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- - [Announce] Shortcut Stash Home Screen Widget (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=65137)

rooster13

2010-11-05 19:26

[Announce] Shortcut Stash Home Screen Widget

4 Attachment(s)

I am pleased to announce my first Qt home screen widget, Shortcut Stash available now in Extras-Devel.

Shortcut Stash is an app launcher, open bookmarks and browse folders widget. (Have a look at the attached images)

Here are the screenshots of Shortcut Stash. They should give an idea what the widget does.

Attachment 15343

Attachment 15344

Attachment 15345

Attachment 15346

If the widget does not appear then please go to edit desktop mode and add the widget manually.

antezz

2010-11-05 19:43

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Reminds me of rocketdock / docky, all thats left is a option to change the background image.

Looks awsum, give .deb. :3

rooster13

2010-11-05 19:51

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Cheers!
I attached the deb to the original post.

Currently there is no background image. I am looking for a way to make Qt buttons opague. I want the buttons to look like hildon shortcuts, so I'm not shure wheter I will implement a background image.

But thanks for the tip :)

jedi	2010-11-05 19:54

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Looks v nice - will give it a go :)

fadimck

2010-11-05 19:55

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

looks nice, thanks

AlMehdi

2010-11-05 20:06

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Sorry for my stupid question... but what's gain in using this from using a normal application shortcut? A docky at the bottom of screen would be awesome... but as i understand.. this will be visible all the time?

jedi	2010-11-05 20:08

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

How are you supposed to run it?

If I

Code:

$ /opt/maemostash/MaemoStash

It works, but the applet is limited to the xterm window.

And I can't find it as a widget...

Nor in my menu (using MyMenu)...

-?-

rooster13

2010-11-05 20:13

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlMehdi (Post 864618)

The only stupid question is the one u never asked... :)

The gain here is that you can access all your installed programs, all MicroB shortcuts and all folders under MyDocs from your desktop.

And as this is a desktop widget it is visible on your desktop (home screen) all the time.
Just like your shortcuts are.

I wrote this program because I want to keep my desktop tidy, and not fill it up with shortcuts. IMO desktop space should be reserved for widgets and for some shortcuts, like the ones u need very often or want to use when driving.

rooster13

2010-11-05 20:17

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by jedi (Post 864620)

How are you supposed to run it?

If I

Code:

$ /opt/maemostash/MaemoStash

It works, but the applet is limited to the xterm window.

And I can't find it as a widget...

Nor in my menu (using MyMenu)...

-?-

Sorry my bad...

U should install the widget by running

Code:

dpkg -i maemostash_0.1-1_armel.deb

as root.

Then you will see it on your desktop (if all goes well) or in your 'Add widget' menu.

Don't try to run it from X-Term 'cause then you'll only get the main window and no widget.

thp	2010-11-05 20:18

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by rooster13 (Post 864566)

Here are the screenshots of Shortcut Stash. They should give an idea what the widget does.

Great work, the widget looks promising! Some remarks on the UI:

What does the "Sort ASC" button do? As a developer, I know that "ASC" probably means ascending, but I'm not sure. What's the default sort order, and wouldn't it make sense to always sort ascending and get rid of the button?
Do you support search-as-you-type (also known as "Live Search") to filter down the list with the keyboard?
The "Cancel" button is unnecessary - users can close the dialog by clicking outside of it.
"Open folder" simply shows the subdirectories of MyDocs, or is this configurable? If so, you can probably use the secondary text for something more informative (file count? maybe per-type, i.e. "3 video files, 5 audio files, 3 document, 17 other files")
The secondary text in "launch application" is the exec path. Not really useful to the normal user (also not that useful for advanced users I presume). What about displaying the description text that is available in some .desktop files?
If you have a "Web" shortcut on the Desktop, clicking on it will already show the bookmarks, right? Maybe you can replace the "bookmarks" feature with something that's not easily accessible?

Do you plan on releasing your application as open source?

jedi	2010-11-05 20:29

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by rooster13 (Post 864628)

Sorry my bad...

U should install the widget by running

Code:

dpkg -i maemostash_0.1-1_armel.deb

as root.

Then you will see it on your desktop (if all goes well) or in your 'Add widget' menu.

Don't try to run it from X-Term 'cause then you'll only get the main window and no widget.

I installed it using dpkg -i (I had to install qt4-homescreen-loader as well due to dependency). It didn't report anything else unusual...

But I don't see it on my 'Add Widget' menu - ?

rooster13

2010-11-05 20:34

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by thp (Post 864629)

Great work, the widget looks promising! Some remarks on the UI:

What does the "Sort ASC" button do? As a developer, I know that "ASC" probably means ascending, but I'm not sure. What's the default sort order, and wouldn't it make sense to always sort ascending and get rid of the button?
Do you support search-as-you-type (also known as "Live Search") to filter down the list with the keyboard?
The "Cancel" button is unnecessary - users can close the dialog by clicking outside of it.
"Open folder" simply shows the subdirectories of MyDocs, or is this configurable? If so, you can probably use the secondary text for something more informative (file count? maybe per-type, i.e. "3 video files, 5 audio files, 3 document, 17 other files")
The secondary text in "launch application" is the exec path. Not really useful to the normal user (also not that useful for advanced users I presume). What about displaying the description text that is available in some .desktop files?
If you have a "Web" shortcut on the Desktop, clicking on it will already show the bookmarks, right? Maybe you can replace the "bookmarks" feature with something that's not easily accessible?

Do you plan on releasing your application as open source?

Thank you very much, very good remarks.
Here are some answers:

I added the sort buttons (ASC for ascending and DESC for descending) because I did not want to change the order how the apps get added to the QListWidget by default. That is the reason why they are there. :)
Currently Live Search is not supported since this is Qt and I haven't found a way how to implement that on a QListWidget yet. Surely once I find out how to do it will implement it.
Yeah I know about the cancel -button... :) But IMO it's faster to click on it than to reach outside the list.
Open folder is not yet configurable since there are currently no settings implemented. Very good idea and the secondary text too indeed and I will plan to fix that.
As for the folders, excellent idea too. I will take a look into this.
Yes, but the idea of this widget was to gather all, apps, folders, bookmarks together and tidy up my messy desktop.

jedi	2010-11-05 20:38

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Oh hang on... it just appeared on my desktop after I deleted a couple of bookmarks and a widget from one of my desktops...

First observations: The bookmarks aren't the ones I have set in MicroB.. I get Maemo Browser, Twitter and YouTube - ?

I also get quite a few stretched icons in the app list (eg FM Radio, FloboPuyo, DiskUsage)

And any chance we can have a user defined option for which file manager to use?

Thanks for putting in the time developing this app - it's looking good :)

rooster13

2010-11-05 20:40

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by jedi (Post 864642)

I installed it using dpkg -i (I had to install qt4-homescreen-loader as well due to dependency). It didn't report anything else unusual...

But I don't see it on my 'Add Widget' menu - ?

Bugger! It should appear on the desktop, or if not it should surely be visible on the Add widget menu.

One thing you could try if u haven't tried it yet, is to reboot you N900.

If that does not help then please check that maemostash.desktop -file is in folder

Code:

/usr/share/applications/hildon-home/

Chrome

2010-11-05 20:41

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by jedi (Post 864642)

I installed it using dpkg -i (I had to install qt4-homescreen-loader as well due to dependency). It didn't report anything else unusual...

But I don't see it on my 'Add Widget' menu - ?

I had the same problem, solved it by removing and installing it again, hildon-home crashed then it appeared in the widgets list.

btw great work rooster, widget's really useful. It would be even better if you added live search.

Edit: is it possible to add an option that makes it use filebox instead of the default file manager?

rooster13

2010-11-05 20:46

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by jedi (Post 864659)

Goody!

The bookmarks should be the ones from MicroB, cause it reads the MyBookmarks.xml file. I will have to check that out.

The streched icons I have too. It's due to that some apps use scalable icons and I haven't figured out how to fix that on the QListWidget yet. It's on my bug list, and will get fixed.

Currently this widget is reading the apps from here:

Code:

/usr/share/applications/hildon/

so if the app is correctly installed and it has a desktop file then it shoud appear on the apps list.

rooster13

2010-11-05 20:52

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrome (Post 864664)

Thanks for sharing this! The crash might be due to qt4-homescreen-loader used here.

Live search will get implemented as soon as I figure out how to do it on a QListWidget.

rooster13

2010-11-05 20:54

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrome (Post 864679)

bug report:

Yes, I get that too on the Opera icon. It is because opera uses scalable icon and does not have any 48x48 or smaller icon. I will try to fix this.

rooster13

2010-11-06 07:57

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Added a new version of Shortcut Stash.
Now the buttons have translucent background so the widget looks more like the desktop shortcuts.

Download new package from the first post.

andrewfblack

2010-11-06 08:50

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Hey first off great application, at first I thought it was more like something that would let you place shortcuts to certain folders. I do like this idea but I would prefer to be able to limit what shows in the lists. Like folders there are only a few folders I really want access to but have to scroll through them all.

I notice some of the icons in the app list are messed up appdownloader, Diskusage, Vagalume are three I noticed on mine. Also the icons for the widget it looks like they are just being pulled from hicolor folder or you did them your self can you have them pulled from the current active theme?

rooster13

2010-11-06 09:15

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Thanks!

The icons are pulled from the theme, but since this is Qt, I really don't know where QIcon::fromTheme takes the icons from.

As for the configuration, currently there is none, but I am planning on implementing some user settings, and your idea sounds good.

jbw89

2010-11-06 10:22

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

I really want it, but can't install?:( tried it 6 times with Terminal an many reboots between them (wich ussaly works for me) no succes an alot of time tru appmanager;

http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/8...0110611222.png

EDIT;; o ****, just work for my:p LOL with root nothing happend also with sudo gainroot nothing, but put the file in home/user/ an than tru xterminal sudo gainroot (your code) an installed just fine, "learning moment"

EDIT 2; i also get share on Ovi Files on Ovi and some more , gonna tri to delete it some how

EDIT 3: haha got the extra bookmarks deleted! edit the Mybookmarks.xml there are 4 extra bookmarks delete the hole text (from <bookmark> tru <bookmark> that did the job for my
just wanted to say you die a great job! Thanks a lot for this app! real usefulle, home screen nice an tidy

rooster13

2010-11-06 12:24

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Good you got it working!

Apparently u have to run dpkg -i under /home/user as root.
I did not realise this until now because I always put the file under /home/user/MyDocs/tmp/ and installed from there.

I'll update the installing instructions once I get back home.

The bookmarks are read from the MyBookmarks.xml so if you need to delete bookmarks you need to edit that file. I will think of adding a deletion feature in the upcoming releases.

rooster13

2010-11-06 15:25

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbw89 (Post 865074)

EDIT;; o ****, just work for my:p LOL with root nothing happend also with sudo gainroot nothing, but put the file in home/user/ an than tru xterminal sudo gainroot (your code) an installed just fine, "learning moment"

Actually now looking at your screenshot I realised that the error is that you were in the wrong directory when trying to install. When going as root you are by default cd:d to /root or root home where ever that might be.

pelago

2010-11-09 12:29

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by rooster13 (Post 864671)

The bookmarks should be the ones from MicroB, cause it reads the MyBookmarks.xml file. I will have to check that out.

You should not display the bookmarks in .bookmarks/MyBookmarks.xml that have <deleted>1</deleted> in them.

rooster13

2010-11-09 12:35

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by pelago (Post 868008)

You should not display the bookmarks in .bookmarks/MyBookmarks.xml that have <deleted>1</deleted> in them.

Thanks, I will have to change that one.

evad	2010-11-11 13:37

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Excellent widget! Exactly what I always wanted - not only launch apps but also bookmarks. Few notes:

1) Installing widget with dpkg caused hildon-home and hildon-desktop crash.
2) Bookmarks listing should also traverse through bookmarks stored in subfolders.
3) When I type to get a match on app/bookmark/folders list (type-ahead matching), a little text box with letters I type should appear under the list. Also un-matched entries should be removed from the list, rather than scrolling to the first match. See how App Search Widget works as a reference.
4) Type-ahead matching should not match by first letters only. For example, when I type "vnc" I only get "VNC Viewer" but I should get "VNC Viewer" and "Presence VNC" applications listed - basically anything that has "vnc" in name. Again, see App Search Widget as a reference.
5) Some application icons on the list are broken, but I think that has been reported already.
6) Sort ASC button is pointless, entries should be sorted like that by default.

So, still few issues to iron out, but once these are gone I'm happy to replace App Search Widget with yours completely. Good job!

rooster13

2010-11-11 13:53

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by evad (Post 870316)

Thanks for your feedback!

1) This is a known issue and I am working on creating a package that the app manager will install. I would also like to promote this app to Extras, but haven't got the knowledge yet to do so.
2) I will check this. Are the bookmarks files named the same as the main bookmarks file?
3) This is a Qt issue. I am looking for a way to implement Live Search, but haven't found out yet how to do it.
4) Same as 3
5) This is an issue when the app does not have a desktop -file or the icon is not in the place where it should be. Also there is an issue when an icon is scalable, and I am working on this issue too.
6) I will reconsider the need of the sort button :)

evad	2010-11-11 14:04

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by rooster13 (Post 870333)

2) I will check this. Are the bookmarks files named the same as the main bookmarks file?

I don't know how it's organized internally, I just have a lot of bookmarks in my Web application organized into many folders. Your widget seems to list only those bookmarks stored in "root" folder, leaving all bookmarks stored in subfolders behind.

rooster13

2010-11-11 14:10

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by evad (Post 870340)

Ok, gotcha, so they are in the MyBookmarks.xml file but in a different node / tag. I will check this, cheers.

rooster13

2010-11-14 17:09

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

I am about to release a new version of Shortcut Stash
including fixes for reading bookmarks.

Now when a bookmark is in a folder it gets added to the list.
Directory listing shows the number of folders and files in the folder.

I am also trying to get the description of an application to show in the app list.

Anybody has an idea how to read the application description like shown in the App Manager?

I'd really like to have that fixed too before releasing a new version. So if someone could help with this I'd really appreciate it.

rooster13

2010-11-15 07:08

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Ok, couldn't wait to post the new deb since I got the scalable icons fixed.
Also added descriptions for folders. Now it is showing the number of folders and files in that directory.

For the applications descriptions I still haven't found a way so I am printing the comment field for those apps which have a proper comment.
If someone knows how to get the proper descriptions please let me know.

The bookmark in a folder issue is also fixed.

Please test and post bug reports.

pelago

2010-11-15 09:57

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Finding the application description as displayed in Application Manager won't be straightforward. That comes from the list of packages, which won't match one-to-one with the .desktop launcher icons.

rooster13

2010-11-15 12:43

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by pelago (Post 873823)

Finding the application description as displayed in Application Manager won't be straightforward. That comes from the list of packages, which won't match one-to-one with the .desktop launcher icons.

Thanks, that's what I thought too.

I have experimented with dpkg -l packagename but haven't come up with a desired result. I will continue searching for a solution...

rooster13

2010-11-15 20:56

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by pelago (Post 873823)

Finding the application description as displayed in Application Manager won't be straightforward. That comes from the list of packages, which won't match one-to-one with the .desktop launcher icons.

What about the Comment -field in the desktop file?
In most cases there is a gettext msgid in it, like for the browser it is: weba_ap_web_browser_thumb. I've been searching the correct bindtextdomain for it for ages.

So if someone knows what it is and where the .mo -file is located would be most helpful. I thought it was maemo-af-desktop but it wasn't.

nicolai

2010-11-15 22:17

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

HI rooster13,

I do use maemo-af-desktop in my application search widget to
read the application comment, as long as there isn't a
X-Text-Domain
entry in the .desktop file.
If there is a X-Text-Domain entry in the desktop file, I use this
as the domain name with dgettext.
hope this helps.

Nicolai

rooster13

2010-11-15 22:36

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Hi Nicolai,

I think I tried that approach but I have to check this out once more.
Maybe there was something wrong with my code.

Thank u for this. U don't happen to have small sample code for me to examine?

nicolai

2010-11-15 23:05

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Sure, this is what I use in my app-search-widget
(feel free to look at the whole source code and steal
what you need :-))

Code:

#define DESKTOP_ENTRY_CONFIG_GROUP "Desktop Entry" 

#define TEXTDOMAIN_KEY "X-Text-Domain"

#define NAME_KEY "Name"

#define COMMENT_KEY "Comment"

static

gchar* 

_retrieve_app_comment(GKeyFile* key_file)

{

  if(g_key_file_has_key(key_file, DESKTOP_ENTRY_CONFIG_GROUP, TEXTDOMAIN_KEY, NULL) &&

     g_key_file_has_key(key_file, DESKTOP_ENTRY_CONFIG_GROUP, COMMENT_KEY, NULL))

  {

    gchar* text_domain = g_key_file_get_string(key_file, DESKTOP_ENTRY_CONFIG_GROUP, TEXTDOMAIN_KEY, NULL);

    gchar* app_comment_key = g_key_file_get_string(key_file, DESKTOP_ENTRY_CONFIG_GROUP, COMMENT_KEY, NULL);

    gchar* app_comment = g_strdup(dgettext(text_domain, app_comment_key));

    g_free(text_domain);

    if(g_strcmp0(app_comment, app_comment_key) == 0)

    {

      g_free(app_comment);

      app_comment = NULL;

    }

    g_free(app_comment_key);

    return app_comment;

  }

  else if(g_key_file_has_key(key_file, DESKTOP_ENTRY_CONFIG_GROUP, COMMENT_KEY, NULL))

  {

    gchar* app_comment = g_key_file_get_string(key_file, DESKTOP_ENTRY_CONFIG_GROUP, COMMENT_KEY, NULL);

    gchar* comment = g_strdup(dgettext(GETTEXT_PACKAGE, app_comment));

    g_free(app_comment);

    return comment;

  }

  return NULL;

}

You are using QT for your application, right?
I hope this helps anyway, feel free to ask if you have any
questions

Nicolai

rooster13

2010-11-16 07:49

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Thanks Nicolai!

I will check that.
I am using Qt but am sure this piece of code will help.

One question I have is, where are the domains for gettext defined? The maemo-af-desktop etc.

nicolai

2010-11-16 08:56

Re: [Pre Announce] Shortcut Stash

Quote:

Originally Posted by rooster13 (Post 874772)

One question I have is, where are the domains for gettext defined? The maemo-af-desktop etc.

I don't remember :-)
I found this one in some example code or in the maemo developer
guide.

Nicolai

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