The picture above shows a static representation of the media browser our team is creating for the apple iphone.

The Iphone uses an unique interface that apple calls multitouch, all interaction with the UI is via a series of finger gestures. For instance to scroll the screen you use two fingers to drag the screen up or down, to select an item from a list you use a sweeping motion. There are no windows per se . This UI presents some interesting but challenging design choices to the application writer.

1. 1)No stylus or keyboard means everything is entered via gesture or on screen keypad.
   

2. 2)The lack of multiple windows and small screen footprint requires every bit of real-estate to be utilized but in a way that doesn’t look crowded or overburdened.
   

3. 3)Most iphone displays are List orientated.
   

As you click on each item in the list you drill down into folders and content pages. In icefaces terminology these are represented by lists and dataTables.

The images in the photo section,  illustrate this.

This tutorial assumes a basic knowledge of the functionality of the  component suite, if for instance you don’t know what an icefaces datatable is then you need to do a little homework before going further.

fortunately the icefaces site www.icefaces.org has both excellent documentation and a large number of samples and tutorials.

In the next part of THIS document we will discuss how to construct our ui using the icefaces components.