[maemo-developers] Community widgets for Fremantle

[From: Andrew Olmsted]

Conny,

Thanks for the comments.  I would have posted screenshots, but things 
look a bit weird in scratchbox sometimes and I have no access to a device.

I agree with all your comments, all of which I feel would be 
implementable.  Getting the label onto the button is something I 
definitely want, but didn't have time to do before the release.  It is 
made a bit difficult by the fact that inheriting HildonButton only gives 
you access to the _text_ that you put in the value field, whereas for 
both buttons I am packing something other than simple text in there.  I 
think the alternate solution would be to duplicate the functionality of 
the HildonButton within HeColorButton and HeFontButton - or better yet 
within an abstract class HeButton that provides the control 
HeColorButton and HeFontButton need without the need to duplicate.

Having a simple and advanced colour selector is a good idea, and a 
simple picker like those that have been posted here could definitely be 
implemented along side the less-beginner-friendly but more-fine-tunable 
version I started with.

Your other suggestions for the look and feel of the widgets should be no 
problem.

Thanks,
Andrew

Cornelius Hald wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
>
>   
>> I have released countdown-home 0.5-8 to extras-testing for Fremantle.  I 
>> have gotten some initial positive feedback for the colour and font 
>> selection I use.
>>     
>
> I tried your applet and the dialogs are working good and they are finger
> friendly. Two things the deprecated dialogs are not :)
>
> To give other people an easy way to look at it, I created some
> screenshots here:
>
> http://zwong.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/screenshot11.png
> http://zwong.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/screenshot09.png
> http://zwong.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/screenshot12.png
>
>   
>> I have made the font selection and colour selection widgets as 
>> self-contained as possible - they are not integrated in any way in the 
>> countdown-home code.  In my case, I decided to try to parallel past 
>> hildon colour and font dialogs as much as possible.
>>
>> To this end I now have six different widgets, each prefaced with "he" 
>> for hildon-extras (but much shorter).  They are:
>>
>> he-color-button, he-color-dialog, he-color-selector
>> he-font-button, he-font-dialog, he-font-selector
>>
>> As for developing with these widgets, the developer need only put a 
>> font/color button in his/her application and he/she can set and retrieve 
>> the font/colour through that.  For example, the he-color-button 
>> automatically creates a he-color-dialog for user input containing an 
>> he-color-selector.  The developer can use the dialog and selector 
>> widgets as well, but it is just easier to put a button in and have 
>> everything controlled.
>>     
>
> I think that's the way to go.
>
>   
>> I would welcome any thoughts on my particular implementation.  The 
>> source can be obtained at:  
>> http://repository.maemo.org/extras-testing/pool/fremantle/free/source/c/countdown-home/countdown-home_0.5-8.tar.gz
>>     
>
> The implementation looks fine to me. I'm not an expert, though :)
>
> As for the look and feel I have the following ideas (I think I already
> wrote them somewhere, but cannot remember):
>
> - Render the font names in the font that they represent. You could then
> get rid of the preview label at the top.
>
> - On the font button a bit more spacing between the size and the
> separator would be good. Or use picker button style (see below).
>
> - I think it would be good to get the labels, which you now have in
> front of the color button and the font button, into the button itself.
> That's how Hildon is doing it mostly. Therefore:
>
> -- Put the label of the color button onto the button itself to make it
> look a bit like a check button. The color field on the button must then
> shrink of course, but I think it's not needed to be so big anyways.
>
> -- Put the label of the font button onto the button itself. I think you
> could use the feature of the HildonButton here which allows two labels.
> The first label would be the label/caption of the button (e.g. Title
> font) and the second label could show "Courier New (18)".
>
> - The color selector works, but I think it would be more powerful if it
> would be combined with the simple color picker that Thomas proposed.
> Also the selected color is quite big, maybe this space could be used
> otherwise. Please also have a look at the mockup posted by Felipe. Maybe
> you could work somehow together.
>
>
> Sorry for my late answer and thanks for the work!
> Conny
>
>
>