I too have been very disappointed with the current crop of calendars. I've kicked around the idea of building one around a R/O gCal calendar with automated download of changes and an outbox for "Quick Add" strings. In my mind it should not be too difficult, but the devils in the details.

This PIM functionality is such a pain. I still carry around my Treo 650 because the calendar app, while old, is simple as hell to use. I figured GPE, etc. would easily best it, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

Now, before the "it's a IT, not a PDA" crew shows up, yeah, I know, but seriously, it's basically a small laptop. It functions excellently as an IT, and thanks to the Canola guys, it's an excellent PMP as well. Why not take the next step and get a decent PIM kicking?

That being said, I'm not a programmer, so I have little room to talk, but why has no one written a simple palm calendar knock-off for maemo? I'm sure it's not as simple as I'm making it out to be, but I can't believe no one with any programming experience has thought to do this.

Oh, and I tried to use that palm emulator...no thanks.

EDIT: Sooooo, I took a look at this GeneCash site and apparently someone HAS done what I wanted. I'll have to wait until I get home to check it out.

Now I feel like a tool for complaining.

RE-EDIT: And I'm also a tool for typing the edit into the quick reply box.

Part of the issue as I see it, but I am coming over from 30-years of development on the WinTel MSDOS/Windows environment. This means I don't even know the file system well let alone understand the intrinsics of the OS and development language quirks & limitations.

That said, as I have spent more time looking deeper I see a few reasons things are slow. One is there has yet to be any standard library for things such as a database access. So all the developers seem to need to rely on custom indexing routines and file structures. That is like going back a good 10-15 years in development approach needed. BUT, I have run across that there is a new library out for accessing mysql databases as well as some called sqlite or something similar. But as soon as there is some sort of database standard ported to function within the ITOS environment many issues will fall away because things will not need to work from scratch or require the amount of debugging the 'roll your own' database structure needs.

And of course there are issues of the hardware and how good the system is at running background utilities such as a calendar stuff. It's gets to be all about threading, power management (how does the alarm/calendar portion keep running and even wake up the tablet when it's off or do you require users leave the tablet on in sleep mode 24/7 like the PDA's work by design.)

There are a LOT of other factors beyond these few. So when I am critical of developers I also know why these things are difficult. Yet at the same time I am used to being "the boss" and hearing from some coders that things are not possible. Well, they are if you have the right tools. Not all of the tools are there yet for the ITOS devices.

What they should be able to do is have something which at least works fine when the device is powered on. But also the database side is pretty primitive and needs to catchup. Given recent new over on the Maemo Garage site that seems to be happening.

I might be hard on the developers but what I wish they would do is communicate WHY and what the current roadblocks might be instead so simply lashing out when folks are critical of the state of ITOS app development.

I can say in just the last couple months since getting my N800 I have seen a big leap in capability for the developers which can only mean good stuff is not too far behind for us peon users. I do have appreciation for them right now, but at the same time, if they want to help grow the environment taking the path of least resistance and working on just stuff like multi-media apps really can lead to a lot of frustrated regular users who can only see what they want/need is just not there and anytime they ask they get smacked on the nose for even asking.

Obviously there must be more roadblocks then I have found, but I am betting no more then 6-mos for some pretty decent improvements on the PIM kinda app front.

Until then I guess a person could learn to run the maemo version of the linux/unix "cron" utility from the command line (ie xterm) and create our own alarms, at least it might make noise when you need it... But there is a lot of learning to even get there...not something a busy person wants to deal with really.

naw, I been whining too but we never knew these other developers were out there working in annonymity. I get a sense that much of the Maemo developer community can be a tad clique-ish which could be due to how the sub-culture within Nokia works and makes it difficult for outsiders to join "the cool kids".

But at least these were found and offer another option.

Now that I've done a relook at Gene Cash's stuff, I believe his calendar and todo apps would meet my needs pretty well, assuming they are reasonably bug-free. So porting them to OS 2008 is the only thing standing in the way. The main thing they seem to lack is syncing. However, at least the calendar has import and export of iCalendar files, so that should lower the bar for trying it out. I still need to figure out how to get my data out of GPE though.

@brecklundin:

I think sqlite is the "maemo standard" database library. And GPE is using it. alarmd is the maemo standard alarming framework, which GPE is not using yet. I agree that it just takes a lot of time to get all these things working on the platform, and I'm sure that porting GPE to the level it's at right now already took quite a bit of effort. I also agree that within 6 months the PIM situation should be much better since there seems to be a groundswell of interest.

I think the PIM stuff is suffering due to a "gee whiz" opportunity cost. The NITs are a very attractive platform to do "sexy" projects on. As a NIT developer, you might be one of the first to get Android up and running. You might make a flashy multimedia player that takes full advantage of the extensive hardware capabilities of the NITs. You might write the next "crayon physics" game. Compared to that, PIM is pretty boring stuff. I myself have various "gee whiz" ideas I'd like to try with my NIT, but the PIM situation is painful enough that I'm considering putting them on hold.

Have you read Gene's site? Have you seen the part where he says:
and then goes on to list in detail what's broken in the OS?

Sure I have. I suppose this is still the newbie forum, so I'll ask the question... can I flash OS 2007 on my n810? I don't know the answer, but I've been assuming that I can't. Not having used OS 2007, I don't feel the sense of loss that Gene does when I run OS 2008. Right now Gene's apps are the only reason I have to roll back to OS 2007, which would be a significant hassle for me and possibly prevent me from trying newer apps that are on the way like KDEPIMPI.

None of the issues Gene lists against OS 2008 sound like they are blocking a port of his apps to OS 2008. They are simply blocking him from moving to OS 2008. He's happy with his OS 2007 setup and is unwilling to put up with those issues in OS 2008. Therefore he has no motivation to spend effort porting his apps.

If the compatibility issues aren't too large, it's probably not out of the question to modify his apps to support both OS versions. That would seem to please everyone.

In fact, some of his complaints don't seem to be problems for other users. For example, Gene talks about MicroB crashing all the time. I'm not trying to do what he was, but MicroB never crashes on me anymore (since employing some brontide and Benson tweaks).

It sure would please me!