So again after more time using the CarPC I had to get back to the drawing board and re-think some of the UI.
While the second UI design was overall fine, it was a RoadRunner skin that I published on the community website so that I would give something back to the open source project. It included a lot of features I would not use personally but being a probono thing I added as much as it was needed to satisfy a wide range of users.
A big problem in every CarPC setup is the Screen Visibility during the day. Screen reflections can never be removed, no mather how expensive monitor you use. This is the reason even OEM manufacturers place the Infotainment display inside a large bezel. Having a hi-contrast UI helps minimise this problem so from here my idea was to make a new skin that can easily swich between day and night modes. I achievend this by making all the assets of the UI using custom fonts. This made is possible to change the accent colour (Red) to White or any colour by a click of a button. This resulted in many advantages such as:
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Highly felexible design
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No need for sepparate assets like images or config files for each colour
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Light on Resources Usage - responsive UIX
As the name suggests, this new UI would embrace 'Less is More' and focus on just 4 main features:
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MAIN - Overview/Dashboard
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OBC - BMW Controls
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GPS - Navigation
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MUSIC - Paylist Editor
OK... the MAIN screen still has a lot of buttons... the one in the bottom-right corner would change the colour to white.
