Well, it’s not that, but this shows how easy is to create your own plugins. As a testing ground for our plugin architecture Kenneth is implemeting some Carman screens / sensors and data acquisitions.

Canola Menu

For those not interested in plugins, carman etc It’s really a peek into the most recent version of the main menu. Apart from the video quality you can see how smooth it is. The point for me is why to design a menu like that

Actually it was only a matter of observing the users and gathering feedback on the first version. Things that were clear and already posted here:

1. Scrolling on main menu : BAD. Why? A lot of users simply didn’t know that there was more options when scrolling down.
2. Arrows everywhere : BAD. Solving the problem above with arrows was the worst thing ever. It didn’t quite solved it and made the ui a stage for almost useless visual components.
3. Arrows not grouped : the arrows also were not “grouped” together. While the up and down were near by, right and left were quite apart, but there’s was not better way (IMHO) to do it. But it doesn’t justify the mistake.
4. Useless scrolling and not enough room: While it doesn’t appear too much with a 3 item only menu, it would be a hell to have 5,6 or more items on canola menu. Therefore the need to use something much more simple: the grid. You can run, you can hide, but in touchscreens the grid most of the times is the best, time saving view to use.
5. Textual internal menus are bad. While text can make things a lot clearer than icons, it also demands a lot more room (sometimes) and can be trick for a grid view. So to solve the problem of space we have a grid into a grid menu, or like a called here: menu on menu. The only difference is that we can fit up to 12 items on the first level then 10 items on internal menu. This takes canola now to a incredible capacity of 120 features in a range of 2 clicks. PS: WE NEVER going to place 100 items there =) but flexibility is never enough.

So this was the starting point to design the main menu, and after a lot of iterations we ended with a cleaner, simpler yet visually appealing menu that provides 2 level access to a number of applications much bigger than we need now and in the near future.

From the first 2.0 video, here you can notice that we really killed the scrolling. To keep main icon hidden is a incredible mistake that I really apologize for doing it ;)

Also in the image you can notice that we brought down some elements size. Actually we want to keep a small “compatibility” with the older Canola, and enable touchscreen use at it’s maximum, but I really (personally) wanted to get rid of :

The back button (letting only on hardware keys)
The menu button (also on hardware, but now harder because in the n810 is on the keyboard : /)
The home button (also on hardware, but this can break the device’s home button functionality while on canola)

In a sense, what I’m looking for is a almost button free (or at least when possible) User interface. Let people touch things and do things by context not only buttons. I know it’s a little bit too much, but come on, you need to have a bold target.