Main Menu layout

[haim]

I think that a grid layout (with large icons) of the main menu will be much better, It looks much better, and it's more comfortable.
It will be hard to do that?
(I mean something like this:)

[saratoga]

I think that a grid layout (with large icons) of the main menu will be much better, It looks much better, and it's more comfortable.
It will be hard to do that?

If you want to design a new tile based gui I think it would be difficult since the current gui is not well isolated from the rest of rockbox.

[[Saint]]

Not terribly difficult...

There's a patch on the tracker that could make this possible (with the appropriate knowledge of Rockbox themeing...) if applied.
I played with it for an hour or so when it was first presented on IRC, and this is definitely possible, but, a reasonable amount of work.


EDIT: However, this would be truly HORRIBLE to use on anything other than a touchscreen device in my opinion.

EDIT 2: There is also a limitation currently that means that text cannot scroll unless its in the "currently selected" viewport, which doesn't seem like much of a big deal...but would be nice to overcome.



[St.]

[haim]

I don't have enough programming knowledge to do such a thing. The maximum I can do is changing a little something that is already exists but not more than that.
I would like to know if something like this already exists, or if there are any plans to do such a thing soon.

[[Saint]]

I don't have enough programming knowledge to do such a thing. The maximum I can do is changing a little something that is already exists but not more than that.
I would like to know if something like this already exists, or if there are any plans to do such a thing soon.

You need not have any programming knowledge at all.

Something like this does already exist, but it not as yet in the official SVN repository and saying it will be at any point in time would be pure speculation.
You are free to set up a development environment and apply the patch and check it out yourself, however, you will need to create a theme that actually uses this new syntax as well.
Simply applying the patch alone will do absolutely nothing at all.


[St.]

[AlexP]

I think you'll find getting everyone to agree will be a much harder task.  Also, you would need to propose how this would work on all the sizes and types of screens we have, e.g. the clip.

[bluebrother]

I think that a grid layout (with large icons) of the main menu will be much better, It looks much better, and it's more comfortable.

I disagree completely.

A grid layout would look *much* worse on several targets -- while it might look good on high resolution colour targets it would look completely crap on other targets. I'm just imagining a grid layout menu on my Ipod Mini (my main player) and there's really a reason why Apple in their firmware didn't use any icons. You won't be able to put the text next to the icons in a useable way on such a target either -- unless you show only a single icon, and that makes navigation much harder. And how would you navigate a grid as in your mockup with a control like the Ipods scrollwheel?

Touchscreen targets are the only ones where it would really make sense, since hitting a line of text can be much harder than hitting an icon with appropriate size.

[haim]

[St.] I didnt find it in filespray, can you give me a link?

bluebrother Maybe in small players you can show only a single icon, and in big players a grid?

[bluebrother]

bluebrother Maybe in small players you can show only a single icon, and in big players a grid?

Well, you can. Except the Archos Player, which doesn't have a graphical display. And having only a single icon shown makes a menu much harder to use, because you're missing some visual order. So no, I don't think that there's any reasonable way to use an icon-only menu on low-res players. Especially as it might become pretty hard to put an additional text to the icon.

[JdGordon]

http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/12124 is the patch to do this. Being able to do a grid was the origional motivation behind it and it would be great if you help test it so it can be finished.

Basically, it has had no testing other than myself and 5 min from [St.], i need to know how useable it is and what else needs doing to finish it.

If you are keen to help then come into irc and we can sort out a build for you and get you going.

edit: The patch as it is is pretty capable, you can for example, have a completly different styled list for the file browser than the main menu (which I imagine most people would want if they use a grid for the menu)

[haim]

http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/12124 is the patch to do this. Being able to do a grid was the origional motivation behind it and it would be great if you help test it so it can be finished.

Basically, it has had no testing other than myself and 5 min from [St.], i need to know how useable it is and what else needs doing to finish it.

If you are keen to help then come into irc and we can sort out a build for you and get you going.

edit: The patch as it is is pretty capable, you can for example, have a completly different styled list for the file browser than the main menu (which I imagine most people would want if they use a grid for the menu)

Thanks! I know how to compile, and how to to create theme, (I created the "Irock" theme for SANSA FUZE) so I guess I will manage about that.
If I'll need more help I'll come into IRC.

[JdGordon]

Haim: Sorry about the quietness on IRC lately, I put some time into the patch tonight and i tihnk i've got most of the bugs out so if you could help test the new patch that would be awesome
Assuming I have got the bugs out I want to make a push to get this into svn so really any feedback would be muchly appreciated

[haim]

JdGordon: I wasn't at home last week so I could not answer, I'll check it out now.

[LambdaCalculus]

Touchscreen targets are the only ones where it would really make sense, since hitting a line of text can be much harder than hitting an icon with appropriate size.

I agree here. Since we have now have two targets (Cowon D2 and m:robe 500) with touchscreens, and now the Android and Maemo builds (also touchscreen targets), a grid menu for those targets would make navigation and use a lot easier.

Since there's talk about separating the components of Rockbox into their own libraries, perhaps if we separate the current gui code off of the rest of Rockbox, we can implement this as a feature built for such targets?

[JdGordon]

Silly lambda The patch above will hopefully be in svn for the next release and a stock grid skin will follow.