User Interfaces - Revision history

Peter Huewe: it's own -> its own

2011-10-27T22:21:45Z

it's own -> its own

PaulEggleton: Update Opie link

2011-05-20T14:47:27Z

Update Opie link

Wmat: typo fix

2010-05-27T20:53:39Z

typo fix

Bere: /* Disko */

2009-09-18T13:30:39Z

‎Disko

Jasonpclarke: /* Others */

2009-09-17T23:35:26Z

‎Others

ThomasPetazzoni: /* QT/Qtopia */

2009-04-07T02:56:20Z

‎QT/Qtopia

ThomasPetazzoni at 02:50, 7 April 2009

2009-04-07T02:50:28Z

FransMeulenbroeks: /* WxEmbedded */ added DialogBlocks

2008-11-19T19:01:26Z

‎WxEmbedded: added DialogBlocks

GustavoBarbieri: /* Enlightenment Based Frameworks */

2008-11-19T01:22:31Z

‎Enlightenment Based Frameworks

GustavoBarbieri: /* DirectFB */ add wiki link.

2008-11-19T01:11:58Z

‎DirectFB: add wiki link.

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:21, 27 October 2011
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	==== Sugar (OLPC) ====		==== Sugar (OLPC) ====
−	Sugar is the user interface used in the One Laptop Per Child project. It takes a different approach to the "desktop" metaphor and uses ~~it's~~ own unique user interface. The Sugar wiki can be found at [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar].	+	Sugar is the user interface used in the One Laptop Per Child project. It takes a different approach to the "desktop" metaphor and uses its own unique user interface. The Sugar wiki can be found at [http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar].

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:47, 20 May 2011
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	==== Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (OPIE) ====		==== Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (OPIE) ====
−	Originally started as an alternative GUI for the Sharp Zaurus, OPIE has now spread across several devices and has a large collection of applications. Opie uses an older version of QT/Embedded which lacks many of the feature of the more modern Qtopia. However, due to it's stability & large application base it remains a very interesting prospect. More information at [http://opie.~~handhelds~~.~~org~~]	+	Originally started as an alternative GUI for the Sharp Zaurus, OPIE has now spread across several devices and has a large collection of applications. Opie uses an older version of QT/Embedded which lacks many of the feature of the more modern Qtopia. However, due to it's stability & large application base it remains a very interesting prospect. More information at [http://opie.sourceforge.net]

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 === Frame buffer (FBDev) ===
-Most Linux systems on embedded devices only provide a frame buffer device. This allows an application to memory-map the pixels on the screen and write to them as if it was a regular array. This frame buffer interface is universal across all architectures and all devices, allowing applications utilising the frame buffer to be ported easily. The disadvantage is that quite often the Application Processor has more advanced graphics hardware for rendering which is not utilized by the frame buffer interface. Another disadvantage is when contention for the frame buffer exists. What happens when two applications want to write to the framebuffer at once? How do they know not to overwrite each other's contents?
+Most Linux systems on embedded devices only provide a frame buffer device. This allows an application to memory-map the pixels on the screen and write to them as if it was a regular array. This frame buffer interface is universal across all architectures and all devices, allowing applications utilizing the frame buffer to be ported easily. The disadvantage is that quite often the Application Processor has more advanced graphics hardware for rendering which is not utilized by the frame buffer interface. Another disadvantage is when contention for the frame buffer exists. What happens when two applications want to write to the framebuffer at once? How do they know not to overwrite each other's contents?
 === DirectFB ===

@@ Line 121: / Line 121: @@
 ==== Disko ====
-Disko is a GPL-licensed application framework, that can be used to develop GUI applications for embedded devices. It is closely connected to the DirectFB hardware abstraction library and specialised in touchscreen and remote control navigation. It provides a plugin based management component, which enables easy writing and extending embedded applications. Media playback (DVD, DVB, IPTV and audio streams) is provided by the well known xine media library. Disko has been ported to the TI DaVinci chipset together with Direct FB and runs on x86 as well. [http://www.diskohq.org Disko homepage]
+Disko is a LGPL-licensed application framework, that can be used to develop GUI applications for embedded devices. It is closely connected to the DirectFB hardware abstraction library and specialised in touchscreen and remote control navigation. It provides a plugin based management component, which enables easy writing and extending embedded applications. Media playback (DVD, DVB, IPTV and audio streams) is provided by the well known xine media library. Disko has been ported to the TI DaVinci chipset together with Direct FB and runs on x86 as well. [http://www.diskohq.org Disko homepage]
 ==== Crank Software's Storyboard UI Suite ====

← Older revision		Revision as of 23:35, 17 September 2009
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	Disko is a GPL-licensed application framework, that can be used to develop GUI applications for embedded devices. It is closely connected to the DirectFB hardware abstraction library and specialised in touchscreen and remote control navigation. It provides a plugin based management component, which enables easy writing and extending embedded applications. Media playback (DVD, DVB, IPTV and audio streams) is provided by the well known xine media library. Disko has been ported to the TI DaVinci chipset together with Direct FB and runs on x86 as well. [http://www.diskohq.org Disko homepage]		Disko is a GPL-licensed application framework, that can be used to develop GUI applications for embedded devices. It is closely connected to the DirectFB hardware abstraction library and specialised in touchscreen and remote control navigation. It provides a plugin based management component, which enables easy writing and extending embedded applications. Media playback (DVD, DVB, IPTV and audio streams) is provided by the well known xine media library. Disko has been ported to the TI DaVinci chipset together with Direct FB and runs on x86 as well. [http://www.diskohq.org Disko homepage]
		+
		+	==== Crank Software's Storyboard UI Suite ====
		+
		+	The [http://cranksoftware.com/products/crank_storyboard_suite.php Crank™ Storyboard™ UI Suite] is a graphical development tool and runtime engine designed for the requirements of the embedded consumer market. [http://cranksoftware.com/products/crank_storyboard_designer.php Crank Storyboard Designer] enables user interface (UI) designers to easily prototype the look and feel of a product, and then move the prototype directly to the embedded target for deployment. The [http://cranksoftware.com/products/crank_storyboard_embedded_engine.php Crank Storyboard Embedded Engine] is the runtime component that drives the content developed in Crank Storyboard Designer on embedded devices. It is architected exclusively to address the unique challenges of bringing a rich user interface (UI) user experience (UX) to resource-constrained embedded devices.

	[[Category:Categories]]		[[Category:Categories]]

@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 === QT/Qtopia ===
-QT is a commercial product written by a company called [http://www.trolltech.com Trolltech]. However, Trolltech uses a dual license scheme where it releases QT under the GPL. This means that if you also use the GPL to license your application, you can use QT for free. QT as it stands is unsuitable for embedded devices due to it's large size and large dependency tree. However, a few years ago, Trolltech launched an embedded version of QT, cleverly named Qt/Embedded. While this is still used for the OPIE application framework, Troltech have updated Qt/Embedded and produced their own framework called Qtopia. Out of the box, both Qt/Embedded and Qtopia render directly to the frame buffer. In Qtopia, it is possible to accelerate this rendering by re-implementing several of the classes the library uses to perform all drawing operations. The Both QT/Embedded & the Qtopia framework also handles windowing internally when multiple applications are running. More recently, Trolltech has incorporated OpenGL ES into Qtopia, which is used for hardware accelerated drawing operations and for compositing multiple windows. The Trolltech [http://doc.trolltech.com/4.3/qtopiacore-ahigl.html documentation] also hints at visual effects similar to those on Beryl/Compiz, although there are no screen-shots avaliable.
+QT is a commercial product written by a company called [http://www.trolltech.com Trolltech] that has been bought by [http://www.nokia.com Nokia] in January 2008. Written in C++ and providing a C++ API, Qt is not only a graphical library, but a full development framework : database access, XML, threads, data structures, networking, etc.
 === Enlightenment ===

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 On a desktop system, this is separated into several components: An X-server which allows client applications to connect and draw things in the client's window. Then there are the widget toolkits, where you generally have a choice between Motif, GTK+, QT or Enlightenment (there are many others, but these are the more common ones). On an embedded system, this separation is not always as clear cut.
-NOTE: LinuxDevices has a more detailed guide to embedded graphics [http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9202043619.html here], although this is quite old now.
+== Global overviews ==
 == Back Ends ==

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:01, 19 November 2008
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	[http://www.wxwidgets.org/docs/embedded.htm WxEmbedded] is the embedded variant of [http://www.wxwidgets.org WxWidgets]. It is a widget library on top of X11, GTK+, DirectFB, Nano-X, MicroWindows, MGL and WinCE. Applications are portable between those platforms and get the native look and feel on them.		[http://www.wxwidgets.org/docs/embedded.htm WxEmbedded] is the embedded variant of [http://www.wxwidgets.org WxWidgets]. It is a widget library on top of X11, GTK+, DirectFB, Nano-X, MicroWindows, MGL and WinCE. Applications are portable between those platforms and get the native look and feel on them.
		+
		+	WxWidgets has a nice cross platform GUI programming assistants called [[http://www.anthemion.co.uk/dialogblocks/\|DialogBlocks]]. It is unclear how usable this tool is in combination with WxEmbedded, but if you are interested in WxEmbedded, DialogBlocks is definitely worthwhile investigating.

	== Application Frameworks ==		== Application Frameworks ==

@@ Line 92: / Line 92: @@
 === Enlightenment Based Frameworks ===
-Currently, there are only two distinct projects using Enlightenment on embedded devices and that is Fancypants and OpenInkpot. However, the Enlightenment developers have been working with embedded devices in mind and there are numerous blog posts about things which have been prototyped.
+Currently, there are many distinct projects using Enlightenment on embedded devices. the developers have been working with embedded devices in mind and there are numerous blog posts about things which have been prototyped.
 ==== Fancypants ====
@@ Line 99: / Line 99: @@
 ==== OpenInkpot ====
 OpenInkpot is a "project for creating a free and open-source Linux distribution for eink-based devices". It is a non-commercial project developing firmware for different e-ink readers, using Evas and Ewl for the software. Currently in early stages. See the [http://openinkpot.org/ project page] for further details.
 === Others ===

@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
 === DirectFB ===
 [http://www.directfb.org DirectFB] addresses the issue of not utilising hardware acceleration by providing applications with a more advanced programming interface. Common graphics operations such as line drawing, blit'ing and basic windowing are provided. When the underlying hardware is able to accelerate these operations, this acceleration is used. When hardware acceleration is not available, the operation is performed in software, providing maximum compatibility for applications. While this is an excellent project, the number of hardware-accelerated devices supported are small and does not include any CPUs you'd find on a phone. This may, of course, change in the future. DirectFB also addresses the contention issue by providing windowing. Applications request a window from DirectFB, which ensures no applications overwrite each other's contents (Similar to X).
 === Nano-X (Formally Microwindows) ===