S60 Open to new features

Welcome to the S60 blogs!

Maybe you're the best person to ask this: any plan to get more native video codec support in S60? As it stands right now, video on a S60 device is a pain for any non savvy user. RealPlayer is not enough. I really hope some sort of native avi/wmv/mpeg video player is in the works for S60, as that would make things a lot easier for people without the need to use a converter to save everything in 3GP format.

Thanks!

Thanks Elfguy!

Short answer to your question is: Yes. Long answer... well, you just decided the topic for my next post! I'll try to have it up sometime this week =)

Personally I would prefer having a standard set of keys. If each device define its own "additional" key, each time we have a new device we have to adapt to it.

As developers, having standard keys will help us a lot too. I am one of the developers who are affected by Pencil key. Since it was removed on some newer S60 devices, my application, Screenshot for Symbian OS, doesn't working.

So, please do not keep adding and removing keys each time new device is released. Make it standard.

Welcome, Carol. :-)

I agree with Antony - removing the Edit key in this was has been, from a 3rd party developer perspective, perhaps not the greatest of UI moves that S60 has ever made... Overall, I agree that the Pencil key is probably the most confusing and least useful key for the built-in features, but in the past it has been a useful "wildcard" for 3rd party developers.

Our application is also heavily dependent on having such an additional key for shortcuts, so suddenly having a much greater variety of keyboard layouts to cope with (and no documentation that summarizes what keys that can and cannot be relied on, resulting in a lot of squinting at pictures of pre-release devices for clues as to what their "keyboard philosophy" is going to be).

My feeling is that, because a handset is operated much more like a physical "gadget" (which you use in awkward situations - one handed, walking, driving etc.), standardizing the interface between software and physical design becomes much more important.

For example, which key codes are expected to be used in the future for keys that are "easy to reach", "always available", "present in every device" etc.?

Doess60 offer the same call divert function as the other Nokia phones. for example does the it have the "divert when unavailable" function? this is such a time saving function and beats having to do "divert when busy, divert when unanswered, divert when out of network, divert xxxxxxx phone number etc etc..." i have more on my blog with photos and maybe you can let me know as it will influence my buying decision for the e61i.
thanks

Hi Marcus and Antony, thanks for your welcome and comments! I agree that adding and removing keys from the default set is not a good idea, as it frustrates not only 3rd party developers but also end users who have come to expect a certain dependable user experience from S60.

However specialized keys have their place too, for example a shutter release for the N95 and music controls on the N76. I think the important thing is that these keys do not try to replace any of the existing standard keys. Like the dedicated volume keys I mentioned in the post... having them should not disable using the left/right navikeys to adjust volume. Perhaps the extra keys should not be programmable for shortcuts either as they are not standard across devices.

I will pass your feedback to groups more directly involved in making decisions related to this.

Thanks again!

Hey Gweilo, yes, these are the available options for Call Diverts:

- All calls
- If busy
- If not answered
- If out of reach
- If not available (which covers the 3 cases above: I think this is what you want)

Hope this helps!

I would disagree, I think optional keys (like volume, music keys, camera key etc...) should be accessible to applications but they should also be documented as non-standard so applications should never rely on them.

Apps should be able to check at runtime what optional keys are present and then enable/disable related functionality. For example, let's say I want to make an app which somewhere within it lets you use the camera to make a photo - if a camera key is present why shouldn't I be able to use that to take a picture as well as the standard middle softkey?

I guess keycodes for optional buttons should be standardised, so that if a "volume up" (or whatever) button is present on a device it is guaranteed to have code XYZ

Headset buttons should be accessible to apps if available too. I'd love it if there was an app that let me configure actions for button presses on the remote thingy in my earphone cable. At the moment all it can do is answer/end calls with a single press and prompt for voice commands with a long press. It would be cool if I could set things up like "a double press launches the music player" or "a short press followed by a long one reads my last received text message to me using text-to-speech" and so on. Admittedly this would only appeal to power users who can be bothered to memorise such combinations but I'd imagine there's enough of them about to make it worthwhile for a 3rd party app developers to implement this.

James, you raise some good points. I suppose the extra keys can be made accessible as long as their functionalities are in addition to rather than in place of the standard keys.

Or, that they are used for optional (nice to have) features and not standard (need to have) features.

But, yeah, whatever the type of keys, their keycodes should be standardized, and I believe this is the case.

This would be especially useful for games.

Boom

Agree 100% with James.

I mainly work on the java side. With a more diverse set of target devices, you learn to design the application to work on the standardized minimum set of keys. However, special keys help making the apps more usable for people with devices with such keys. For instance, the C key is supported by a wide range of devices from different manufacturers - and most of them even use the same key code, even though it's not standardized.

On N92 the edit key was removed, but the functionality is not replaced with #-key. So there are plenty of S60 apps that simply don't work on the device, as they expect that kind of functionality (select multiple items, for instance) to be present. That's something that shouldn't happen. Please at least put out a software version for the N92 where # (together with the directional keys) has the functionality of the edit key as you described.

wow I didn't realize a mention of keys can generate such passionate discussion! I'm stoked by all the responses. Thanks to everyone, you've provided some valid points of consideration, and I will try my best to relay your comments to the appropriate groups.

Do you guys know if there is an application for S60 that would enable to define shortcuts for normal number keys, similar to speed-dial feature, but for application shortcuts and for web links etc.?
-jaakko

Hei Jaakko, I don't know of such an app, but here's a trick:

When you hit the application/menu key, you see the applications and folders in a grid format. They actually correspond to the numeric keys (1 = upper left most app/folder, ).

so if you arrange the app icons so that your most frequently used ones are in the root folder, you can actually use a two-key shortcut (menu+number) to get to your favorite apps.

If you had the view in "list" instead of "grid" format, the number will correspond to the order in the list.

Hi Carol,
I've used the trick you described.
Now I'm actually looking for a solution for my multimedia computer that I could define my favorite web-links to work as speed dials from the idle mode, such as speed-dialing feature works to make a phone call. An example, if press and hold number 5-key, it starts the browser and goes to address http://blogs.s60.com/s60multimedia/

Jaakko, I'm not aware of any such solution.

If anyone else knows something kindly share.

However your idea is useful, since we're using our devices less and less as a phone and more for browsing and many other apps. It makes sense to extend the numeric key shortcut feature to support bookmarks and launching applications, in addition to speed dialling.

the information you gave me is kind of right but you failed to mention you can't make a shortcut for call divert like the 6233 for example. i have to press about ten buttons to get call divert.
i used to be a big fan of symbian and nokia and now it's gone the way of other products.
features like the auto lock for the e61i involve pressing nine keys to unlock the device which seems insane.
you need to better inform potential clients about this or fix it. if this product keeps going to market in this form the end result of the chain will be lower stock values.
with all the phones practically made in china the edge should be the software.
and where's the relationship with hotmail? after all these years symbian and hotmail are poles apart but sharing the same roads.
based on your advice i bought a e61i and now wondering how i can get rid of it...