new notification ('you have mail', etc.).other device buttons like a camera button?.These are some of the events that the window manager will need to handle, at least in some states: CSS transitions between each of the above main states:.homescreen with menu displayed (if we need a menu).Feel free to add others to the lists below:Įach of these states represents a different display, and each state may need its own set of event handlers. So I've been putting together a list of states and a list of events that the window manager may have to handle. I've been conceptualizing the homescreen's as a finite state machine, with the window manager being the piece that is responsible for switching states in response to events. The code needs to be really robust, because if the homescreen breaks, then the phone basically breaks.The point of this project is to clean it all up, centralizing event dispatching, and making it easier to add new features in the future. But the window manager also has to handle other things: the volume buttons should display a temporary volume change overlay, for example, and an incoming phone call should launch an app for answering the phone call.Ĭurrently, that event dispatching is done in an ad-hoc way. And pressing the Home button brings up the homescreen. Tapping an icon launches its app, for example.

The window manager doesn't have any visual representation itself it is the event dispatching code that processes incoming events and makes the right things appear in response to those events. My understanding of the homescreen architecture is that the window manager is the part of the app that ensures that the right things are displayed at the right time. All that is needed for this project for now is a code cleanup in apps/homescreen/js/window_manager.js At Vivien's request I'm scaling this back.

Windowmanager