Impressions of emacs on a cell phone

Impressions of emacs on a cell phone

[jidanni]

Gentlemen, I have done http://wiki.debian.org/DebianOnFreeRunner and even
debian-gta02:~# apt-get install w3m-el-snapshot
debian-gta02:~# DISPLAY=:0 emacs -f w3m
yes, browsing the web.

You see my goal is to not use the FreeRunner as a cellphone, but as a
PDA: bbdb, w3m (mainly offline with a WWWOFFLE cache)...

Impressions of emacs on a cellphone:

Got to crank up the fonts larger or something. Doing OK with my trusty
magnifying glass, but two hands busy is not helping my Austin Powers
"swinger" image. Got to adjust how the menus react to a stylus pointer
better, in terms of staying put longer when the stylus leaves the
surface. Got to make sure almost everything can be done with the
stylus. For instance, I want to send a Control g, but there is nothing
on the toolbar to send it, so I have to use system's uncomfortable
on-screen keyboard to send it. One must learn how to "hover" with the
stylus to read tooltips.

So, I urge developers to tie your keyboards behind your back and try
life with a stylus and a tiny screen...

...and post the .emacs files you come up with by the time I get back
from the Taipei OpenMoko office next week (where I'm going to get the
cable I left there last time,) so I can "all play and no work":-)

Re: Impressions of emacs on a cell phone

[joakim]

jidanni@jidanni.org writes:

> Gentlemen, I have done http://wiki.debian.org/DebianOnFreeRunner and even
> debian-gta02:~# apt-get install w3m-el-snapshot
> debian-gta02:~# DISPLAY=:0 emacs -f w3m
> yes, browsing the web.

You beat me to it!

I'm also using Emacs on the FreeRunner, there is great potential I
think.

Here are some ideas of mine(from a mail I sent to the openmoko list):
- get emacs23 working, so one can use the dbus support of emacs 23.
- make a dialer compatible with bbdb, and later addressbook.el
- make a gnus backend for sms
- a symbol chooser keyboard.
  - start the "keyboard"(an emacs app) in a particular context(lets say
  m-x now, but its the same for adresses or whatever)
  - (1) show all unique prefixes in this context
  - (2) choose a prefix
  - (3) repeat from (1) with the chosen prefix, exit on a terminal symbol

I really think Emacs could be a superiour telephone application plattform!
  
>

>
> You see my goal is to not use the FreeRunner as a cellphone, but as a
> PDA: bbdb, w3m (mainly offline with a WWWOFFLE cache)...
>
> Impressions of emacs on a cellphone:
>
> Got to crank up the fonts larger or something. Doing OK with my trusty
> magnifying glass, but two hands busy is not helping my Austin Powers
> "swinger" image. Got to adjust how the menus react to a stylus pointer
> better, in terms of staying put longer when the stylus leaves the
> surface. Got to make sure almost everything can be done with the
> stylus. For instance, I want to send a Control g, but there is nothing
> on the toolbar to send it, so I have to use system's uncomfortable
> on-screen keyboard to send it. One must learn how to "hover" with the
> stylus to read tooltips.
>
> So, I urge developers to tie your keyboards behind your back and try
> life with a stylus and a tiny screen...
>
> ...and post the .emacs files you come up with by the time I get back
> from the Taipei OpenMoko office next week (where I'm going to get the
> cable I left there last time,) so I can "all play and no work":-)
>
-- 
Joakim Verona

Re: Impressions of emacs on a cell phone

[Juri Linkov]

> Here are some ideas of mine(from a mail I sent to the openmoko list):
> - get emacs23 working, so one can use the dbus support of emacs 23.
> - make a dialer compatible with bbdb, and later addressbook.el
> - make a gnus backend for sms
> - a symbol chooser keyboard.
>   - start the "keyboard"(an emacs app) in a particular context(lets say
>   m-x now, but its the same for adresses or whatever)
>   - (1) show all unique prefixes in this context
>   - (2) choose a prefix
>   - (3) repeat from (1) with the chosen prefix, exit on a terminal symbol
>
> I really think Emacs could be a superiour telephone application plattform!

I successfully experimented with such UI in Emacs where prefix menus are
represented as an outline structure in the initially collapsed state.
You can press a stylus on a top-level item, and while moving the stylus
a few pixels to the right direction it expands the submenu item under it.
Without releasing the stylus, you can move it down to the next subitem
or up to the previous item on the same level, and move the stylus again to
the right direction to expand the next subitem.  So moving the stylus left
collapses the item under the pointer, and moving the stylus right expands it.
When you arrive to the leaf item you want to execute, you can release the
stylus on it, and it executes its associated Emacs command.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/