[Qaxl]

Hey CB,
I have been watching the demo videos over and over when i noticed something strange

a) There was nothing shown in Landscape Mode
b) The Gestures UI Guide does not mention anything about the Bezel Gesture from the Sides of the device which are used in Playbook for quick app switching

Minor Concern:
The SideSwipe gesture is i think great for user convenience and speeds up and simplifies app switching to a great extent, Also Microsoft has demoed a similar app switching gesture in Win8 so i think from a familiarity point of view its important to give customers something they have on another device especially when trying to push a relatively new concept like that of a Gesture.

**MAJOR ISSUE**
i think ... and this is all based on assumptions .... that the side bezels of the BB10 Dev Alpha B are not touch sensitive, and are too small to be used for proper gesturing, That combined with the fact that there was no landscape demo shown, i blv that it may be something that they left out from the OS.
so if there is an app that runs in landscape mode (most games and multimedia apps) .... how do we peek ? How do we minimise etc. ?

Pls someone with a Dev Alpha B shed some light on this

Sent from my BlackBerry 9780 using Tapatalk

P.S Further down we also discuss the implementation of Active Frames, feel free to bring in any constructive criticisms to what we've seen so far of BB10

[DJ Reyes]

There are apps that run in landscape mode, the browser for one currently does on the Dev Alpha, to minimise you can swipe from the bottom when in landscape mode and it minimises into the active frames which is in portrait mode.

With regards to asking about peeking while in landscape mode, I believe the point of peek and flow is to be efficient whilst on the go and perhaps using the device with one hand, making things easier and swift for a user to check things on the move. For one to be in landscape you'd probably be using two hands. I know I'd only be in landscape mode to browse or perhaps watch videos, which I wouldn't do in a rush and I could take the time to minimise and check my inbox.

[peter9477]

Nobody has seen the final version of the home page, or the rest of the UI, because it doesn't exist yet... they're still working on it. So don't judge as though what you see will be the final thing.

As for the side bezels' touch-sensitivity: they're certainly touch sensitive. That can be seen easily by anyone with a Dev Alpha. Although I don't know what they plan (and maybe they don't have a final answer yet either) with respect to task switching, it could definitely be implemented, from a technical point of view. Whether it provides the right overall user experience or not is a different story... I'm sure input from people who've used a Dev Alpha with 10.0.9 is quite valuable to them on such issues, though they likely have realized the same things themselves in most cases.

[greatwiseone]

BB10 is one of those operating systems where you really need to play with it physically to see how intuitive it is. The bezels are all touch sensitive (at least on the dev alphas) because you really only need to extend the touch screen very slightly beyond the screen. For instance, on the PlayBook, the touch sensitive parts of the bezel is really quite small. It's by design that it's got such large bezels.

If I recall on the flight arrival board, I am pretty sure rim is working on better landscape support for cascades. Most of the native apps is built in cascades and so we would expect to see that soon.

BB10 is not finished and as Blaze alluded to in a tweet this week, there are TONs rim has yet to show us.

[Qaxl]

I do realise its still a work in progress, but I'm certainly glad to hear that the sides are touch sensitive as well, and the fact that the sides actually work in minimising an app when in landscape mode.

However i would disagree that the peek and flow concepts are only for use "on the go" and in the portrait mode, these are the core elements of the software and i would expect to use them in all use case scenarios.

The App Switching Side Swipe Gesture however could be replaced to make way for something new, (like goto hub from any homescreen using left bezel swipe), as app switching can already be accomplished in a 2 step process that includes "minimising and then selecting next app from the Active Frames".
Or they could simply eliminate the side swiping gesture altogether saying that it makes for a better user experience as the bezels are likely to be swiped accidentally in a device that is as small as a phone, but we could still have it in our Playbook Tablets.

[peter9477]

The way 10.0.9 works, the side-swiping is not used for task switching, which bugs me somewhat. If you're in an app, you have to bottom-swipe to minimize before you can switch apps. Bottom-swiping part way up but then continuing the gesture by sliding your thumb to the right will actually bring up the Hub, no matter where you are, so they've already done some of what you suggest.

I seriously hope they make some changes, since I'm currently bothered by several things. One is the "Most Recently Used" re-sorting of the apps on the home screen. By that, I mean that any time you make an app fullscreen, then minimize, it slides up to the top-left position and everything else slides down. They claim this helps the user navigate by leveraging "muscle memory", but given that when you minimize the app it goes to a place different from where it was when you maximized it, I dispute that claim. In actual use by me, it's very annoying and disruptive of my work flow. If I'm switching between two or three apps, which I can now do only by minimizing repeatedly, I'm always having to pause to figure out where the app I want to switch to has moved, which means either staring at the little title captions, or trying to tell which is which from the Active Frame contents. When all the apps involved are very "Cascadey", they tend to look quite similar and that's not a task which takes you only a fraction of a second, as it should. So much for muscle memory and an improved user experience, in my opinion based on using 10.0.9 so far.

[peter9477]

I meant to mention another thing. The "maximum 8 apps" limitation is unreasonable, in my opinion. I really assume that's just a temporary limitation, since there's no conceivable reason to restrict it to that if the device is capable of running more (as it is) and if the Navigator design would allow it, which it would since if you're already got two screens of four apps, another one's not a problem. In fact, someone needs to point out the Zero One Infinity rule and get them to remove the two-app-pages limitation.

[Qaxl]

The re-sorting of apps, bothers me as-well, I could see that in the videos the people demonstrating the Up Swipe would take a few seconds to get re-orientated with the new layout of the Active Frames on the Home screen, and that is not unusual since every time you go to the homescreen, it would have changed its layout.
I suppose they could solve that by giving a menu option that allows the user to set the preference how the active frames should line up
the options could be as follows:
1.) Recently Used On Top ( Current Layout )
2.) In order they were initially launched ( Recommended )
3.) Alphabetical
4.) Like Icons, so u can arrange them after a long press
5.) Sticky, so u can stick an app somewhere permanently, like BBM on TopLeft and Phone Dialer on BottomRight, (all other apps can use one of the top four ordering options)
I really doubt that would be too hard to implement, lets hope they see this as an actual issue and work to solve it.

About the maximum apps limit, it does seem ridiculous, but its easy to see why they did that, thinking that lesser apps open at any time would use less ram and battery.
That said however, 5 Heavy apps can be as troublesome as 15 Lite apps, RIM should really let the RAM in a device decide where to draw the line and not software code.
I use a Playbook, so I have noticed that at any given time i usually have 4 apps open, Game, BBM, Browser, Music, - But in a phone i can see myself having the Dialer always there, a Weather App, and a Clock App to use like android Widgets, add to that a Calender app, and i cant open my Camera which is sad.

[Blackberry_boffin]

I meant to mention another thing. The "maximum 8 apps" limitation is unreasonable, in my opinion. I really assume that's just a temporary limitation, since there's no conceivable reason to restrict it to that if the device is capable of running more (as it is) and if the Navigator design would allow it, which it would since if you're already got two screens of four apps, another one's not a problem. In fact, someone needs to point out the Zero One Infinity rule and get them to remove the two-app-pages limitation.

Think again.
A limit of 8 is not that bad. Firstly what on earth will you be doing to need to shuffle through all those apps at the same time?
Remember the inbox is always open.
Secondly, it's a RIM imposed limit which can just as easily be raised as usage and hardware evolves.

[peter9477]

Think again.
A limit of 8 is not that bad. Firstly what on earth will you be doing to need to shuffle through all those apps at the same time?

Thank you for telling me what I should and should not do with my device. ;-)

I happen to be a power user... I frequently end up with roughly 8 apps open on the PlayBook. With BB10, with significantly reduced memory footprint for apps, more sophisticated apps, more power in the OS, and generally much more potential, I fully expect to want well over 8 apps open most of the time. Note that I'm not speculating... I'm simply stating facts, from experience.

Now, that said, with the Peek/Flow paradigm in BB10, it's a certainty you'll be opening more apps than you realized but not necessarily taking up those few Home Page positions for them. They'll be launching and terminating transparently within the other running apps. Still, I'm quite confident I'll personally run up against the limit of 8 on a regular basis, if they leave it in there. Heck, even now, doing app development, I've hit a few times in the last few days.

[missing_K-W]

I would like to see a window that has four apps in fixed tiles set by the user, and have 8 revolving. What happens when we open a 9th app. Is an app terminated? Is there an option to have it functioning unseen in the background?

[peter9477]

missing_K-W, the 8th app is currently terminated when you launch the 9th. There is no way to have it stay in the background, and indeed if they were to allow that they could simply have additional panels and show more running apps. It's not like there's any resource limit which prevents them from displaying the icons yet still have the apps actually running.

On a related note, I'll point out this new thread, in which another person describes the same problem I have with this, namely that one's instinct is for apps to stay in the same position in the list rather than constantly being re-sorted to the top as you use them: http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...frames-749755/

[missing_K-W]

Peter9477 I am thankful we have someone as dedicated as yourself looking forward to your apps and hope you have a very prosperous future

Is there anything preventing devs from making custom displays that could invoke apps in a carousel? Using perhaps the invocation framework? Etc?

[Qaxl]

the 8th app is currently terminated when you launch the 9th.

When u say the 8th app, do u really mean "any random app" which has now actually moved to the last position in active frames since it is the least recent ?

[big bb]

Yes it is the least recent app used that gets terminated

[peter9477]

I've noticed another usability issue, after more use. Note that because I'm spending most of each day actively developing apps (8 at last count!), I'm really putting the Home Screen to intensive use. I'm not merely sitting at the desk either, though that's a lot of my use. I'm also field-testing, carrying the Dev Alpha with me and trying to use it as though it's a finished product. I say this to point out that I'm not being an armchair quarterback here, but am reporting actual issues that I'm discovering.

The problem this time is that it's too easy to accidentally close an app. I'm sure I'll adjust my habits shortly, but I've just noticed that a few times in the last couple of days I've "reached" with my thumb to maximize the top-left app thumbnail, and I accidentally hit the X to close it instead. Although good apps will preserve their state, and launching them shouldn't take more than a second or two, a user would obviously be frustrated if this happened, even a few times.

Not sure of a cure (and I'm not going to attempt to redesign things... I've got my own apps to contend with), but even moving the X to the bottom-left corner of the frame's caption (where the icon currently sits) would help, at least for right-handed use. For left-handers, the currently arrangement is actually a bit better.

[Qaxl]

The arc created by your thumb tip will always pass near the point where you mentioned the X is for the top left active frame, if all "X"s are moved to the left then the top right app will be susceptible to accidental closing, same with other apps if the "X" is moved to any one corner of the frame,
I don't think they r going to just change the location of "X" for one frame since that's obviously not an aesthetically pleasing choice to have one frame differ from the rest,
Maybe if they relocate all "X"s to the four corners of the Phone's screen that would look somewhat better, but I still don't see them implementing this.

I think we will have to live with this one, I cant see any proper solution to this, and maybe it really won't be a big issue after a few days of use.

EDIT: Just realized, since we have two vertical pages of frames to scroll through, the "Upward App Closing Swipe" is also gone.
I hope the BB10 UI for Playbook is different than the Phone UI, because really the current version seems tablet unfriendly (Guess i will have to start a new thread for that discussion)

[mithrazor]

Hmm, I'm glad you brought that up. I'm not sure how big this problem could be. But since BB10 is about having everything running. A long press on the active frame would be a good way to bring up a red x on the top right corner.

That could be one fix.

[TheScionicMan]

I've had the inadvertent app closure thing happen on the PB occasionally. Most of the time it was my fault, but some times it seemed like it was a little too sensitive.

As for the Active Frame movement, it actually mirrors the way that BBOS task-switching works when you press and hold the Menu key. I can see how it could also be helpful. If you had to scroll down to the 2nd page of frames to refocus on an app and then switched apps, to get back to the last app you'd have to go through two pages again. Or more if Peter's wishes are granted.

[big bb]

Hmm, I'm glad you brought that up. I'm not sure how big this problem could be. But since BB10 is about having everything running. A long press on the active frame would be a good way to bring up a red x on the top right corner.

That could be one fix.

another way to use the long press could be, you do the long press on the active frame you want to close then a trash can appears (say the bottom right corner) then you just drag the active frame to the trash can

[Qaxl]

another way to use the long press could be, you do the long press on the active frame you want to close then a trash can appears (say the bottom right corner) then you just drag the active frame to the trash can

Or there could be another way. Instead of the "X" at the bottom corner of each app we could have a "V" thats a down arrow, it should open up a contextual menu, we could have options like Move, Sticky/Pin, Close, Maximize, Refresh etc.

This would solve the problem of accidental press, as that would just open a popup menu.
And this would allow the Active Frames to be much more customizable

#Killing2BirdsWith1Stone

[peter9477]

The problem with the long-press, in general, is that it's not easily discoverable for users. There's no visual indication that an item will respond specially to long-press (though this could be added), and the very least new users will not be aware of this feature. Having the only way to close the apps being a long-press would bad.

Taking a page from the camera and the long-press idea, what if the corner X started out larger, even overlaying the frame somewhat, for the first few seconds after you minimized. If you hit it then, it just works and the app closes. That's mostly when you'll want to close an app anyway -- right after you minimize.

After a few seconds, the big X fades and shrinks down into the corner, to the tiny, sad, useless little X widget we have now. ;-) Unlike the one we have now, however, this one doesn't close the app instantly when you tap it, but instead starts growing the X back to the larger size over the course of a half second or so. Think of how the camera button works on the lock screen... you can't just tap it instantly, accidentally opening the camera, but have to press and hold. For discoverability, even if you just tap it briefly, the screen starts to blank. You do that once or twice and wonder what it means, then you press for longer and see a circular "progress bar" thing that fills quickly. If you hold down long enough, it finishes the animation and opens the camera.... If the X grows like that back to full size, then you can hit it and it closes the app. Possibly you don't even have to release and then tap: if you merely hold your finger there for a second, it has grown to full size and when you release it closes. If you want to cancel that, you just slide your finger off it and there's no effect other than that it shrinks again after a few seconds.

Or some variation on that theme. I expect we'll need to do more things like that to improve discoverability in these all-touch heavily gesture-based interfaces.

[mithrazor]

I like both ideas mentioned. But if it comes to the point of discoverability. Then I think Qaxl's idea is a good one.

[Qaxl]

Have u seen the blog lately ? looks like Kevin is thinking about the same issues.

Landscape Mode

Active Frames

About peek, i dont think there should be any difference how you hold the device it should work the same way, your thumb should just go up and right to reveal the hub.

[peter9477]

Of course he is, he's got our threads to tell him what to think. ;-) Or, at least, to suggest ideas to write about.