Home Panel

The home panel is, by default, the bottom layer of the system UI in TomTom Digital Cockpit. When the system is started, or the user closes an application, this is the screen the user is greeted with. By default, TomTom Digital Cockpit serves the navigation experience as the home screen. This choice was made because for many drivers navigation guidance is the primary on-screen task while driving, and setting up a route is the first thing they do. Even when driving without a route, the TomTom Digital Cockpit navigation experience provides contextually relevant information about traffic delays and road closures.

Navigation safe area

The system UI provides the safe area for the home panel. The search/guidance panels are independent from the home panel and placed by the system UI; these contribute to the safe area just like the main process panel does. When optimizing for a certain screensize it may be useful to reconfigure their layout. The map safe area (for the route and chevron) is defined by the navigation app and not by the system UI.

Replacing the home screen

As the system UI layout can be replaced, it is also possible to entirely replace the home screen. To do this, the map and navigation UI should be moved into a separate navigation application. Currently, both map display and navigation are decoupled from the system UI and offered through frontend plugins, like all other panels. The following example shows an alternative approach to the home screen, where the most relevant information of different applications is extracted into widgets. Currently we don't offer widgets, but it is possible to create them using the custom panel types that are supported by TomTom Digital Cockpit.

Customization

The home screen experience can be replaced in its entirety, which has the ability to greatly impact the overall user experience. The stock navigation experience does follow the system theme, but currently most parts of the flows are not customizable.