Indeed, this is not the group for info about how to do this. However, before you go, I'd like you to minimize the set of changes you're thinking about. This group is about programming using the SDK, so I think it's appropriate to discuss what we SDK users would like to see. (Up to a point, anyway).
While I'd like to see support for multiple windows, I'd also like to see it involve as few changes to the SDK, and be as upward-compatible for older programs, as possible. And, of course, I'd like the user usage model to be as natural for users as possible. Android already supports multiple activities being visible. The tricks I see needed are: 1) Launching an app using a particular window area. Somehow the home screen app needs a hook here, and you need a policy for when to launch activities into the "other" vs "this" by default. I think the default policy should be "same app, same window", and that this should be overridable via a value in the intent. 2) Figuring out what the "back" button should mean here. I think you may only need a single activity stack here. Even if the user has been alternating between screen areas, it would just remove the most recent activity. The long-press Home key could be used to bring up activities in either window and give the user the ability to reorder and select which activities are shown simultaneously. The one enhancement here I'd suggest would be to show which screen portion they're currently displayed on -- and allow the user to drag them to the other side. 3) Applications need to be able to discover which area they are in, and what areas are available, and their geometric relationship. They need this to be able to be able to fill in the intent with the suggestion of where to launch, and they may need to know where they are in order to animate transitions appropriately. Or it may be able to automate that with a standard transition when one activity launches another that ends up in a different window area. In fact, it may be essential, when handling older apps, to suppress the animations supplied and supply something more suitable, as, say, a right-to-left slide out/slide-in, will look completely bizarre if the starting activity is on the left, and the ending activity is on the right (or worse, bottom-left, top-right). On Dec 23, 7:17 pm, TreKing <treking...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 6:14 AM, irulz <vinay....@gmail.com> wrote: > > I will really appreciate any input on this. Is thr anything I am missing ? > > Try the porting or platform groups for questions regarding modifying the > source. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ---------------------- > TreKing <http://sites.google.com/site/rezmobileapps/treking> - Chicago > transit tracking app for Android-powered devices -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
