N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

Hello!
I'm looking at playing with some programming.
I have made a simple helloworld on the SDK.
I would like to find a wiki or something similar to learn how to make some more software? Even a guide to add a button :eek:

I have an 'end goal' which is to port Arduino IDE to N900 and other similar ARM devices (Pandora). I can program arduino's (Wiring is the language - Similar to C).

I'm not a linux user, I use OSX.
I do have a copy of Mint Linux (8 - community edition/XFCE) running via VMware which I use quite a bit, but as for terminal commands and such - I have no clue. I use copy and paste.

With the helloworld I made, when I close the program xterm does not get released correctly and I can not regain control (only tested in N900 emulator in the SDK). I'm sure what I need is a button with an end command.

There only programming skills I used to have was using a full IDE (Like visual basic, XCode and similar).
I have never had to work using text based only (except arduino and html).

Is there a graphical IDE available that could help me?

Thank you all very much!

http://i369.photobucket.com/albums/o...ll/N900SDK.jpg

Edit: I am very proud of a crappy helloworld! VERY!

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

Hi KingoddBall - i'm suprised you have got as far as you have without reading the deeloper guides? - some of the tmo people have been very hard with guides etc.....

http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...eveloper_Guide

With regards to the ide - it depends on what you are programming? (C etc....)

There is QT, that comes in a range of styles, but QT, is pretty much an IDE :D

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

C is fine. I understand the basic concepts of it from my younger days and Wiring/Processing programming.

QT - May I ask if that has something similar build (compile) and will just work for N900 or is it going to be tricky like trying to get XCode to compile for ARM devices?

I am very sorry for the stupid questions. (I am reading the dev guides now [probably print them])

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

have to admit i use PYQT - so i have no idea about C and compiling :|

But a quick google search brings up these
http://qt.nokia.com/developer/faqs/79

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6...-xcode-project

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

Do all your coding in Qt IDE (Creator and whatnot).

Then use MADDE as the environment to compile; it has the entire N900 libraries, headers and toolchains bundled. The current MADDE version is Qt4.5 based and supposedly the next one will have Qt4.6/PR1.2 built in and I'm eagerly awaiting that release. There is a distribution for Linux, OSX, and Windows to create a common compiler environment amongst those platforms.

Once you've completed the coding of the Qt application (you can still compile it natively within QtCreator for testing on your desktop, and there is a way to use MADDE toolchains within QtCreator), launch the MADDE terminal, go to your code repository and run:

mad qmake <.pro file>
mad make

and there's your binary. Copy it to your phone into say... /opt/test/ (easiest with a simple scp). chmod +x the binary you've copied over onto the n900, and execute it within XTerminal.

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

thanks, but how about putting links in your post to make it user friendly?

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

google qt creator and madde is in one of the repos :)

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

I am downloading QT for OSX QT Downloads - Will this work?


Is MADDE the toolchain I will need to compile? Sorry - ARM cores are new to me.
I found a guide to make a HelloWorld in QT but it's done using Linux - Similar in OSX, too?

I can not wait until I get the grasp of making some basic software. I used to program back in Windows 98-XP days! (Made some cool stuff, but all VB6 language). Well before all this ARM stuff became popular.

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

You may want to look here for Madde and QtCreator on Mac:
http://wiki.maemo.org/MADDE/QtCreato...ration_for_Mac

And here for some MADDE examples:
http://wiki.maemo.org/MADDE

Re: N900 programming (Dummies/N00B etc) guides?
 

It should work. gunni gave the links to get MADDE and QtCreator tied together. Be aware that PR1.1 firmware only has Qt4.5 as the baseline, so I've only used the v4.5 SDK (plus MADDE current is Qt4.5).

I don't care/worry too much about the runtime device debugger section just yet. Most of the things I'm doing are manual labor... eg I use QtCreator for development and and to test the application UI locally on the desktop to make sure there are no broken code blocks. Then I use MADDE to do the n900 device build for me and copy the executable over.

MADDE is the only cross-platform toolchain you'll need to build complete n900 applications (easiest install method I know of). Don't concern yourself about the particular core, as that only affects you if you're using some device specific code like hardware access, kernel access, etc. But if you're only mostly doing user applications, then using Qt and standard Linux libs are all you need to know.

Qt is meant to be virtually write-once, compile anywhere SDK; it's that flexible, although with some caveats. So your single HelloWorld source code can be compiled for any platform supported by Qt (windows, linux, maemo, osx); it all depends on your output target.

I can't speak more from an expert p.o.v because like you, I'm just starting to delve into maemo+Qt and I was a little daunted with simply getting started. But once I got MADDE installed and QtCreator there, it made it a lot more obvious.

My first attempt is a project I'm hosting on google (http://code.google.com/p/maemocalllogviewer/) which is a call log viewer which displays a bit more information that the standard N900 call log. You can grab the source code from there and compile for yourself (using my example of going into MADDE, and doing "mad qmake MaemoCallLogViewer.pro" and "mad make"). I've also uploaded a compiled binary on the project site.