Custom watch face turns black (disappears) while swiping in the menu on device (Vivoactive 5)

I'm using the 11.11 beta FW, and I don't see what you do in the right picture. If there's a short swipe, the screen clears and the watch face shows.  If the swipe, is about 1/2 the screen or more, Recent fills the screen.

This looks OK to me...

Native WF's may look a bit different, but they aren't written in Monkey C and can sometimes do things that can't be done in CIQ.

In both images I do the same: swiping in from left opening the Recent menu.
Right image show a stock watch face. This stays visible during the swipe.
In want the same behaviour for my custom watch face (left image), which turns black during the swipe.
Hope this clears things up.

Thanks, this explains it. Not the answer I was hoping for, though :)

Native watch faces can sometimes access data you can't get with CIQ, There are probably things they do with AMOLD displays that are different.  The template you are using doesn't have anything for AMOLED, so that's a place to start.

On watches like the va5, I really cant think of the last time I used the right swipe on a watch face.  I do use complications though, where you can press on something and go right to the widget for that.

See https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/connect-iq-faq/how-do-i-make-a-watch-face-for-amoled-products/#howdoimakeawatchfaceforamoledproducts

and https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/core-topics/complications/

jim_m_58 said:

FlowState said:

Yeah so you only answered half of my question: what happens to the CIQ watchface while "Recent" starts to appear? Does it stay partially visible or does it disappear completely?

The right side of the screen is black.  But I'm also swiping a a crazy slow speed..  If I start and the stop a short bit later, the right edge of "recent" apps appears, and if I lift my finger, the screen clears and my watch face appears right away.  On some devices, the dc is cleared before onUpdate is called.

See this is why I asked the poster to try my WF from 2015 on the va5, and I can look into whatever odd he sees. With my own source code and my own va5.

Yes and now that they have done so, they have validated *exactly* what they originally said and what I said, but what you originally denied:

When you swipe away from a CIQ watchface on VA5 and 955, the watchface disappears immediately. When you swipe away from a native watchface on VA5 and 955, the watchface stays on the screen while you are swiping. I can see the "bad" behavior with every single CIQ watchface on my 955.

For some reason you don't seem to understand the problem. Again, it is *very* easy to see the problem if:

- you swipe very slowly or you swipe halfway and leave your finger on the screen. (The reason I suggested this is not because it's impossible to see the problem if you swipe normally, but bc it's very easy to see the problem this way, and to prove that the watchface disappears immediately as you start swiping. Like I said, I can see the problem when I swipe normally.)

- you compare with a native watchface

- you compare with the situation where the user swipes *back* to the watchface (in which case both CIQ and native watchfaces appear immediately and scroll smoothly on to the screen, while the previous content smoothly scrolls away, instead of disappearing.)

So idk why you bothered to deny what was said in the OP and what I confirmed. First you said it wasn't happening, and now you imply it doesn't matter.

I think that's called moving the goalposts.

jim_m_58 said:

On watches like the va5, I really cant think of the last time I used the right swipe on a watch face. 

Pretty common pattern: first response is "I don't see the problem", then when it's explained, "this isn't a problem".

You should really try this on a modern Forerunner, where the watchface and glance list appear and behave as a continuous loop (as you know.) You will see that the effect is fairly jarring when you swipe up or down from the watchface, as CIQ watchfaces just suddenly disappear instead of smoothly scrolling off the screen.

You should also try this on an old Forerunner (like 935), where you will see that both native and CIQ watchfaces scroll off the screen (neither kind of watchface disappears suddenly) when you press UP or DOWN, although the scrolling is very slow in the case of CIQ. That is why I guessed that this was done on purpose.

Why does it matter? Not only does the smooth scrolling (as oppose to abrupt disppearance) look nicer, it also makes more sense for a *touch* device. Try swiping up/down/left/right anywhere on your phone where there's a discrete "pages" paradigm (like left/right on your home screen.) You will see that the content smoothly tracks your fingers, as opposed to abruptly jumping back and forth between pages with no transition. The same happens for modern Garmin touchscreen watches (and even with some older Garmins without a touchscreen like FR935.) The point of this behavior is to give the user the feeling that they are literally moving the content with their finger.

If every "page" on your Garmin acted like CIQ watchfaces, you would notice. Like if you scrolled data pages and they just disappeared abruptly as you scrolled past them instead of smoothly scrolling away as the new page scrolled into view, it would look bad and feel bad (from a touch perspective.) That is actually how FR630 worked (a very old touchscreen Garmin), and it felt bad (also because scrolling was very slow.)

Alex said:

I tried your "Simple Big" watch face and surprisingly, I see the exact same effect as with the template.

It turns black immediately at the shortes swipe gesture already, actually even before the menu is partially visible.

I don't think this is surprising, because it seems this behavior (whether it's intentional or not) applies to all CIQ watchfaces (at least on 955 and VA5.) I wouldn't be surprised if it happens to most or all modern Garmin watches (with CIQ watchfaces), too.

We will never know if it's intentional unless Garmin tells us.

You could always file a bug report - at least there's a chance Garmin will respond and confirm if this is by design.

Given that native watchfaces "freeze" (stop updating) when you scroll away (this can be seen if you swipe halfway and hold your finger down on a watchface that has seconds), it seems Garmin already has a way to mitigate any performance issues related to scrolling away from a watchface (i.e. instead of allowing the watchface to continuously update its display while you scroll away, the device seems to just use the last frame that was displayed when you started scrolling.) I don't see why the same technique couldn't also be used for CIQ watchfaces. (Ofc I'm assuming that the behavior you reported is intentional and that it was done for performance reasons.)