Fenix Data Field Limits

The fr 735 (and I think the epix) allows more than two, but all other watches have a limit of 2.  Some of the newer watches have much more memory for a single DF though.

Yep - given the large amount of memory, powerful processors, and absurd CIQ data field limit.... multiple (related) views per field is the only way to go, with an intuitive way to move between views. For non touch screen devices, there really isn't a clean way to switch views. Since you can't really assign a button. Really the only way is to tap into the LAP button, or detect a quick STOP/START sequence. Both of those impact the FIT file.

Increasing the number of CIQ DFs is something that's been requested by both users and devs for every wearable since CIQ began.  There's more involved than just the memory for DFs, because as the devices got more memory, other things are involved such as music, background processes, etc.  The 735 had 3, but lost access to the widget loop while in an activity, and on other watches, what can be used/seen in the widget loop is different even if you just have one CIQ DF in an activity. 

As far as processor, there really hasn't been a major change in wearables when it comes to CIQ.  See the numbers in the description from the Tree Benchmark .  On things like the e530, the numbers are significantly higher than any wearable.

Correct, and because of the limit of 2 CIQ DF for my F5, I was astonished why users bothers with the dimensions of multi field layouts.

Therefore I use only a 1 field layout and include multiple values. The advantage is that this DIY layout counts only for 1 DF.

DaveBrillhart said:

Yep - given the large amount of memory, powerful processors, and absurd CIQ data field limit.... multiple (related) views per field is the only way to go, with an intuitive way to move between views. For non touch screen devices, there really isn't a clean way to switch views. Since you can't really assign a button. Really the only way is to tap into the LAP button, or detect a quick STOP/START sequence. Both of those impact the FIT file.

Well, there *is* another way to do it, but it's very counterintuitive. You can detect when the data field is quickly hidden and shown again, and switch views based on that. From the user's POV, they switch views by pressing UP and DOWN quickly.

I have a data field app that uses this to switch from "full-screen datafield view" to "lap history view".

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/77c83bb1-925e-4323-a2ab-e97269c3cdb9

TBH it's not the greatest UX....

Something that Travis mentioned in the past was allowing CIQ data fields to hook into the context menu. While this would be a lot of keypresses, it would be the cleanest way to implement switching of views and/or any other kind of dynamic behaviour based on user input.

The problem is that there just aren't any available buttons which don't already have a system function.

Love it. That is a clever way to signal the DF without impacting the FIT file. Thx!

I do the same. I have a four metric DF focused on climbing (elev, ascent, grade, VAM). And a four metric DF focused on time (elapsed, moving, ToD and the 4th actually alternates among 10 other times like sunrise, start, stop, lap, etc). And yet another 4 metric DF focused on general stats (speed, distance, cadence, HR). I’d love to run all 3 of these. Oh well. Guess I’ll combine them into one with 3 views.

Two things I've done based on the DF are:

-Time based - with app settings you can set how fast the data changes, and also have booleans as far as what to display.  Say I can show 4 pieces of data, but the user is only interested in the 2nd and 3rd, they can turn off the 1st and 4th, so it just rotates the 2nd and 3rd.

- only allow full screen (single field) layouts.  You can determine if that's the case in the code, but put a warning up if they try to use it in a layout that's not supported (reduces complaints if the use try the wrong layout and things look bad).  With this you can display all your data at one time, so no switching involved.

Great points. I do both of those. My FourTimes DF displays 4 metrics in a quadrant view. The bottom right rotates among 11 different times based on a user setting speed and booleans to turn on/off any of the 11. And my FourStats DF supports round screens and only is allowed in Obscurity Flags 15, or 7 and 13 if those are half screen, or 5 if 1/3 screen. With a msg if they try to place it in a disallowed field size.

Obscurity flags work for round/semiround devices, but if you use Sys.getDeviceSettings().screenWidth and  Sys.getDeviceSettings().screenHeight, you can use the same logic for rectangular devices (non-wearables, the va, vahr, 920, epix), as with those you get the size of the whole screen and not just the dc for the DF and can compare