Notifications in gesture area!

[Courousant]

According to Engadget, Samsung has put a secondary OLED screen below the main screen.

This is similar to what I had been imagining as an ideal for Palm's gesture area. A way to expand the screen real estate without making the phone much bigger. Put things like notifications in the gesture area via an OLED (or someother tech) screen there. There are also power saving advantages (not having to turn the whole screen on to display notifications, though i am not smart enough to guess whether this would increase or decrease battery life as a whole.

Exclusive: Samsung Continuum for Verizon has double the displays, double the fun -- Engadget

[pogeypre]

I am a fan. That would rock with WebOS, though it would require rethinking a lot of stuff.

[Traxion]

I likes!

Off topic: Pogeypre your sig makes me wanna watch Tommy Boy. I miss that big guy.

[Kupe]

Originally Posted by Courousant

According to Engadget, Samsung has put a secondary OLED screen below the main screen.

This is similar to what I had been imagining as an ideal for Palm's gesture area. A way to expand the screen real estate without making the phone much bigger. Put things like notifications in the gesture area via an OLED (or someother tech) screen there. There are also power saving advantages (not having to turn the whole screen on to display notifications, though i am not smart enough to guess whether this would increase or decrease battery life as a whole.

Exclusive: Samsung Continuum for Verizon has double the displays, double the fun -- Engadget

Why not just make the viewing/touch area of the screen as long as the gesture area? That way you still get all the benefits of gestures, but the added benefit of more screen viewable area for the 90% of the time you're not actually gesturing.

Originally Posted by Traxion

Pogeypre your sig makes me wanna watch Tommy Boy. I miss that big guy.

[Courousant]

Originally Posted by Kupe

Why not just make the viewing/touch area of the screen as long as the gesture area? That way you still get all the benefits of gestures, but the added benefit of more screen viewable area for the 90% of the time you're not actually gesturing.

To be honest, that is what I had originally thought, but in fact, i think I like this better. I don't like the idea of using normal screen real estate for gestures because then you are gesturing over what you are viewing. I imagine this would also create problems with apps because you wouldn't be able to put anything that needs to be accessed via touch at the bottom of the screen because that would be reserved for gestures.

[TheCIArr]

I thought about posting something like this a while back but didn't becuase I couldn't get by one thing - maintaining resolution (for the sake of developers). I'm not expert but I coudln't think of a way where pixels wouldn't be "wasted" (especially if Palm wanted to follow the Retina display's resolution). I guess all Palm would have to do is add code that would handle justifying (justify in the context of print) the picture but if you were to reclaim the gesture area in fullscreen mode, some scaling/letterboxing would have to occur right?

Simply put: How do you maintain the 960x640 without up-scalling/down-scaling/letterboxing? Would the cost justify the end? Am I thinking too hard?

I haven't thought about this too hard/hard about this issue so I'm interested to hear what everyone else has to add.

[pogeypre]

...... just thought of something. I get real annoyed playing games on the Pre or even a larger phone like the EVO because my thumbs have to be on the screen. Using the lower screen (assuming it is capacitive) as the gaming aparatus would be below the viewing area....

[cmilette]

Originally Posted by Courousant

To be honest, that is what I had originally thought, but in fact, i think I like this better. I don't like the idea of using normal screen real estate for gestures because then you are gesturing over what you are viewing. I imagine this would also create problems with apps because you wouldn't be able to put anything that needs to be accessed via touch at the bottom of the screen because that would be reserved for gestures.

..thus proving the idea of making the gesture area included in the main resolution superfluous. like coucou said, if we make the gesture area included in the main display, then it would be a waste of resolution space, because nothing would be allowed to use the bottom portion of the screen - redundant.

[cmilette]

Originally Posted by pogeypre

...... just thought of something. I get real annoyed playing games on the Pre or even a larger phone like the EVO because my thumbs have to be on the screen. Using the lower screen (assuming it is capacitive) as the gaming aparatus would be below the viewing area....

this reminds me of the palm viix.. to maintain the bottom portion of the screen only for that is a regression, in my thoughts, at least. let's leave palm's gesture design alone. it's one of the few things they got right when assembling the hardware.

[kkhanmd]

I love the idea of having gesture area its own display area, maybe in webOS 3.0, unless palm already has built it, though higly unlikely

[pogeypre]

Originally Posted by cmilette

..thus proving the idea of making the gesture area included in the main resolution superfluous. like coucou said, if we make the gesture area included in the main display, then it would be a waste of resolution space, because nothing would be allowed to use the bottom portion of the screen - redundant.

Not primary use, just a use of the bottom would be gaming.

[davis.rob]

Originally Posted by Courousant

This is similar to what I had been imagining as an ideal for Palm's gesture area. A way to expand the screen real estate without making the phone much bigger. Put things like notifications in the gesture area via an OLED (or someother tech) screen there. There are also power saving advantages (not having to turn the whole screen on to display notifications, though i am not smart enough to guess whether this would increase or decrease battery life as a whole.

Cool idea ... except that Notifications (at least as they're now constructed) are sensitive to swipes and touches. So, how would you tap or get rid of a Notification if that was the "gesture" area? I guess you could say it's only the "gesture" area if there are no Notifications, but I can see situations where that wouldn't be great.

[VenpaCasa]

i like the gesture bar and notifucations how it is... i dont like the idea of having a small screen at the bottom of the face of the device.... how would notifications like Music Player Remix 2.0 work? it has three notification stacked on top of each other, and how wud u check ur new email and txt at a glance w/o having to switch between notifications. i mean isn't this the point of the webOS notification area the fact that its re-sizable and can see all ur info at one glance swipe to dismiss what u dont need to worry about and tap on the one u need? idk i think if its perfect the way it is....

[Courousant]

well, one of the new hardware "issues" people keep bringing up is that many, if not most, want to see a larger screen size, and at the same time, many do not want a larger device. The advantage of using the gesture area as additional display real estate allows somewhat of a size increase without a corresponding increase in device size.

Not saying its a no-brainer, just saying that it helps deal with some issues. Very well may create other issues that are equally or even more problematic. Haven't really put enough thought into it to say that its a must, but I like the idea and feel like a lot of the problems can be minimized.

Also, I don't understand why the notifications would have to work differently. The gesture area right now is rather large, i would guess between 2-3 "notifications" in height? is that not sufficient?

[VenpaCasa]

I say it's about 1 notification high (wen it's tapped on.... so I think it's fine how it is.... I just hope we get options with the new devices

[iTz Nicholas72]

How about having small icons on yhe gesture screen when there is mulitple notifications and tapping one would bring more info.

[Orion Antares]

The idea of placing an OLED as a status display behind the gesture area instead of just that one notification LED is an interesting idea. Trying to make it directly touch interfacable does not sound like a good idea. That sounds like it would only cause confusion and probably frustration.

Trying to "reclaim" the gesture area for the standard display sounds like a terrible idea flat out. It seems the whole idea of the gesture area was to give people a standard interface without using physical buttons, without interfering directly with the display real-estate, and without sucking a bunch of power having to display render an extra section of the device.

[VenpaCasa]

Originally Posted by iTz Nicholas72

How about having small icons on yhe gesture screen when there is mulitple notifications and tapping one would bring more info.

that's how I thought the pre was originally wen I saw screenshots.... Idk I say leave it as is, maybe JUST MAYBE, they can make the gesture bar a tad bit smaller and that would leave room for more screen space but this is assuming the next devices look like the pre... Me personally I'm hoping they come up with a new design entirely I want something that people will look at and say "holly shhhh... Crap what kind of fone is that?!?! Where can I get it?" lol nosa I just want smthing new with all if not more/better features than android cuz I hate that os but it's my only other option....

[davis.rob]

Originally Posted by Courousant

Also, I don't understand why the notifications would have to work differently. The gesture area right now is rather large, i would guess between 2-3 "notifications" in height? is that not sufficient?

If you had a Notification in your "gesture" area and wanted to make the "back" gesture for the app on your main screen, how would you do that? Would the gesture do a "back" or would it get rid of the notification?

[VenpaCasa]

it wouldn't work because the notification is resizeable and the separate screen isn't... And like davis.rob said wen you back swipe how will the phone know ur trying to go back and not dissmiss the notification? Or how would it know your trying to get rid of a notification and not quick switch to another card/app that's open?