| |
  |
| Linux GUI Optimized For Handheld Computers |
|
 |
|
posted by Editor on Monday September 17, @11:10PM
|
|
|
|
|
PicoGUI is a lightweight Linux GUI that is designed to work on handheld computers. Like the X Window System, PicoGUI has a flexible client-server architecture, but - unlike X - fonts, bitmaps, widgets, and anything else the application would need are built in to the server. The current implementation includes layout manager and widgets. PicoGUI binaries are usually around 100K; this includes the server, fonts, and all other vital data. PicoGUI has no overlapping windows - instead each application occupies a resizable "panel" that sticks to the edge of the screen and to other applications (check out the screenshots). Currently, it has drivers for SDL and SVGALIB. Now that Linux is being ported to handheld devices such as the iPaq, these kind of projects are going to become increasingly important.
|
|
|
|
< Welcome to Nooface | Where The Web Went Wrong > | |
|
|
|
Don't have an account yet? Go Create One. A user account will let you customize the site's content according to your preferences. It will also allow you to moderate the comments of other users.
|
|
|
|
|
|
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
C'mon, an iPaq has several times the computing power and memory size of an early X terminal or even X workstation. A windowing system that fits into a hundred kilobytes is nice but considering the price of memory, ten times that amount is not extravagant. Every new windowing system will need new apps written for it: you can partially overcome that by porting GTK or Qt or whatever to the new environment but then you regain most of the bloat you'd have with X. I think the most important thing is to tune existing X applications to work well on a small screen.
Not that this project isn't cool - and likely to be useful in cases where you want to start with a clean slate and you don't need to reuse existing code or expertise.
--
Ed Avis
Finger for PGP key
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Given the quickly expanding amount of RAM in newer handlhelds, not to mention the processors (I know many people who use computers that are shamed by an iPaq.) it seems that handheld UI programmers are focusing on the wrong problem.
What is really going to matter on handhelds is the size of the interface on the screen. Handhelds have little screenspace, and wasting precious pixels on the interface will eventually become the cardinal sin of handheld design.
My /. karma never ends, time to start over elsewhere.
My real email address ends in .org, and does not contain the phr
|
|
|
|
|
|
