Happy new year to all of you! Almost half of our planet is already in the future, other is waiting, we have 23:00 here in Moscow and party is getting started. Thank you for all your warm words about my New Year Countdown Series, it’s really a great pleasure to see you all here reading and especially discussing my posts. I wish that we’ll all have some great stuff from Nokia guys that will change the game dramatically and break the barrier of “geek toys” into something massive and epic! Happy New Year!
And as a present I give you, as promised, my favourite UI concept, one of my best of all ideas. Today we will reinvent copy/paste system!
So. One day I ws sitting with my n800 and thinking bout what can I improve in it. What can I change to make it radically beter for every user, no matter if it’s businessman, media maniac or web-surfer. And suddenly I’ve noiced that I’ve stucked with copypasting something from the microb. And I reallized that copy/past system in Maemo sucks. More than that, it sucks on every handheld platform, cause it’s practically the same everywhere. So I decided to rebuild it from scratch, from basics, oriented to rapid using in uncomfortable situations with various types of data. So now you can look at it with your own eyes)
I’ve added special icon in the tray, right next to the clock. It’s white when nothing is copied and yellow when something is in exchange buffer. So to copy something just click the icon, select the text, link or image you want to copy and simply drag’em to the icon. To cut – tap and hold on the icon to see “cut” option. So, now we have something copied, how to past it? Double click on the icon to open buffer menu where all you copied stuff is stored. Select item by taping it and tap the place in the application, where you want to paste it. If you want to check full version of your copied stuff – tap’n’hold it to view it.
This system will definitely improve the speed and comfort of this ordinary action, and the best thing that this idea is really unique.
Happy New Year again my dear readers and have fun these days! Hooray!
Maemo UI improvements blog. 
Simply, yet brilliant. Why does a user select text? To copy/cut & paste. This would also solve the issue with using finger to scroll while also needing ability to select (Fennec, MicroB/WebKit). Could even keep a history of clipboard or some content is specifically saved in a basket because the user asked for this.
Its yet another panel though. At some point it might also be necessary to combine protocols/functions in the panels. For example advanced backlight is very useful combining sound and display in 1 icon. Perhaps connectivity has to be combined as well. Remember 3G also has signal strength, and the user might want to know about this which doesn’t seem possible in your mock-up.
Comment by allnameswereout — January 3, 2009 @ 21:06
It works, if dragging is not as bad as it is in the tablet today.
:)
I like it tho.
Comment by Aniello del Sorbo — January 3, 2009 @ 22:44
About statusbar signs: Well, right now it showing that the device is connected with 3G and level of signal of 3G connection :) And I totally agree with combining, you definitely don’t need all system settings stuff all the way on your screen.
Comment by Andrew Zhilin — January 4, 2009 @ 05:33
Hi, thanks for a great series of thoughts, plenty of interesting ideas for Fremantle and for the future.
Comment by Roope Rainisto — January 5, 2009 @ 15:25
Excellent idea… hope this makes it into the OS!
Comment by Randall Arnold — January 8, 2009 @ 08:09