I have some doubts regarding secondary tiles.
How many secondary tiles can be
pinned to the start screen for an
application (is there any limit)
Secondary tiles are pinned to the
start programmatically. Do we have
to ask the user whether he wants the changes to a particular section to be pinned to the start as secondary tile or without getting any confirmation from the user we can pin the secondary tiles.
There is no, currently published, restriction on the number of tiles that can be added.
Due to the screen real estate available on the start screen and the value of updated/animating live tiles which aren't always available (or at least in the first few "screens" worth of tiles) becomes decreasingly useful.
While pinning tiles can be done without a user initiated action, when a new tile is added the app closes and the phone returns to the start screnn to show the new tile. As such it's not possible to add lots of live tiles without the user being aware.
If a marketplace requirement isn't added regarding the behaviour around the creation of additional tiles I would expect it to be added quite quickly.
The potentially bad user experience of an app which repeatedly creates additional tiles without a specific instruction from the user would, I strongly expect, lead to that app not getting used much. ;)
In summary:
You can add as many secondary tiles as you wish but only do it when the user requests it and only make the option available to the user when it will add real value.
Related
I am developing a testing algorithm for our iOS apps using Appium. To fully implement this algorithm i need to identify wither i have moved onto different screen or am still on the same screen after performing some action. I need to know, what makes every screen unique/different from other in terms of Appium?
Going through the pageSource of every screen, i found that most screens have xpath attribute in window element. Can i use value of xpath of window element to mark the screen as unique from others, or do i need to do a trivial string comparison between screen's pageSources to mark them different? Or is there any other better solution?
Not sure if xpath would be the best solution for this. Normally the UIAWindow would remain the same, and developers might use different containers within this UIAWindow to render different screens.
So to verify different screens, you might need to figure out what this container is and see if the container's properties change when you move to a new screen (ie a new container)
If you app user a different header for every new screen, then you can use this header to see if the screen is changed. Example: in WhatsApp, you would see a different persons at the top. So in this case, the person's name can be assumed as the header.
If this doesn't work then you can verify some of the other controls, or say list of all the UIAStaticText on the screen. During screen change the entire list of UIAStaticText might change. So this can indicate a screen change.
For our automation suite at work I've implemented a series of screen check steps. Every time we switch screens I do a find_element command for an element on that screen that is unique to that screen. That way if a button or option takes me to a new screen that is incorrect my test will fail as expected. If it does find the element we're expecting it adds minimal time to the test suite.
Anish Pillai made a good suggestion of using the header text if there is any. Otherwise a particular tab, menu text, resource_id, or whatever is unique about the page would suffice. All you would need to do is a find_element call and a failure message if it fails.
One of our applications duplicates an area in the top left corner of the monitor and displays it to the public. Any of our other applications are prevented from covering this area, you cannot drag any of them over this area (they hit a "wall"), otherwise they would be visible publicly. However, if a user starts another application, say IE, it can display over the restricted area. Is there a registry setting or something that we can set that will prevent ALL applications from using this part of the desktop, eg. 300x200. I could set this value when our program starts and restore it when it closes, and have a separate application just to restore it just in case! It is not a serious limitation if the whole of the side or top could not be used, ie. if we block out the whole first 300 pixels on the left this would be acceptable. We are running W7-10 depending on the customer, programming is done in Delphi XE (at the moment).
For this question, I don't require a full explanation of all code, but helping me get insight into the process for achieving this result would be very helpful! Some information sources that will lead me to where I want to be.
Don't hesitate to give your opinion or make suggestions on how you would make it better in case you have better ideas - We just want to jump off the regular photo album system.
In the added screenshot I have added a painted image that makes the purpose clear.
Albums are created by tapping the "+" sign. (This shows a popup window in which the user can tag a bar/event to which the picture applies; the bar/event profile picture will appear on the album cover).
Newly taken pictures should appear in a separate band on the screen. They will float there until the user drags and drops them into an album. Note that the picture is also taken from within the app (using the native camera of the smartphone).
When the user added them to an album that was tagged, they will also be displayed automatically in the gallery of the tagged bar/event profile. (Of course in the app, personal profiles will be available as well).
Which technologies / workflow would you advise me?
What I need to create now is just an empty shell for the app that demonstrates the visual workflow (the data flows are not important at this point).
I have read about some libraries such as three20 or UIImagePicker, I don't know if they are easy to customize towards our needs.
Thanks!
I cannot comment on the likes of Three20 as I have never actually used them.
One method I can suggest, is using a number of scrollviews. Based on your example, you would require 2 individual scrollviews. (For ease lets call them AlbumsSV and PicturesSV).
The AlbumsSV would dynamically load content, based on your backing store. One approach I have used in the past, is to load custom views into a scroll view, as this allows for maximum control, you can specify any requirements as properties of the view (i.e Primary key etc), also you can load a 'preview image' based on the data held in your data store.
Assuming you always want the ability to add new items to be last element added to the AlbumsSV, then you can simply add another custom view to the AlbumsSV after all other items have processed.
PicturesSV would simply load content based upon what is in the users camera roll. Again I would recommend using a custom view, as you can set properties such as FileURL etc on the custom view, this will aid when it comes to dragging items into a specific album.
Hope this helps :)
As Cody Gray mentioned when answering my other question here, Raymond Chen talks about how icon overlays are a poor choice here (note that the article is a year old).
The substantive argument against overlays is that only one can be shown at a time... so if two apply, which one wins? The specious argument is that there can only be 15 - which in my opinion is a design choice by Microsoft, not an argument against their efficacy.
With the changing topology of file:
location
management
ownership
synchronization
replication
?????
I believe Files and folders need the equivalent of presence indicators to instantly identify their status.
What is an alternative to icon overlays that presents the same instant visual queue on the status of a file/folder? Maybe there needs to be a new model for icons?
Edit:
2010-12-14
The more I've thought about this, the more I feel that the idea that there can only be ONE overlay and that there's no way to make overlays work together is ridiculous.
Unless there's a technical reason you cannot have more than one overlay?
Consider (off the top of my head):
You could segment the icon into 4 quadrants (upper left, upper right, etc) - this would allow for 4 overlays per icon. No inter-overlay adaptation required.
You could stack overlays, and ONLY use priority to determine position (z-order anybody?). Allow the user access to User-space priorities, so the USER (you know, the person who the software is supposed to serve?) can choose which overlays matter. Rather than reserving a spot for an overlay, system overlays have the highest priority.
If there is one condition needing an overlay, simply show the one overlay.
If there is more than one condition needing an overlay, layer them all as suggested in the question. Then, the window manager would need to provide an extra UI element indicating that "there's more to know here". Perhaps it only shows up on a mouse hover? Anyway, clicking on that element could show details about the overlay conditions for those who REALLY want to know, but it would be hidden away for the 99.99% of the time when no one cares.
One way would be to add a new Status column in details view, displaying the "presence indicator" in localized plain text.
It would be accessible, wouldn't mess with the file's icon, and would be understandable by all users regardless of their culture or their possible ailments.
I want to implement an application on my website where once the users are connected, they share a text editor. If one user enters anything on
the text editor available on his screen, the same text appears on the second user’s
screen at the same coordinates.
Same thing goes for the other user. Also there would be pointer shaped images on both user’s screens to represent mouse pointers.
When user A moves his mouse pointer, the image on user B’s screen should be
moved according to the movement of user A’s mouse and similarly, when user B
moves his mouse, the image on user A’s screen should be moved accordingly.
The problem is I am using database to store the coordinates of each user. And this approach results in the a lot of lag and delay. What should I use in place of the database?? Please Help !
You probably don't want to request the updates but push them to your clients: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_%28programming%29 . This reduces the delay between an update from your client to the server and other clients again checking for updates.
how abt using Redis : http://code.google.com/p/redis/
an example of a similar collaborative text editor using this : http://www.web2media.net/laktek/2010/05/25/real-time-collaborative-editing-with-websockets-node-js-redis/