personality input hints

Did you find answers to those questions?

I am also using a BehaviorDelegate and in my code make the decision whether the select action is available. So I am looking for a way to display a hint to the user that the select action is available, and that hint should obviously change its appearance depending on how the select action is implemented in the given device.

I came up with some horrible things that were abandoned, but 1st I tried using the personalities, however that would not work anyway for old devices, so I "ended up" generating lots of constants (using simulator.json, compiler.json) to indicate the positions of the keys and draw the hints with arcs. It worked relatively OK, but not production grade.

flocsy🤠 said:

Aren't we encouraged to use BehaviorDelegate instead of InputDelegate, the left_middle makes no sense at all for onMenu.

This might actually be a good example of why it might be better to associate input hints with button positions and not functions.

The middle button on the left side (for 5 button watches) is only associated with onMenu when you long press it. A short press would correspond to KEY_UP or onPreviousPage.

(Contrast with some older watches which had a dedicated menu button)

(To make matters worse, there *are* some contexts where a short press of the UP button opens a menu.)

flocsy🤠 said:

I don't understand the naming convention: button_left_middle? Why?

It's probably meant to make sense from a design pov rather than a functional pov.

After all, the native button hints typically follow the countours of the physical bezel.

As a counter example, something like "button_up_or_menu" would not be helpful to a designer if the physical location of that button was unspecified.

flocsy🤠 said:

so I "ended up" generating lots of constants (using simulator.json, compiler.json) to indicate the positions of the keys and draw the hints with arcs.

I think I'll go down that route as well. I only need the select behavior, and there are not that many different positions that key can sit on.

How do you indicate to users there that they can tap on the screen on devices that do not have a select button? Like the Vivoactive 3?

Vivoactive 4 and Venu 2 series seem to have a button in the 2 o'clock position but it does not select. Is this really the case or is this another simulator bug? Buttons of Vivoactive 5 and Venu 3 series in the same positions do select.

It might be a simulator bug, I remember that some older devices don't work when you click around their physical button with the mouse. But vivoactive and venu? Not sure. Maybe your code is the reason?

I don't have a good general solution to indicate to the user where to click. Probably it depends on your app's UI. But I guess if there's something that looks like a button, then they'll click on that.

flocsy🤠 said:

But vivoactive and venu? Not sure. Maybe your code is the reason?

This time I checked the simulator.json (thanks for that hint you gave me in another thread).

For the Venu2 models there is an "enter" key defined, but it does not have the "behavior": "onSelect" as the Venu3. Same for the Vivoactive 4 models.

So I guess it is a simulator bug.

I'm not sure it's a bug. I think that's how my daughter's venusqm works . The top button doesn't start the activity, you need to touch the screen

the-ninth said:

Vivoactive 4 and Venu 2 series seem to have a button in the 2 o'clock position but it does not select. Is this really the case or is this another simulator bug? Buttons of Vivoactive 5 and Venu 3 series in the same positions do select.

I think it's possible that irl the top button actually does not select in VA4 and Venu 2.

For example, VA3 only has one button. At the watchface, a short press opens the activities list. During an activity, a short press will start/stop the timer. Everywhere else, a short press returns to the watchface. In order to select thing (e.g. open widgets and select menu items), you *do* have to tap the screen.

Perhaps more relevantly, the VA4 manual says to tap the screen to select (and does not describe the top button as being used for "selecting").

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/vivoactive4_4S/EN-US/GUID-E8D90973-F651-4F66-9A08-A8858C2CB98E.html

Ofc the VA5 manual does not say you can "select" with the top button, so none of this *proves* anything.

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-5D183A14-BB43-4A9B-B441-5F824214CE40/EN-US/GUID-E8D90973-F651-4F66-9A08-A8858C2CB98E.html

But it could be that the top button actually did not select in VA4 and Venu 2, users complained, and Garmin changed the behaviour in VA5 / Venu 3.

I think if you don't believe the simulator, then the only choice is to check on real devices. Either that or file a bug report and see if Garmin can clarify.

It does seem like more than a coincidence that VA4 / Venu 2 work one way and VA5 / Venu 3 work a different way. (Meaning that the behaviour of two generations of different devices are correlated.)

flocsy🤠 said:

The top button doesn't start the activity, you need to touch the screen

I think you mean the top button doesn't "open" the activity. Afaik, *every* watch requires the use of a button to "start"/"stop" an activity (meaning start/stop the activity timer).

(I wouldn't use "start the activity" synonymously with "open the activity", as "start the activity" is usually synonymous with "start the activity timer")

FlowState said:

It does seem like more than a coincidence that VA4 / Venu 2 work one way and VA5 / Venu 3 work a different way. (Meaning that the behaviour of two generations of different devices are correlated.)

(I mean in the sim. idk how they work in real life)

It would be funny if the real bug was that the top button VA5 / Venu 3 does not select.

Anyway, I would probably file a bug report if you need clarification on this.

Or maybe you could try to watch those DCR "in depth UI" videos for VA4 and VA5, and see if he ever uses the top button to select things.

OK, maybe you are right. I already opened a bug, I guess they'll let me know if this is the intended behavior.