Fremantle UI: File Chooser

Hello everybody.

Today I’ve read an interesting discussion at http://talk.maemo.org about File Manager and kinetic finger scrolling. Quim mentioned that user won’t need to have a fast way to navigate thru loads of items in the File Manager cause all possible media will be arranged in specific applications like media player for music, image viewer for images and so on. Well, I think he’s right in some points but a handy way to navigate thru large ammounts of files without breaking your finger is always good. So I have an idea how to make everybody happy. And to concentrate on scrolling itself, I’ll show you my vision of built-in file chooser.

Let’s imagine you want to add an image to your mail.

Rover Rumors

Hey everybody.

Not long ago every maemo-related persom has seen sort of rumors from the mobilecrunch and especially cellpassion. The first one has pretty detailed description of the upcomming Maemo device and the second has “leaked” photo of it. I had some free time to redraw the device from that “leaked” shot and I’d like to say that it looks like fake. See for yourself:

The keyboard lacks of Fn and Char buttons so it’s definitely not the real device on the photo. Looks like Mobilecrunch has more correct details bout keyboard layout, but that’s not the reason to believe all these rumors around :) One thing is pretty clear – future device will rock.

P.S.: And yes, it’s a phone!1

“newstyle.maemo.org” Feedback Post

Hello world.

I’ve read on ITT forums that new style foe maemo.org is ready to be criticised by the community and is looking for feedback. As I’m a web-designer aswell, I thought that my feedback would be good advice for maemo.org guys. But I’d like to mention that I’m not the ultimate truth of any kind so it’s just my humble opinion.

So, here are 8 various mistakes in maemo.org fresh style from my point of view.

Step Up

Hello everybody.

Since our OMWeather team hardly working on Maemo 5 version, I’ve finaly forced myself to learn Adobe Flash technology for better interaction between my brain and programmers :) Dynamic UI prototype can greatly increase whole team productivity: designer will see, if his idea is actually cool and tweak details without waiting for actual code to be done by coders, and programmers can see clearly what designer wants from them, not just “I want this think to ppear like “whoooosh!” and then “baaaam!” Got it?”.

So after 1 day of learning Flash and action Script 3 from ground zero, I came with this super-basic, but still pretty stuff :) Click image to see live demo.

This demo represents my vision on how Maemo 5 desktop applets can behave. It’s totally fictional, since we don’t know anything bout applets (widgets) in Fremantle.

Hope you’ll like it!

Mer UI: Scalability

Hello everyone.

Today I’m not gonna show you new calculator faceplates (surprise!). Today I’ll show you the evolution of Mer UI design, that was inspired by Mer’s scalability.

If you thought that two Ti-calculators are not enough…

… you’re lucky today, cause Marat “fms” Fayzullin presents you the support of 3 more Ti calculators: Ti-83, Ti-83+ and Ti-84+. All of them are packed with my faceplates aswell :)

Comming soon to the Extras repository near you :)

Almost Ti85 Emulator Released

Hello there.
Today I want to announce the release of another piece of software from emu-genius Marat Fayzullin called “Almost Ti85″ (ATi85). It emulates full-functional Texas Instruments Ti85 and Ti86 calculators. Marat has asked me if I can help with image faceplates and… well, you know :)
It was very interesting to try to make skins that will be familiar to Ti owners, fit 16:10 screen of the tablets and usable same time.So here are the results:

Hope you’ll like it, cause as more calculators will be supported – more skins will come.
Thanks for reading.

Nokia n97 widget contest.

Hello.
Sorry if this post is not 100% maemo related. I want to invite all maemo community to join interesting contest, that’s held within Nokia Innovation Newsdesk. It’s called Nokia n97 Widget Competition. You just have to come up with some fresh idea, some one-touch breakthru, draw it as good as you can and post it! No coding, debugging and so on, just you, your imagination, paint/photoshop/gimp/whatever you like and weird upload system, that actually uploads your creation but waits bout a week to show it.
Here’s mine by the way, I’ve taken my idea of Uni-Search from “New Year Countdown Series” and made it look as n97 widget.

Funny that it was already ripped off three times: by Ilian Tihov with his two widgets: “Apple movie trailers”

and “Digital Retro Clock”

And say hello to Martin Gerla with his “Ovi search” widget.

Also I’ve already found another Maemo Community member’s widget – Famous “Flip Alarm Clock No Party” by Ciro Ippolito!

So jump in and take a chance to win n97!

Mer UI: the Beginning

Hello there.

Today I’m starting new series of posts, dedicated to my work in Mer project. It became more complex and interesting so I think you’d like to see the UI developing process in details. In past few days I’ve done some nice stuff so let’s begin.

FMS Emulators Icons

Hello everyone.

Life is very interesting thing, you never know what or who will you meet next. It was 6 years ago when I met fms’ awesome emulators while playing with my Viewsonic v35 pocket pc. That was really good and fun time for me because everyone around were totally jealous cause I could play tons of games right from the tiny device. And 6 years later I’ve met Marat Fayzullin a.k.a. fms on the #maemo IRC channel and it was real surprise and great chance to say “thank you” almost face-to-face.

After some time hanging around on #maemo, during hot debates bout Mer’s UI (and it’s a theme for the next post) Marat has asked me if I can draw some proper icons for his emulation series, and ofcourse I gladly agreed.