[General Topics] evilc:
Q: What's a "Half Cube"?

A: It's the idea of having the top half of the screen static and the bottom half as a cube.

Q: Why this thread?

A: Because I had another thread and the idea seemed popular. However, there are still hurdles to overcome to acheive the look and feel I and other people want. There are also various people developing new tools, and hopefullly they may see this and code something to solve some issues. I wanted to provide a thread where we could work together to overcome hurdles and acheive the coolest interface possible - money no object, but freeware apps would be nice of course.

Q: What am I ideally trying to acheive?

A: A top section with a clock and message counters, with a gesture controlled cube (left right gesture to spin between faces) at the bottom containing tabs for all the standard fare. Also, a favorite contacts plugin (gesture up/down to select contacts) and music plugin (gesture up/down to scroll through albums) for faces of the cube that are slick and intuitive.

Ideally it should also handle landscape mode well and the switch between portrait and landscape should not mess up the interface.

Mocked up interface:

THIS IS MOCKED UP IN A VIDEO EDITING PROG USING PHOTOSHOPPED IMAGES. DO NOT ASK ME WHAT APPS I USED OR HOW TO GET THIS UI - IT CAN'T BE DONE - YET.

The top clock area is SaFF in XMT.

The Calendar tab is potentially how ThumbCal will look - the author seems interested in doing a today plugin.

The contacts and music tabs are completely mocked up in an art package.

Needed:

1) Tabbed launcher with gesture controlled cube, capable of doing partial screen.

Candidates:

a) Ultimatelauncher

2) Clock / Message counts section for top.

Candidates:

a) XIAMultiTheme (XMT)

rlToday replacement which enhances features. SaFF (The top clock bit) is currently using XMT.

b) rlToday plus skin

Issue: Only one instance per screen, might be nice to use something else so we can have rlToday in the cube.

Issue: Does not handle landscape <--> Portrait switching and back very well.

c) ProjectION clock.

Issues: Clock only

d) HTC Home

Issue: Has extra tabs that are not required and take up screen real estate.

3) Music Player plugin for media section in cube. My personal preference for music player is Conduits Pocket Player as it is easy to navigate using hard buttons and thus safer to use in the car.

Candidates:

a) V2R music player plugin (Controls WMP)

Issue: Gesture left/right used to navigate albums and the cube "captures" that.

Solution: Author modifies plugin to allow scrolling via up/down gesture.

b) Conduits Pocket Player

No plugin today, but the browser in the main program is just like I want. Conduits say they will be revamping the today plugin soon, so hopefully it will be like this.

4) App Launcher.

Something to launch apps from a page inside the cube.

Candidates:

a) Ultimatelauncher - has a nice system for doing this, so no worries.

b) SPB Pocket Plus - My previous preferred launcher.

Issue: As you can drag things around, gestures do not work in the SPB Launcher. Locking icons does not solve this.

5) Quick / Favorite contacts

The one from HTC home is OK, but comes with too much extra junk around it.

Candidates:

a) V2R Photo Dialler 2

Issue: Gesture left/right used to navigate contacts and the cube "captures" that.

Solution: Author modifies plugin to allow scrolling via up/down gesture.

b) Ultimatelauncher adds this feature.

c) HTC Home

Issue: Has extra tabs and clock that are not required and take up screen real estate.

6) Weather plugin

Must support non-US places

Candidates:

a) SPB Weather. Not free.

7) Portrait / Landscape switching

Issue: Switching from portrait to landscape causes the clock to be left justified, not centred, and is still only 240 wide not 320.

Solution: This appears to be an artifact of rlToday, it does not happen if you use HTC Home or ProjectION

Issue: Switching from landscape to portrait causes a scroll bar to be drawn on the right. Even when this disappears (if you scroll the bar down to the bottom), it has already chopped off the right edge of the clock rltoday box, which does not automatically redraw.

Solution: This appears to be to do with rlToday, as if you use HTChome or ProjectION for the clock, this does not happen.

[Update - I found a reg key to make today plugins "Always on top" - you then get no scroll bars ever appear for that plugin]

[Added picture of new 90px high format, 32x32 icons are just placeholders for now...]