Re: modRana on Android
 

So interim findings: gpsd is not used on Android, there seems to be some Android port but not functional.

So far I've found ShareGPS, which basically should create a device in /dev which you should then be able to start gpsd with in chroot.

However, it seems ShareGPS is broken, as it doesn't report any GPS data on Droid 3...

I'll experiment further...

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I've finally got some decent text to speech working with modRana using Google's translate TTS service, instead of using espeak.

For any one who is interested:

Change the voice parameter in the settings [sound>voice>string]
to:
/home/user/tts.sh "%qmessage%"

and then create an executable bash script, with the following:
Not the greatest method, but it works quite well.
I can't seem to find any API documentation to see if Google allow this, but I've read many iPhone/Android apps. take advantage of it, so maybe.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

The only problem I see here is that it requires a constant Internet connection...

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

That's true, but it won't be a problem if you have a constant connection for map downloading.
Other than that, I can't really see any other way of having a decent TTS without an internet connection because I don't believe any TTS engine has been ported over.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

What do you mean? Espeak sounds pretty good, at least as good as the TTS built into Android.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

You won't have constant internet connection while you are on roaming or "in the fields", and that's when you need navigation the most.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

It's not bad and is ok for the job, but espeak is a synthesiser, and obviously is not as good when compared to natural TTS engines like AT&T or neospeech. :)

Any way, the workaround is there for any one who wants a more natural voice, and is prepared to keep their internet connection open.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

As a matter of fact, a very good TTS engine available on the market was ported to the n900 almost two years ago, delivered to Nokia but they never released it. My guess is that they were planning to add it to Maps, and then cancelled the whole thing.

A shame really....

Re: modRana on Android
 

Great success!!! I was able to get modRana to run on Android with gpsd navigation and all...

Thanks to skykooler, I eliminated the option of running modRana native on Android right away.

The only way to run is in debian chroot.

Now the process basically is:

- Install BlueNMEA from the Market in Android.
- Run BlueNMEA

It enables you to connect to the GPS data via tcp...

- In the debian chroot run:
gpsd will complain about not being able to connect to dbus, as it's not functional in chroot, however it'll run and it'll access the GPS data.

- Run modRana in the chroot, it navigates fine and everything.

Whoa!!!

Now, based on my findings of running modRana in chroot so far, I have the following two requests:

- An exit button is SORELY needed for modRana. This is not evident on the N900, where you exit via the x, however running StumpWM there is no window decoration, and no way to exit modRana. The only option is to kill it, and I'm afraid that exit is not clean, as it leaves python hanging etc. So please, an Exit button for a clean exit from modRana.

- Display orientation is NOT working, i.e. no matter if I select horizontal or landscape, the rotation is still the same. Automatic rotation doesn't work in the chroot, as X is accessed via TightVNC android VNC viewer, and obviously it doesn't give any signal. Can the rotation be fixed? And a rotation button, maybe optional would also be handy in the UI.

Sidenote, currently there is no espeak output in the chroot, as I can install espeak, however Android sound implementation obviously has nothing to do with alsa or pulse, and thus not sure how to get sound output in the chroot... Will investigate this further. If anyone has any hints on getting sound in the chroot, please mention those...

But basically, our modRana is WORKING in Android!

Re: modRana on Android
 

WOW, CONGRATULATIONS ! :D

Can I add this walk-through to the modRana project wiki ? :)

OK: http://modrana.org/data/modrana-0.29.6.tar.gz :)
I have added a new android_chroot device module, that adds a Quit button to the main menu if used.
To use it (and thus get the Quit button), just run the main executable like this:
Other than this, the android_chroot currently behaves the same as the default neo device module. It can be easily extended to cover the various android chroot quirks (like starting/stopping gpsd, etc.). If someone want to play with it, the module resides in the main modrana directory in modules/device_modules/mod_android_chroot.py :)

The current rotation in Fremantle is handled by the window manager. If you find how to tell the window manager to rotate the window or the whole desktop, I can add support for triggering it to the device module. Maybe through xrandr or a similar tool ?

The other possibility is to do the rotation entirely in modRana, which while doable, is not exactly easy. :)
It would need to:

• fake the viewport - just swaping a few numbers
• rotate all drawing - might not be that difficult due to using Cairo for the whole GUI
• rotate all click events

Is there some TTS API on android ? If it can be somehow triggered from chroot, this might be a solution.

Or producing a sound file with espeak (it can output wav files) and somehow playing it back outside of chroot.

Yay ! :D

PS.: Photos of modRana running on an Android handset would look really really nice on the modRana project frontpage! :)