The MID User Interface (UI) is designed for everyone to use, not just the computer savvy. It provides quick access to your most important tasks and makes navigating the system simple. Large, touchable icons and controls make the UI finger friendly.

Overview of the Project
This project includes all portions of the UI and the framework. The underlying framework is GTK-based and uses the Hildon application framework*. As a result, MID applications will share many of the UI and style characteristics of Nokia N-level handheld devices. However, the MID UI, navigation, and user experience will be different in many ways.

Customizability
One of the key aspects of the MID UI is customizability. For example, the marquee (the panel at the top of each screen) is a Hildon panel and each element on the marquee is a plug-in. These marquee elements can easily be reorganized and resized with a configuration file. New plug-ins can be created to provide additional features, such as quick-launch, calendar, application alert, and media mini-mode. The marquee and plug-ins can also be given new themes. The home screen application launch area is also contained in a Hildon home plug-in (or "home applet"). It can be resized and combined with other home plug-ins, such as an RSS-reader, a clock, and a radio applet. There are many opportunities to contribute and help improve the current UI.

Hildon Application Framework
The Hildon Application Framework is the same set of GTK-based classes that Nokia used with Maemo and is the basis for the Nokia N-level devices, such as N700 and N800. The version of Hildon used for the MID UI is pre-4.0 (that is, v0.0.18 of "Consolidated Hildon Framework"), available from svn, with some small additions. Hildon will be released as a separate, independent from Maemo, GNOME open source project later this year, and may be included in the GNOME-Mobile core services (see Lucas Rocha's blog). Changes to Hildon, made for MID UI Framework, are intended to be moved upstream and become part of Hildon.

Related Links
MID Application UI Design Guide
MID Application Development Guide [coming soon]

Getting the Source
The source for the parts of the UI are in the git source repository. You can either view the source online at:

Flash home screen plug-in:
http://www.moblin.org/repos/projects/mobile-basic-flash.git

Marquee plug-ins:
http://www.moblin.org/repos/projects/marquee-plugins.git

Or you can clone the git tree for the projects:
Flash home screen plug-in:

$ git clone http://www.moblin.org/repos/projects/mobile-basic-flash.git

Marquee plug-ins:

$ git clone http://www.moblin.org/repos/projects/marquee-plugins.git

NOTE: To install git from Ubuntu, run "sudo apt-get install git-core".