Re: [9front] 9front on the Allwinner A64

[sirjofri <sirjofri+ml-9front@sirjofri.de>]

Hello,

I think you guys don't fully understand what I plan to do, UI-wise.

I want a pure Plan 9 phone. This doesn't mean I want an adjusted rio and a way to do mouse clicks to fulfill the expectations of what Plan 9 intended for a desktop UI with a mouse and keyboard.

This means, I want to design a fully new UI system that matches the philosophical expectation of "Plan 9", whatever this means. It's not a definitive concept yet, although I have a few ideas that I want to test out (and bitsy/keyboard will be used as a starter).

The goal is to have a Plan 9 device that really feels like a Plan 9 phone, but with a natural way to interact with the system.

Of course I could just copy smartphone UI stuff from Android (or iOS), but you'll soon feel that it's not a Plan 9 system at all. It'd merely be a "modern" UI with a Plan 9 kernel under the hood, much like you don't feel a linux under Android although it is there.

I want the system to be so Plan 9-ey that you can feel Plan 9 each time you use it. I want the system to be fun in a way that you _want_ to use it. I want the system to be productive so that you _can_ use it. And finally (maybe not finally) I want the system so that you can use it within your bigger context of a Plan 9 grid[1].

It should feel natural to interact with existing backend system components like the plumber. In fact, Android has a similar system with its intents, but I can't just copy that and make it work with plumber; it would never feel right. I have to go back to the roots of Plan 9 UI development and design a new system from the ground up, that feels as natural as clicking with a mouse inside acme or using the context menu to send data to the plumber.

I know this is a big challenge and is definitely worth a paper. I wish I had more time to prepare design documentation and concept descriptions for you. The good thing is, I can very likely start developing (and testing, to some extent) on a Plan 9 system on a computer.

sirjofri


[1] This means, you can naturally access your phone from any grid device et vice versa. So you can basically rcpu into your phone and do phone calls.