Thread: Dear developers/programmers: How to develop for Maemo?
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YoDude is offline YoDude
2010-06-16 , 14:30
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#23
Originally Posted by fatalsaint View Post
I, personally, develop in Python using the QT4 bindings. This is called PyQt4.

This can easily be developed directly on the device itself (N900), and it can be developed without any SDK or scratchbox or emulating environment on your Desktop PC. All you need, is the proper PyQt4 development apps on your system (Linux is easiest IMHO. Not sure how Windows PyQt4 is.)

Write the code, copy the files to N900, and run. No compiling, no converting, no hassel. And if you aren't doing anything weird (like dbus calls to an FM Transmitter your PC doesn't have..) then you can actually run the app right on your desktop, make sure it runs right, and then copy it to the N900 and watch it instantly become "Maemo-ized" for you.

As far as how to code for the N900... there are plenty of Tutorials covering that already.
Beyond that... what do you then do when it is time to package for distribution? I am not understanding this "Maemo-ized for you".


Originally Posted by pycage View Post
The problem with developing for Maemo is not setting up the SDK or getting started with tutorials, but lack or scattered nature of comprehensive documentation.

There is no single place where you can find all documentation, and some stuff isn't even properly documented, and you have to read source code files (if Google finds them) or reverse-engineer. It's often a lot of trial and error.

For exercise, try to find out how to play a video in a window with MAFW and control the volume. Apart from what I've now written in Python (hey, am I the only one using MAFW in open source? It seems so...) you won't find much. But you'll find how to extend MAFW with new plugins (oh great). I'm really thinking about filing bug reports against the often useless state of even the Nokia-official developer documentation.
You can waste hours and days on reverse-engineering and trial-and-error.
That last bit is the story of my life.

If I take a look at a couple of very lightweight and simple applets like Thomas Perl's Superfly.fm you find that an awful lot of repetitive work had to go into "packaging" this useful example that is basically just a desktop file and a icon.
Through reverse-engineering and trial-and-error I can produce other useful lightweight applets based on his excellent example but I can't simply share these with other members without going "rouge" and perhaps exposing new and inexperienced users to the underbelly of the beast.

>> http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...0&postcount=16

If we go further and look at Nokia's own "OVI Store" desktop applet...

Code:
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Name=tana_ap_ovi_store
Comment=Open Ovi store in new window
Exec=dbus-send --print-reply --dest=com.nokia.osso_browser /com/nokia/osso_browser/request com.nokia.osso_browser.open_new_window string:http://link.ovi.mobi/n900ovistore
Icon=general_ovi_store
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=System;TerminalEmulator;
X-HildonDesk-ShowInToolbar=true
#X-Osso-Service=xterm
X-Osso-Type=application/x-executable
...we see a way with which to code our most frequently used web "Bookmarks" into smaller and easier to manage desktop shortcuts and no longer have to rely on the flakier shortcuts that are added from a browser session.

As I also posted in another thread, I would have liked to have seen simple tools developed for Maemo that did not require the installation and maintenance of a different desktop OS for me in order to compile lightweight Web apps into distributable .deb files. Especially when those Web apps only consist of an icon, a desktop file, and maybe a css script.

I seem to have hundreds of these things now that I can not correctly share because of this. I'm sure others have plenty more and a collection of these could have been an equivalent response to 80% of what can be found in Apples store.

The best example of this I could think of are desktop files and icons for common Google Mobile services web pages. If these were made easily available so that members consistently landed on the same page, we could then have started a community garage page and updated these applets with CSS use-ability scripts that could have been developed in this forum like we did once upon a time in Diablo.

>> http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=24752

...and lastly:

Originally Posted by MaxJP View Post
Heh. I've expected these kind of reaction... Thanks andraeseus1 for understanding. I can't really give a specific answer because I don't know what to ask, I'm just a high school kid trying to learn programming... I have done some research, but the terms they used i just do not understand. I know some people might say if I'm don't even know the basic, why are you even bother to make apps for N900?

"well in order to develop for the n900 you need to download and install this program or that software. start off with something simple like x,y,z, and get your feet wet. there is a lot more info on basic programing tools at www.whatever"

Something like these would help me a lot.

Thanks guys.
When I first saw this thread I prepared and was about to post the attached image but didn't for fear that it could have been interpreted as another "smart *****" reply and your thread would have deteriorated into yet another off topic, rumination about the quality of posts on this forum and whatnot.

I'm glad this thread didn't go that way and you received replies from members such as fatalsaint , pycage, and qwerty12 who are all held (along with many others ) in high regard by less productive members such as myself.
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