MembersPage/RichardBarrington/QTune/GuiForms (2005-03-07 20:56:16)

Forms

I feel that letting GBA influence !QTune will put enormous restrictions on the PC application. I think the UI requirements are different enough to separate the two from the start... The GBA stuff should be in it's own "branch" but both applications should call on OtherTuningSoftware/CommonInfrastructure for their core functions.

The wording is important there: The core should offer functions and services but the GUI should call them, not the other way around. This allows for feature-rich mouse-driven PC implementations (with hot keys / accessibility for in-car use), and also a clean GBA UI, without compromising either application.

I can only suggest starting with some sketches or screen shots to start with. I imagine a GBA UI would use a phone-like icon or text page, that can be navigated by the arrow keys. A PC app could use something similar, but menus and key-shortcuts etc are more familiar to most users...


The GUI stands of small, simple widgets. Things to be solved:


Customization of widgets

For the nintendo software, config at compile time is OK. For PC, it ain't hurt if it's runtime.


Packing of widgets


Interaction between widgets

Also called as events or signals. Eg. when a value is entered into one widget, another one has to be scheduled to be updated (soon).


Navigation between input widgets

Also called as "changing the input focus". Jumping from input field to the next.

Remember that it must be possible without a mouse. Simple but powerful solution is needed. Maybe

can this be done in graphics mode, not input fields? Like FAST's tuningsoft.. much nicer! //Emil


Utils for the above

While qt provides off the shelf methods for all the above, we have to take care that

Maybe using wrappers instead of the direct Qt calls.

I personally think that we should rely on a simple, small set of basic functions (at the very minimum, just copying rectangular imagemaps to the screenbuffer) like one of the APIs on OtherTuningSoftware/WidgetSet would work better than a complex widgetset where we'll find it hard to provide implementation on nintendo or other platform.

If we use some simple calls only, they will be available everywhere. By this we would lose a lot for a spreadsheet program or mp3 player, but we'll gain a lot for a tuningsoftware app.


The same config tabs as for megatunix can maybe be reused here?

MegaTunix/ToDo/ConfigTabs


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