1. Temper1's Avatar
    Here is an image with all the views in. The imgur album has a larger version of this image, along with images of each individual screen.

    I made a Mock Preview of quick-reply and full message view features for the Hub-small-all.jpg

    Whilst I really like the Hub (coming from another android device with nothing similar) there is still some things that I think can be added to make it even better.

    Quick Overview:

    1. Add full-message view for all messages/emails/etc. in the hub (by opening pkb or tapping on a message)
    2. Add "quick-reply" and "open" buttons to messages/emails/etc. in the hub


    In-depth

    One of the most simple features - and one that I think is vital - is to be able to see the entirety of a message/email/etc. in the hub. Although, for a quick glance at new messages, that shouldn't be the default view. I think that this view could be added when sliding open the keyboard. Doing this would show the full message, and then have action buttons on the bottom. Also, this could be implemented on a message-by-message basis when the keyboard is closed by tapping on a message to see it in full.

    In the preview images that I made (mostly because I was bored, and haven't used photoshop for a few weeks) it shows a view with the keyboard open where the entirety of the message can be seen (examples for both sms and email). I also made some buttons at the bottom of the message, with "open in specified app" and "(quick) reply". For email, as this is integrated into the hub, this should be really easy to do. For messenger, as it works on the notifications, it would be harder. For the preview of the reply function through the hub, due to the notification constraints, I thought that using messenger's own quick-reply would be a good option (not only because it only requires the notification, but because that functionality is already there in the messenger app).

    Here is the imgur album with all the previews
    Last edited by Temper1; 05-07-16 at 03:07 PM.
    gizmo21, 36dbldz and vernigorka like this.
    05-06-16 10:39 AM
  2. Uzi's Avatar
    Look nice
    05-06-16 10:42 AM
  3. Brulging_Jersey's Avatar
    Great. Now make it

    Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android
    05-06-16 11:13 AM
  4. Temper1's Avatar
    haha, if I knew how to write code, or had any ability to do anything at all, I would
    05-06-16 11:37 AM
  5. ajwan's Avatar
    Maybe c_bryant can comment?
    05-06-16 11:52 AM
  6. Uzi's Avatar
    Test
    05-06-16 07:44 PM
  7. FF22's Avatar
    Test
    C+
    05-06-16 08:42 PM
  8. Ment's Avatar
    I think expanded Hub functionality like above will have to wait til Android N where a fuller featured notification reply API is available based on essentially the Android Wear framework. Since its Android OS based, BB won't have to make workarounds on a per app basis like it is now to bring apps into the Hub.
    05-06-16 09:06 PM
  9. Temper1's Avatar
    Yeah I guess that makes sense. It is a shame though. I still don't really understand why BlackBerry didn't build in an sms client into the hub, which wouldn't run into this issue, but would work a lot better in general with the hub than a 3rd party like messenger
    05-07-16 02:20 AM
  10. c_bryant34's Avatar
    Yeah I guess that makes sense. It is a shame though. I still don't really understand why BlackBerry didn't build in an sms client into the hub, which wouldn't run into this issue, but would work a lot better in general with the hub than a 3rd party like messenger
    Thanks for taking the time to put that together and share it with everyone here. I'll share it with the team on Monday

    As for SMS...it's really quite simple and a few reasons. One of the biggest - it's probably one of the most heavily "carrier regulated" areas on a smartphone. When you build software for a smartphone you're shipping, the carriers have to approve that software before they will sell your device. We simply would not have survived a carrier lab evaluation cycle by building our own SMS app. You don't just build "any old SMS app" - you build exactly what each individual carrier wants...and that's a lot. We would have spent forever JUST building SMS for all the carriers instead of all the things that we can actually differentiate on in Hub. It's about focus and SMS is simply an area where we won't "win".
    FF22, kekos and Sigewif like this.
    05-07-16 01:17 PM
  11. nuff_said's Avatar
    Thanks for taking the time to put that together and share it with everyone here. I'll share it with the team on Monday

    As for SMS...it's really quite simple and a few reasons. One of the biggest - it's probably one of the most heavily "carrier regulated" areas on a smartphone. When you build software for a smartphone you're shipping, the carriers have to approve that software before they will sell your device. We simply would not have survived a carrier lab evaluation cycle by building our own SMS app. You don't just build "any old SMS app" - you build exactly what each individual carrier wants...and that's a lot. We would have spent forever JUST building SMS for all the carriers instead of all the things that we can actually differentiate on in Hub. It's about focus and SMS is simply an area where we won't "win".
    Thanks for answering in the thread. Would you be able to, and I'm not suggesting this, get around this by building a BlackBerry version of a SMS app, available via the Play Store, and tie it into the hub?

    Kind of related to the hub...what are your thoughts on Android N's new notification panel? It appears Android is getting more "hub-like" features with the new iteration.
    05-07-16 01:41 PM
  12. c_bryant34's Avatar
    Thanks for answering in the thread. Would you be able to, and I'm not suggesting this, get around this by building a BlackBerry version of a SMS app, available via the Play Store, and tie it into the hub?

    Kind of related to the hub...what are your thoughts on Android N's new notification panel? It appears Android is getting more "hub-like" features with the new iteration.
    Possible, but still a huge development investment none the less. We had a whole team of people who's full time job previously was building and fixing SMS. It's not something that's just "quick and done". There's always a ton of maintenance associated which is the biggest cost. Not every network behaves well with SMS either, so you have to start tweaking for each to keep your customers and users happy.

    My own personal thoughts (not related to the thoughts or formal opinions of my employers!) are really love / hate on the notification tray in general.

    Love how simple and easily accessible it is from anywhere. They've built some great APIs to let developers get really creative. The UI continues to evolve and look better and better. Direct reply for N will be awesome.

    Hate the fact that it's basically a mess. The OS doesn't auto group things from apps together by default (looks like it may change a bit in N?). But my biggest problem is that none of the notifications are persistent. They're transient. They come and go very quickly. I personally am a "cleaner" and hate having a messy tray. I swipe things out of there as quickly as I can. But sometimes I get a notification from an app I'm really interested in, but just can't action it NOW. I need to save it for later. If I need to restart my device, or device runs out of battery or anything like that, I often lose that notification and the reference to the content. This drives me nuts, and this is where the Hub comes in. We try to bring some persistence to your notifications so you can properly manage them. Don't have time to answer your mom's message right now, but want to later? Swipe it out of the tray and mark it unread in Hub, or even snooze it, and come back to it later. This is truly an area where we can bring some extra sanity to notifications on Android. Hub has always been equal parts communication tool and notification manager in my eyes. A lot of the integrated content in Hub fits with the notification manager portion of the story.

    There will always be overlap between the tray and the Hub to a degree, and frankly I think that's fine. Pick the tool to best manage your work flow in that exact moment. As the notifications in Android evolve, so too can we evolve and mature the notification manager part of the Hub.
    sirius27 and digtech like this.
    05-07-16 01:59 PM
  13. Temper1's Avatar
    Thanks for taking the time to put that together and share it with everyone here. I'll share it with the team on Monday
    Wow, thanks. Hope everyone likes it

    As for SMS...it's really quite simple and a few reasons. One of the biggest - it's probably one of the most heavily "carrier regulated" areas on a smartphone. When you build software for a smartphone you're shipping, the carriers have to approve that software before they will sell your device. We simply would not have survived a carrier lab evaluation cycle by building our own SMS app. You don't just build "any old SMS app" - you build exactly what each individual carrier wants...and that's a lot. We would have spent forever JUST building SMS for all the carriers instead of all the things that we can actually differentiate on in Hub. It's about focus and SMS is simply an area where we won't "win".
    Oh okay, didn't know that the carriers put so much weight on the native sms app. Seems a bit odd really, especially with android, where you can just download one.

    With regard to the hub integration, is the integration done by the dev of the app, or do you guys have to integrate every app into it?

    This is truly an area where we can bring some extra sanity to notifications on Android.
    Sort of expanding on my what I just wrote about how things are integrated into the hub, if it has to be done by you, have you considered having the hub handle all notifications (probably a stupid question, as I assume you already would have thought about it, but don't know how to word it better)? So instead of there being the fairly disjointed mix between native notifications and the hub, having the hub intercept all notifications and display them in there. Then, when you swipe to the notification tray, it works just like normal; but when you dismiss a notification from the tray, it stays in the hub, so that you still have it for later. Possibly have a separate hub view for all notifications, excluding (or including, user-definable maybe?) those that work like they do now (email, sms, whatsapp etc.). Another idea to add, in the hub settings, be able to sort apps into categories and then be able to add specific, user-defined categories, into whichever hub-view you want (or exclude an app from being stored in the hub all together). That way, in your main hub view, you could have all notifications from your social-orientated apps, but not the others e.g. the install notification from google play.

    I'd like to add, I don't have the best knowledge of code, or the limitations of android with regard to those ideas. Just wanted to put the ideas out there, which for all I know, may not even be possible.
    05-07-16 02:58 PM
  14. nuff_said's Avatar
    Possible, but still a huge development investment none the less. We had a whole team of people who's full time job previously was building and fixing SMS. It's not something that's just "quick and done". There's always a ton of maintenance associated which is the biggest cost. Not every network behaves well with SMS either, so you have to start tweaking for each to keep your customers and users happy.

    My own personal thoughts (not related to the thoughts or formal opinions of my employers!) are really love / hate on the notification tray in general.

    Love how simple and easily accessible it is from anywhere. They've built some great APIs to let developers get really creative. The UI continues to evolve and look better and better. Direct reply for N will be awesome.

    Hate the fact that it's basically a mess. The OS doesn't auto group things from apps together by default (looks like it may change a bit in N?). But my biggest problem is that none of the notifications are persistent. They're transient. They come and go very quickly. I personally am a "cleaner" and hate having a messy tray. I swipe things out of there as quickly as I can. But sometimes I get a notification from an app I'm really interested in, but just can't action it NOW. I need to save it for later. If I need to restart my device, or device runs out of battery or anything like that, I often lose that notification and the reference to the content. This drives me nuts, and this is where the Hub comes in. We try to bring some persistence to your notifications so you can properly manage them. Don't have time to answer your mom's message right now, but want to later? Swipe it out of the tray and mark it unread in Hub, or even snooze it, and come back to it later. This is truly an area where we can bring some extra sanity to notifications on Android. Hub has always been equal parts communication tool and notification manager in my eyes. A lot of the integrated content in Hub fits with the notification manager portion of the story.

    There will always be overlap between the tray and the Hub to a degree, and frankly I think that's fine. Pick the tool to best manage your work flow in that exact moment. As the notifications in Android evolve, so too can we evolve and mature the notification manager part of the Hub.
    Thanks!
    I said this in a previous thread also....right now you're the only reason I'm considering a Priv - although I'd prefer an all touch slab BlackBerry -
    I've received more information from you about BlackBerry than the company itself.
    Keep on doing what your doing with the Priv and answering us back in the thread.

    I'm sure others here will agree with me saying you are helping reverse the negative sentiments many of us feel about BlackBerry. We were considered customers with BlackBerry 10, then not with new management, and now being slow let considered customers again but without knowing what your CEO has planned during the next fiscal year with hardware it's hard to say if that's still true.

    Thanks again for getting back to me!
    Sigewif and fanisk like this.
    05-07-16 02:59 PM

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