the ideas for the hardware keys this could be a solution. The problem is that the n810 is not again giving us a 4-way in the easy way.

but...


"From "Now Playing" it takes 5 taps to get back there. It took similar work in Canola 1, but we had the option of hitting the audio icon to go straight back - I suspect a lot of people liked that. ..."

for that we placed (ok not so easy to find, but we plan to show it more in the future releases) in the back button, just hold it a little bit and takes you to menu at any level.

Why I do that: I really want to protect that spot on the corner for the task switcher once time has come, but of course if things show up to be screwed up, I would perfectly place the shortcut there.

" ... And finally i'll say yet again, i'm really enjoying using C2, and i'm very impressed with your positive attitude towards feedback, constructive or otherwise. Keep up the great work, but also make sure you have a break some time over the next few days..."

I think my wife would be really happy if I stay away from this forum for 1 week or more, but I think I really need to read, absorb, comment and answer things that appear here fast to make sure people knows we are here. I get a little sad when people talk about "too much hype etc" and for us in the team, the hype is more about pushing the limits and helping the platform show off it's power. But we don't slow down =) Now it's time to fix those issues, improve the plugin support so we can release the documentation (and some open plugins as examples) to see how far can we go.

BR

Marcelo