Charms Bar concept for WP8

[peachy001]

Idea instead of the Start--kill current app. If you're at the start screen, nothing will happen.

I popped a close/kill switch on the bottom of mine. I swapped out the Windows key that linking added due to having the Windows capacitive button on the phone.

 

[narv]

The physical one can stay for web and Bing related searches, they are useful as well. Another suggestion is to use the physical search as an app related search, meaning if you where in the music player for instance, it would search within that app, or in contacts, it would launch the search in that app, etc.

I love having the unified search in windows 8 and RT.. I think the concept is great I just think that having 2 different search buttons that do 2 different things may confuse some people.. As it is right now, after you search using the bing search button, you get a list of results.. being web, local, media, blah blah... perhaps it would make more sense to just append "apps" to that which brings up all your searchable apps and then launches that app when you click on it (so searching "apple pie" will still bring up Wikipedia and not look for an apple pie app if that makes sense).

I know probably everyone here will know the difference and figure it all out in about 2 seconds since when we see the WPC post about the feature they will write up a little section about it and we will know to look for it when we get the update.. but think in about 5 months (hopefully..) when the updates are out and tested and bugs are ironed out and everything.... someone goes into a phone store and decides to pickup the phone... they aren't tech savvy and don't check these forums... will it confuse them to have 2 search buttons? will they know to even look for or use the other one? I might be off base and it might be more intuitive than im thinking but just what crossed my mind..

 

[linking1990]

I love having the unified search in windows 8 and RT.. I think the concept is great I just think that having 2 different search buttons that do 2 different things may confuse some people.. As it is right now, after you search using the bing search button, you get a list of results.. being web, local, media, blah blah... perhaps it would make more sense to just append "apps" to that which brings up all your searchable apps and then launches that app when you click on it (so searching "apple pie" will still bring up Wikipedia and not look for an apple pie app if that makes sense).

I know probably everyone here will know the difference and figure it all out in about 2 seconds since when we see the WPC post about the feature they will write up a little section about it and we will know to look for it when we get the update.. but think in about 5 months (hopefully..) when the updates are out and tested and bugs are ironed out and everything.... someone goes into a phone store and decides to pickup the phone... they aren't tech savvy and don't check these forums... will it confuse them to have 2 search buttons? will they know to even look for or use the other one? I might be off base and it might be more intuitive than im thinking but just what crossed my mind..

I share your same point of view, that's why I believe MS should change the way they implement the physical search button, as it can be confusing for people that were used to app-related search. It's really harder for users to locate the search button in each and every app, it doesn't have a unified place as it should and in some apps like the music hub you won't find it!
If you see this in another way, that search button is the replacement for the one found in the app list, so it won't be that confusing if you know what I mean.

 

[linking1990]

I really was hoping that this would make it to the home page of WPCentral under "from the forums" stories. I really have put lot's of effort into pulling this up.
It's not my design that's important to me I swear, it's about the idea itself. I really don't care if my name was scratched from this even, I just wanted this idea to be read by anyone from the WP team, they are all around the internet, and chances that this might get an idea for someone are big (that's what I saw from the feedback I got).

This is my first effort to try into improving the OS that I became to love, and if everyone was active enough this OS would grow even larger and in an advanced way over other OS's instead of keep playing the catch-up role. I think that this is more important than stories about the Lumia being dropped from over 72 m. We all know what's gonna happen with that!

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

 

[Sebaslight]

thats brilliant... i preffer the second design but with the info. bar showing allways... so you know when you got a notification or your alarm set, or battery and all of that... sadly this wont be made because microsoft's mind is weird... they can do amazing, even extraordinary things... but they don't

 

[linking1990]

thats brilliant... i preffer the second design but with the info. bar showing allways... so you know when you got a notification or your alarm set, or battery and all of that... sadly this wont be made because microsoft's mind is weird... they can do amazing, even extraordinary things... but they don't

Thank you my friend for the feedback. =)

Yes the number of possibilities can be countless with such a new and intuitive way that might give WP the edge over other OS's. I am pretty sure that there are lots and lots of ideas in each one of us that can improve WP. I really like WP and definitely I would like it to succeed, thats why I did my role and shared this idea with everyone.

One thing that's good about the WP development team is that they listen to consumers. I've seen many posts for different MS developers over the internet in different sites (including Joe Belfoir) and you never know if any of them came across such an idea and tried to implement it (not necessarily my idea). I really wanted this to gain traction so this would happen.

 

[Sebaslight]

One thing that's good about the WP development team is that they listen to consumers. I've seen many posts for different MS developers over the internet in different sites (including Joe Belfoir) and you never know if any of them came across such an idea and tried to implement it (not necessarily my idea). I really wanted this to gain traction so this would happen.

well... if thats true then we can have chances by our side... you never know.... lets hope for the better... or at least something similar n_n

 

[deansmilk]

Ok, the Start button. I was thinking that maybe instead of the Start button that space could be used as a sort of multitask. It could display the logo of the last app, IE etc. that you were in. Some what similar to what Win 8 does (except Win 8 is on the left side). That way you can quickly jump from app to app or app to IE or IE to whatever. When there is nothing there the logo is the Windows logo. Maybe have a long press functionality too. Like somebody else mentioned something about favorites?

 

[linking1990]

Ok, the Start button. I was thinking that maybe instead of the Start button that space could be used as a sort of multitask. It could display the logo of the last app, IE etc. that you were in. Some what similar to what Win 8 does (except Win 8 is on the left side). That way you can quickly jump from app to app or app to IE or IE to whatever. When there is nothing there the logo is the Windows logo. Maybe have a long press functionality too. Like somebody else mentioned something about favorites?

I really like this multitasking idea, it's really intuitive and can ease up navigating the OS a lot! Let me see what I can do by adding this with also a favourites or recently used apps button. This is great =D

 

[Gaichuke]

My second attempt

While I like the idea of Charms Bar coming to Windows Phone as well (I believe it eventually will as the Windows and Windows Phone UI's converge further in the next version) I must admit that I don't like this vision of it at all.

Even if the obvious UI design flaws are disregarded and only the idea itself considered, I think this concept tries to accomplish way too many things at the same time compared to the original one by linking1990 which manages to keep it together in far more better fashion.

 

[Nataku4ca]

hm.... interesting, i thought of this when i saw the demo for the ubuntoo phone, though i really dislike how that phone does the side swipe to switch tasks (i feel the phone is too small and the potential for accidental swipe is too high), but this charm bar idea is great, i don't think they need that much buttons though, probably just notification and settings will suffice for the most part, may be even a video out like playto, search still belongs to the search hw button and we have the windows key already, don't need another

 

[linking1990]

hm.... interesting, i thought of this when i saw the demo for the ubuntoo phone, though i really dislike how that phone does the side swipe to switch tasks (i feel the phone is too small and the potential for accidental swipe is too high), but this charm bar idea is great, i don't think they need that much buttons though, probably just notification and settings will suffice for the most part, may be even a video out like playto, search still belongs to the search hw button and we have the windows key already, don't need another

I really hope you read all the thoughts that others came up with, and the vision I have through the earlier comments.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts .

 

[Jaskys]

I don't like design of it, but i like the idea behind it.

 

[johnnylai]

hope this features will include in new coming update

 

[Jesus Garcia Rodriguez]

Where is source code for this fun piece code?

 

[AngryNil]

I don't buy the explanation for having a Windows button in the Charms bar. It sounds like you were trying to reason why you didn't want to deviate from Windows 8 instead of considering the concept through and judging each feature on its actual merits. It's bad enough on Windows 8, the usefulness is even less with Windows Phone 8.

As for the general concept, I'm not opposed to edge gestures and swipes. That said, I don't see this particular implementation as an optimal use case. Search, Close App and Windows are redundant, Share really doesn't need to be everywhere, and other operating systems are able to implement notifications and connectivity toggles in a much cleaner way.

 

[Nataku4ca]

I don't buy the explanation for having a Windows button in the Charms bar.

kind of an old thread, but you do realize that for some reason ppl almost never remember there is a hardware button eh? By that I mean if you are on purely the tablet form (no keyboard/mouse) there is a hardware windows button on the bottom of the screen and for some reason a lot of the guys that I showed my surface to prefer to use the start button from the charm bar...

 

[MattMamba2012]

Wow I really like the idea of a charms bar on WP8. I don't entirely like the way OP created it but the concept is great. Some of the charm buttons are redundant but who knows if the hardware buttons will be needed going forward. The idea is great it just needs more WP flavor, the settings seems a bit androidy past the initial opening of the charms bar. MS would be smart to use something like this though to create more synergy between WP and W8.

 

[berty6294]

kind of an old thread, but you do realize that for some reason ppl almost never remember there is a hardware button eh? By that I mean if you are on purely the tablet form (no keyboard/mouse) there is a hardware windows button on the bottom of the screen and for some reason a lot of the guys that I showed my surface to prefer to use the start button from the charm bar...

Well I think the only reason to prefer the charm bar home button over the physical on the tablet is that it is easier to reach with your thumb. On a phone, you should be able to reach the entire front of the device with your thumb.

 

[AngryNil]

kind of an old thread, but you do realize that for some reason ppl almost never remember there is a hardware button eh?

Depends if you are given the choice. The iPad is the leading tablet and has no software home button. You have to mash that button to do many things, and people do it. However, your point about ease-of-reach for the Surface makes a tonne of sense. But that backfires for this concept, as it's much harder to reach a software button on the top of the device as opposed to pressing a hardware button on the bottom.