4 ms·

I like the date picker http://developer.android.com/design/building-blocks/pickers.html http://developer.android.com/design/building-blocks/pickers....

jc4p 15y ago
Fun fact: the up and down arrows work exactly opposite how you expect them to.
- emehrkay 15y ago
  Hilarious because i've been flip flopping on how they worked. The arrows seem to be a paradigm from mouse-based computing, can you scroll these lists like on ios?
  - jc4p 15y ago
    If you scroll them they actually remove the arrows and make a lot more sense. Before you drag: http://i.imgur.com/4MUXO.png http://i.imgur.com/4MUXO.png After you press to drag: http://i.imgur.com/BqXMY.png http://i.imgur.com/BqXMY.png To be fair, it's a huge improvement over: http://i.imgur.com/2exF7.png http://i.imgur.com/2exF7.png
    - BrianHV 15y ago
      As a day 1 Droid user after 10 years on Palm OS, I was stunned that the control in your third picture made it into a release, and even more stunned it persisted so long. On Palm OS you could pick a time with a maximum of three taps. There's no reason it should take more than five: one for each digit plus AM/PM. I'm not a fan of the swiping, but you're right. It is a huge improvement.
      - jc4p 15y ago
        At my job the application we're currently working on is aimed for Android 2.1 and above so we can't the new TimePickerDialog. I actually had testers come up to me and report bugs about the Android TimePickerDialog as bugs in our application saying that it didn't work as expected and it was against the UI specifications (which of course only have pictures for the iPhone version of the application). I had to actually replace them with two dropdown sliders and a button so that the testers would be happy.
    - thetrendycyborg 15y ago
      you know you can just press the number and use the keyboard, right?
      - jsnell 15y ago
        Well, after pressing backspace twice to erase the already entered numbers... It's just amazingly bad :-)
- dprice1 15y ago
  To me the huge irritation with time picking in a lot of Android apps is that they usually force me to specify a fully populated "minutes" field. IIRC, in iOS most apps instead round to ~5 minute intervals. 99% of the time, that is what I want. If you round to 5 minute intervals, there are only 12 possible minute values, not 60. This makes it a lot less work to find what you want and get that calendar appointment scheduled or that alarm clock set up.
  - zalew 15y ago
    I'll sound like wierdo, but I always set uneven minutes to alarms, so there's less chance they overlap each others' snooze alerts. (yep, I have a problem with getting up and have to set up 3 alarms next to each other)
    - benjoffe 15y ago
      Now that I think about it this must be why iOS uses 9 minutes for the snooze interval, to avoid similar overlap (always wondered).
      - zalew 15y ago
        that's clever. now tbh I don't even know how long is snooze on my phone, I just assumed it must be even.
Samuel_Michon 15y ago
Looks a lot less intuitive than the UIDatePicker in iOS, which is styled like a slot machine [1]. Does anyone know whether you can manipulate the controls by dragging, or do you really have to use those little up and down buttons? [1] http://blog.blackwhale.at/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/UIDatePicker-Template.png http://blog.blackwhale.at/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/UIDateP...
- jc4p 15y ago
  You can drag them. See my other comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3458159 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3458159
- briguyd 15y ago
  Swiping works just fine.
- manmal 15y ago
  Swiping works, but due to its minimalistic design, I first expected it to count up when I swiped up - while it did the contrary. It behaves like the iOS slotmachine, but clearly the affordance is broken.
justincormack 15y ago
It is quite annoying, if you say want to move a meeting to next Tuesday you have to work out the date, as you get no day of week indicator. And changing date and also time involves two pickers. Every time I use it I wonder if it could be improved...
resnamen 15y ago
I despise it. One of my Gmail labels is set to sync content for 365 days. I nearly got RSI spinning that damn thing with my thumb until it hit 365.
- sp332 15y ago
  Um, you can just tap the number and it will bring up a 10-key keypad. You can just type "365".

jc4p 15y ago

Fun fact: the up and down arrows work exactly opposite how you expect them to.

emehrkay 15y ago
Hilarious because i've been flip flopping on how they worked. The arrows seem to be a paradigm from mouse-based computing, can you scroll these lists like on ios?
- jc4p 15y ago
  If you scroll them they actually remove the arrows and make a lot more sense. Before you drag: http://i.imgur.com/4MUXO.png http://i.imgur.com/4MUXO.png After you press to drag: http://i.imgur.com/BqXMY.png http://i.imgur.com/BqXMY.png To be fair, it's a huge improvement over: http://i.imgur.com/2exF7.png http://i.imgur.com/2exF7.png
  - BrianHV 15y ago
    As a day 1 Droid user after 10 years on Palm OS, I was stunned that the control in your third picture made it into a release, and even more stunned it persisted so long. On Palm OS you could pick a time with a maximum of three taps. There's no reason it should take more than five: one for each digit plus AM/PM. I'm not a fan of the swiping, but you're right. It is a huge improvement.
    - jc4p 15y ago
      At my job the application we're currently working on is aimed for Android 2.1 and above so we can't the new TimePickerDialog. I actually had testers come up to me and report bugs about the Android TimePickerDialog as bugs in our application saying that it didn't work as expected and it was against the UI specifications (which of course only have pictures for the iPhone version of the application). I had to actually replace them with two dropdown sliders and a button so that the testers would be happy.
  - thetrendycyborg 15y ago
    you know you can just press the number and use the keyboard, right?
    - jsnell 15y ago
      Well, after pressing backspace twice to erase the already entered numbers... It's just amazingly bad :-)
dprice1 15y ago
To me the huge irritation with time picking in a lot of Android apps is that they usually force me to specify a fully populated "minutes" field. IIRC, in iOS most apps instead round to ~5 minute intervals. 99% of the time, that is what I want. If you round to 5 minute intervals, there are only 12 possible minute values, not 60. This makes it a lot less work to find what you want and get that calendar appointment scheduled or that alarm clock set up.
- zalew 15y ago
  I'll sound like wierdo, but I always set uneven minutes to alarms, so there's less chance they overlap each others' snooze alerts. (yep, I have a problem with getting up and have to set up 3 alarms next to each other)
  - benjoffe 15y ago
    Now that I think about it this must be why iOS uses 9 minutes for the snooze interval, to avoid similar overlap (always wondered).
    - zalew 15y ago
      that's clever. now tbh I don't even know how long is snooze on my phone, I just assumed it must be even.

Samuel_Michon 15y ago

Looks a lot less intuitive than the UIDatePicker in iOS, which is styled like a slot machine [1]. Does anyone know whether you can manipulate the controls by dragging, or do you really have to use those little up and down buttons? [1] http://blog.blackwhale.at/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/UIDatePicker-Template.png http://blog.blackwhale.at/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/UIDateP...

jc4p 15y ago
You can drag them. See my other comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3458159 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3458159
briguyd 15y ago
Swiping works just fine.
manmal 15y ago
Swiping works, but due to its minimalistic design, I first expected it to count up when I swiped up - while it did the contrary. It behaves like the iOS slotmachine, but clearly the affordance is broken.

justincormack 15y ago

It is quite annoying, if you say want to move a meeting to next Tuesday you have to work out the date, as you get no day of week indicator. And changing date and also time involves two pickers. Every time I use it I wonder if it could be improved...

resnamen 15y ago

I despise it. One of my Gmail labels is set to sync content for 365 days. I nearly got RSI spinning that damn thing with my thumb until it hit 365.

sp332 15y ago
Um, you can just tap the number and it will bring up a 10-key keypad. You can just type "365".