the future of the UI
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I am asking myself if a future UI concept exists at UBports? Don't get me wrong on that. It's not criticism and I do know that the resources of Ubports are very limited.
Nevertheless, I am wondering if in the next Mir version scopes just vanish and that's it? My hands are to small for an sidebar on the left side – using my Opo one handed. That's not even a joke. That's just reality. I could manage a flipped UI – sidebar on the right – which isn't Unity at all, I know.
Therefore the question occurred to me what happens when scopes vanish? Is there any feature from the bottom? Any new UI design?In my opinion the UI design from Canonical was something new back in the days. Something refreshing, but since the beginning not much has chanced or evolved.
Like I said before I am well aware that Ubports has not much resources. But maybe with some creative approches there could be some help from the community. Sailfish OS e.g. has a patchmanager which allows the community to make small changes of the UI. In this way they help Jolla to develop the UI.
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@makeixo said in the future of the UI:
Nevertheless, I am wondering if in the next Mir version scopes just vanish and that's it?
It has nothing to do with the version of Mir really, but yes the newer version of Unity8 no longer has scopes.
@makeixo said in the future of the UI:
Therefore the question occurred to me what happens when scopes vanish?
The Apps scope is replaced by the App Drawer, and the interaction model is still basically the same as it was with scopes (only there are no other scopes/views to switch between by left/right swipe in middle of screen). Short swipe from left opens launcher, and long swipe (or tapping on the big orange button in the corner) opens the drawer, where all apps are listed.
@makeixo said in the future of the UI:
Is there any feature from the bottom?
Swipes from bottom edge are not reserved by the system in the new Unity8, no.
If there are specific issues/concerns, anyone is welcome to file bugs, but "I can't use my excessively large device designed for two hands usage, with one hand" is I think not a good argument for making drastic changes to the UI as such. At best it's an argument that we need much better accessibility support.
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Hello.
We try to get the UI as solid and cohesive as we can. There is a plan to move the toolkit (elements) to updated version but we want to keep the same philosophy: minimalistic, elegant and simple interface at least in the system as a whole and for the core apps. You can find the guidelines here.It true thought that we miss a part of the user experience that is accessibility and we should work on that. Issues can be added here to keep track of what's missing.
For now, what you could do as a work around is use UT Tweak Tool to scale the UI as a whole.
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Its acutally a bit sad that scopes just vanish like that. I always have been a fan of those "information center" screens like scopes, modular launcher, bb hub, sfos event screen etc... The handling hasnt been perfect but still it was in my opinion an idea that had quite a lot of potential.
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@makeixo
Yes, well... The focus necessarily needs to be on the code that can actually be actively maintained, either by the developers or by upstream.
But this is an Open Source project, so feel free to (gain the necessary skills to) pitch in. -
@makeixo Scopes were just an extremely complicated way of writing apps, especially given the later stages where the interaction was becoming more and more like just using apps. They are difficult to write correctly, confusing, and difficult to maintain the infrastructure, as well as not being a converged interface. They really never fully fit into the "big picture" aspect of Unity being a converged system working across all types of screens and devices.
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@dobey Thx for clarifying that.
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@arubislander said in the future of the UI:
The focus necessarily needs to be on the code that can actually be actively maintained, either by the developers or by upstream.
I do understand that. Especially because its an volunteer project, the code has to be easy to maintain. Nevertheless to be successful I think the UI has to attractive as well.
@arubislander said in the future of the UI:
But this is an Open Source project, so feel free to (gain the necessary skills to) pitch in.
I am not an IT guy. I dont think abolishing job-sharing makes a lot of sense nowadays. Do you want to build your house, your fridge or grow your food by yourself?
I have started to learn Python. It will take some time becuase I dont have that much time left beside my normal work load. But maybe I will pitch in some apps some day.
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@makeixo said in the future of the UI:
I am not an IT guy. I dont think abolishing job-sharing makes a lot of sense nowadays. Do you want to build your house, your fridge or grow your food by yourself?
Your point is well made in the situation where there are enough other people who can build my house, and my fridge and grow my food for me. But at the moment this just is not the case for this project. Even in the real world, I would be forced to do all the things you mentioned for myself if there was no one else to do them for me.
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@makeixo said in the future of the UI:
Do you want to build your house, your fridge or grow your food by yourself?
Yes, but living in a capitalist corporate serfdom, without having the accident of birth to be truly free, it's not so possible.
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@arubislander said in the future of the UI:
Even in the real world, I would be forced to do all the things you mentioned for myself if there was no one else to do them for me.
Indeed. It's amazing how some people think that without corporations forcing us to buy products for convenience, we wouldn't be able to survive, despite humans having done so for many thousands of years prior to the industrial revolution.
