Core Project: Lowser rewrite

nevyn · Post by **nevyn** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:24 am

I've been talking for ages about rewriting Lowser. I never seem to get at it though. KawaGeo seems keen on helping out, so here's a thread for it.

If you've ever used column view navigation in Mac OS X, you've seen what I want to do. I was thinking along the lines of basically copy all features of the column view verbatim.

Also, I was thinking about having more than just disks at the root of the column view hierarchy; implementing LuaPlayer, Lowser and PSP settings as hierarchial menus as well.

Further, multiple windows would be neat, and so would drag and drop. Drag and drop is just a specialized case of cut and paste, so if we make one, the other comes for free.

However, that's a feature of OSKit, not Lowser. Which brings me to a point: For Lowser to be good, OSKit must first be implemented, generalizing things like window handing, application launching and multithreading, a subclassed directory lister that knows about application bundles and icons, clipboard, ... I know mrn is really keen about this part.

Kameku · Post by **Kameku** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 2:19 pm

Sounds interesting... I'd be more than willing to help.

Do you have anything done, or are you just taking this from scratch? Because if you have something done, I'd like to see a nopaste or something of it.

KawaGeo · Post by **KawaGeo** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:00 am

Tapwave Zodiac:

Here is an idea for our new Lowser.

I was once an owner of Tapwave Zodiac. Due to the company being shut down, I switched to PSP for some further developments.

For the layout, I would like to suggest the similar one in Tapwave Zodiac (see the pic above.) Note the 8 circles around the center circle (4 of them are not iconized.) Use analog stick to select any circle and click it with the X button. The center circle when clicked changes to the next higher level. The outer circles are for either "folders" or files (games or apps.) The "folder" circle when clicked changes to the next lower level. Any of other iconized circles when clicked launches a game or an application.

The other "half" side is used for long descriptions for those 8 circles at a particular level. Each of the outer iconized cirlces is captioned with a short description.

The layout can be easily customized by users with configurations written in Lua.

I sure hope you guys like the idea.

PS I am still working on the interface of Lua with OpenGL. It has been almost 3 months so far. What a job it is!

nevyn · Post by **nevyn** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 11:30 pm

Kameku: As for code, I have nothing. For user interface designs, I have some pages of sketches for something I think is really good; I'll try to tidy them up and post them. For code design, I usually draw a lot from how the Cocoa framework is designed; that one's really great, and fun to code with.

KawaGeo: Interesting hierarchial design. Might actually be feasable... I like the idea. I've tried something similar in the form of the Constellation plugin for Quicksilver however, and I found it less-than-optimal when browsing any lists with more than, say, four or eight items.

As said, I have some ideas myself, I'll post them when I get the time.

In any case, any Lowser rewrite needs to be designed from the platform's limitations (namely, the lack of a pointer device) and *not* by aping desktop UIs (I shudder at the thought of all the WinXP wannabe UIs...)

Kameku · Post by **Kameku** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:04 pm

I would really like to see some of your concept work. And although I may not bring a lot of experience to the table, I'll try to contribute.

daurnimator · Post by **daurnimator** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:28 pm

i could help out if you want...

yossistarz2 · Post by **yossistarz2** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:06 pm

nevyn wrote:I've been talking for ages about rewriting Lowser. I never seem to get at it though. KawaGeo seems keen on helping out, so here's a thread for it.

If you've ever used column view navigation in Mac OS X, you've seen what I want to do. I was thinking along the lines of basically copy all features of the column view verbatim.

Also, I was thinking about having more than just disks at the root of the column view hierarchy; implementing LuaPlayer, Lowser and PSP settings as hierarchial menus as well.

Further, multiple windows would be neat, and so would drag and drop. Drag and drop is just a specialized case of cut and paste, so if we make one, the other comes for free.

However, that's a feature of OSKit, not Lowser. Which brings me to a point: For Lowser to be good, OSKit must first be implemented, generalizing things like window handing, application launching and multithreading, a subclassed directory lister that knows about application bundles and icons, clipboard, ... I know mrn is really keen about this part.

Pleases check out the new YS-OS that support all the above.
http://yossistarz.googlepages.com/ys-os

nevyn · Post by **nevyn** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:11 pm

yossistarz2 wrote: Pleases check out the new YS-OS that support all the above.
http://yossistarz.googlepages.com/ys-os

Well, uh. That UI design is *exactly* what I'm *not* after.

You can't use a desktop OS GUI on a platform that has *none* of the input methods of a desktop computer. (Well, obviously you *can*, but it'll be cumbersome to use compared to an interface designed with the limitations of the hardware in mind)

yossistarz2 · Post by **yossistarz2** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 8:14 pm

I don't really know what type of GUI you won't. It seems i don't know the example. Just give me a picture or something may be i can help.

The ys-os did half of the job all we need is a new gui.
That's the easy part.
specially after that we takes down all the input types that i did (Like Focus with mouse and all the other troubles ^_^).

Not to forget that Multiprocessing is all ready implemented and registry and clipboard too.

matriculated · Post by **matriculated** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:18 am

A mouse based gui on a mouseless device is, imho, a horrible, horrible idea. It just doesn't make sense and it's not easy to use at all. I'm not convinced that multiple windows on a small screen device is a very good either. I think an Ipod like interface would work well - it doesn't have a super slick interface that everyone seems to crave though.

OTOH, I think what you've done is pretty amazing!

nevyn · Post by **nevyn** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:24 am

matriculated wrote:A mouse based gui on a mouseless device is, imho, a horrible, horrible idea. It just doesn't make sense and it's not easy to use at all. I'm not convinced that multiple windows on a small screen device is a very good either. I think an Ipod like interface would work well - it doesn't have a super slick interface that everyone seems to crave though.

OTOH, I think what you've done is pretty amazing!

Eheh. I just realized... The interface idea I've been thinking about for half a year resembles the iPod one more than a little . . . :P I never realized that...

(And yeah, except that the UI is backwards, it looks like some pretty great work. Maybe it could form the basis for the stuff I'm calling OSKit...)

yossistarz2 · Post by **yossistarz2** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:35 am

This is why i created the ys-os.

It gives you the ability to create all you like.

if you like to navigate with L&R button then create background process that do that very easy.

If it has a mouse it doesn't say you have to use it. it is up to you to do it.

Don't say no because it have something, say no if it doesn't have it ,and ys-os have it all.

glynnder · Post by **glynnder** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:07 am

I have been working on what I call Lowser2 - which is basically just Lowser with addeed features, I will be releasing it in a few weeks over @ PSPZones

nevyn · Post by **nevyn** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:09 am

glynnder wrote:I have been working on what I call Lowser2 - which is basically just Lowser with addeed features, I will be releasing it in a few weeks over @ PSPZones

Please don't use the name Lowser then, I'd like to reserve that for my own releases, thanks... (you could use something derived, such as "Glynnder's Lowser" or "Glowser" or something...)

glynnder · Post by **glynnder** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:11 am

kk, bye the way I have said I didn't make the main file browser code, I will call it 'LuaMainframe'
but soon, I will make a whole new file browsing system

glynnder · Post by **glynnder** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:17 am

Nevyn, if i wantyed to check a lua folder thats got an index.lua and a icon.png, and if it has a picture of a certain name in it then i blit it on the right hand side of my page?
I got the script, but i can't blit it!
So, say how would i blit the folder that the cursor is on's icon in a box on the side of the screen?

nevyn · Post by **nevyn** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:28 am

glynnder wrote:Nevyn, if i wantyed to check a lua folder thats got an index.lua and a icon.png, and if it has a picture of a certain name in it then i blit it on the right hand side of my page?
I got the script, but i can't blit it!
So, say how would i blit the folder that the cursor is on's icon in a box on the side of the screen?

Well, look at how Lowser does it. I go to some ends to make stuff a little bit too generic, but it's very simple, really:

Code: Select all

			if string.lower&#40;subfile.name&#41; == "icon.png" then
				file.icon = Image.load&#40;subfile.name&#41;
			end
...later...
			file.render&#58;blit&#40;x,y,file.icon&#41;

glynnder · Post by **glynnder** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:19 am

yea I got that far, but if i typed file:blit() then it only blitted it in the file bar, if i typed screen:blit then it didn't blit anything at all, and if i said dp:blit (i had created a screen.imagecreatempty called dp 1st) then it didnt blit nothing but also wouls run any scripts.

TeamOverload · Post by **TeamOverload** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:10 pm

Nice its going to be pretty cool to see an alternative to Lowser, i was thinking of starting my own a little while back, but there may be no need depending on how these turn out

glynnder · Post by **glynnder** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:47 pm

OK i have got further, but now need ur help nevyn.
I get it to display the picture i want it to, where i want it to, and it doesn't diplay the pic for every single one.
BUT, it only displays the pic for the one @ the bottom of the page, not the one that the cursor is on, what would i put to make it the one that the cursor is on? cos that my only problem with that but, then i'm nearly done on luaMainframe.

nevyn · Post by **nevyn** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 5:49 pm

glynnder wrote:OK i have got further, but now need ur help nevyn.
I get it to display the picture i want it to, where i want it to, and it doesn't diplay the pic for every single one.
BUT, it only displays the pic for the one @ the bottom of the page, not the one that the cursor is on, what would i put to make it the one that the cursor is on? cos that my only problem with that but, then i'm nearly done on luaMainframe.

I really can't help you without looking at the code, which I'm afraid I don't have time for, and also this is not the thread for coding questions.

glynnder · Post by **glynnder** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 6:30 pm

ok then, no pproblem, ill just try and have a go by myself.
Hopefully people will enjoy it when its released, the first version will basically be bLowser with lots of addons, but then second version will be entirely my own work

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Core Project: Lowser rewrite

Core Project: Lowser rewrite

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