Swipe to switch between Running Apps / App Launcher (N9 style)

I really like some of the new navigation ideas introduced by Jolla (i.e. the hidden status bar that you just pull when you really need it instead of the all-the-time-there black bar, or the peek concept for a quick check of the battery/time/notifications)

But sometimes I find the current navigation a bit inconsistent. I admit I'm also comming from N900/N9 but I promise I'm trying my best to get use to SailfishOS navigation.

I have been thinking in a idea similar of what targon just commented. I like this idea, and I think it should be extended to the in-app behavior as well. It would make the overall concept more consistent: .

from any app:

• if you swipe from left to right you go to the [Notifications Feed]
• if you swipe from right to left you go to the [App Launcher]
• if you swipe from bottom to top, then you go to [Running Apps]
• if you swipe from top to bottom, you close the app and go back to [Running Apps]

from the launcher screen:

• swiping from the left: [Notifications Feed]
• swiping from the right: [App launcher]
• swiping/going down: more [Running Apps]
• going up: [Lock Screen]
• swiping from the top: turn off the screen

from [lock screen]:

• swiping from the top: turn off the screen
• swiping from the left: ambiance/profiles
• swiping from the right: settings
• swiping/going down: [Running Apps]

The peek concept will remain as it is right now. .

This way you always have the same behavior regardless if you are in the launcher or inside an app (i.e. swiping/going down is always landing in [Running apps]). Therefore when you are swiping, you know exactly where you are going to land without even looking where you were.

And the key thing: you are always just 1 swipe away from what you want next. Personally, when I'm swiping away from an app, 80% of the time what I really want is to open a new application. Right now after the swipe, I always end in the [running apps] screen, which is not what I want.

Anyway, I know some people would prefer a completely different concept for the navigation, so probably the best solution is to make it customizable.

If you update in place, later visitors of this topic can not retrace how this idea developed. On the other hand: my life does not depend on it ;-)

No need to have the notification feed (events-page) on a sideswipe and I very much like to see that the ambience switcher gets enhanced instead of cluttering the UI into little pieces. Left and right behaviour needs to be consistent for left- and right-handed people.

I can see the points about ambiance and I think it is an interesting aspect to see it as an umbrella for settings (similiar to the profiles found on Symbian devices). Nevertheless, in my opinion it is not used that often, that it just needs to be a swipe away. However switching between application and starting apps is much more often used during the day.

The main problem I see with the current implementation is, that the UX is not consistent: If you want to see the time and network state, you need to swipe from top -> down in the home screen whereas in applications you need to swipe from right -> left / left -> right.

The mentioned N9 problem, where you never know on which location you end after swiping the application away, can be easily solved: If you swipe from right -> left, you will land on the task switcher, swiping from left -> right, you will land on the app launcher.

I as well understand your angle, but we also have to serve great deal of other users and we have to make compromises that fit everyone. If we make everything static and force things, you lose the benefit of dynamic behavior and end up with redundant and overlapping information.

Having a status bar at the top of the screen is an easy way out, but a problem for amoled screens due to static parts burning in and has a performance overhead as it needs to be composited to application pages. We avoid it by making it dynamic, not always visible, but always available.

Time and system information is part of the Home page and you always know where it is because of the transitions when entering it either from lock or an application. We're sorry if you feel it's not consistent.

Thanks for a good discussion :)

The way the status bar is implemented is reasonable and brilliant: it will lead to more space for the applications. I have absolutely no complains about that.

Maybe you will discuss the App Launcher / Task Switcher implementation once more :-)

Thanks for your answers. I really appreciate these.

I always understood Ambience as an umbrella setting and that is just fine. But wouldn't it enough to access those from the lock screen?

   [Ambience] <-> [Lock Screen ] <-> [Ambience]
                       ^
                       |
                       v 
[Running Apps] -> [App Launcher] <-  [Running Apps]
                    oo
                     ^                    
                     |
                     +--- [App Launcher]
                     more pages via flickable

• swipe from left or right from any app to get to the launcher - same as now
• swipe right/left from middle of launcher to get next launcher pages = running apps
• swipe from left or right from lock screen to change Ambience

I understand the "ambience" concept, but still the settings screen is too far away from a running application screen (swipe from side, swipe up, pulley up, change settings, then swipe and touch to return to app). An idea would be to use the bottom quarter of the "peek" screen as a "goto settings" zone, like suggested here, but for settings instead of closing the app.

I am not going to downvote you as your karma is at this point only 21, but your proposal is cluttering the UX into the same mistake Harmattan had, there is a good reason why it is only 2 areas + lockscreen in Silica and having them accessible the same way always is a key feature. Having 5 screens by sideswipe'ing is way to much and I kind of like to not have the notifications feed (events-page) in my face all the time but accessible from everywhere.

Thanx for the perspective, go on and downvote - it's about getting the system that the community wants and If this is just me, then so be it. As I said, Targons alternative above would also be great.

I thought the Harmattan worked well because you could go through the 3 screens (4 if you count the lock screen) in a second by sideswiping. I included notifications feed in my suggestion as it was, for me, one of the best features with Harmattan, and would be much more useful than an "Ambiance screen" but I get that Ambiance is an importan feature for Jolla so I didn't want to just replace it. The pulley menu would, however, allow you to get to your essential functions in an instant.

@Kehis notifications are available from everywhere with a single swipe already (bottom up). The ambiences are promised to become much more than just a background and ringtones, hopefully with that there will come shortcuts (eg settings favourites) to the chooser-page

@chemist: I used the N9 before switching to the Jolla. For me a swipe from bottom up is still much more unnatural than swiping two times to the right... So I understand the argumentation of Kehis. As of today, the Ambiance screens are totally useless and just confuse in terms of usability.

@kMan so what you say is you cannot adapt to something that is even less confusing, sounds like switching from old MS-Office layout to new MS-Office. Sure it is a valid point that you are used to something else... I know android users, they are used to have buttons, do you want buttons too?

I would, but managed to break my N9 and Jolla is taking Sailfish somewhere so I wanted to support them. It's not about making Sailfish to Harmattan because some "never forget"-thing, but giving Jolla a chance and feedback, and making gesture based interface, user customization & development alongside with user community more common in mobile handset and software development in the whole industry. Harmattan did some things really well, Sailfish some even better. The point some of us are making is to bring the good parts of Harmattan, that are currently left out, to Sailfish for the best possible UI. There's no need to think "one or the other".

Sure, I am just pointing out that all those ideas bring a clustering and remove the "smooth and clean". It is very arguable what we have with the ambiences atm but that is promised to be "very" enhanced in the future. Moving the UI around to make scrolling active apps available is pretty no-go-land to me, cluttering the UI to get something back you actually do not need but you just don't know it or do not believe it doesn't put sense in it, for those with actual use for 10 apps or even more there may be other possibilities for improvement than destroying the current setup for all others!

Well, I'm not arguing for expelling ambiance from the UX, nor destroying the current setup. Even if Harmattan-like horizontal swiping between screens would be made available, ambiance-screen could still fit in in a whole lot of places. Now, it just take's up a lot of possibilities for very little in exchange. I'm simply arguing for enhancing the UX a little bit (with the best of Harmattan, according to me) or making it customizable.

No question! But it is customizable already, see patchmanager. So we are really about habit ;) horizontal replacing vertical is habit, but remember that horizontal you need to have a going round and round for left/right handed people, vertical you only have one top side and that applies therefore for both (read, you have two sides but only one top). What is the best of Harmattan? The only thing that might come to mind is that you can pinch to zoom on app-covers and they are scrollable, now they are interactive but not scrollable but zoom in and out depending on their number, I'd like to see a 4x4 roster available, only by zooming in by hand, activating scrolling, that is an idea that does not destroy anything there but adds a new gesture on top.... Instead of enhancing the ideas the Jolla design team realized so far you are asking to revert them back to Harmattan-horizontal-but-vertically-scrollable which is what they wanted to get rid of and did.

Where do ambiences go? Sides are lost, so where do they go? Bottom and top are taken too... you loose everything to scrolling covers (just realized that). Only on lockscreen would be ambiences... oh wait one suggestion said I do not get back to the lockscreen and have a pulley instead...duh