Notices

Hi

I am a newbie here I want to write apps directly on n900 device itself without pc on the go. Is it possible.
Is there any software to do this?

I search the wiki what I found is pymaemo but a bit complex for me. Any suggestion would be nice.
thank you

Hi
what do you mean by writing apps ? you mean packaging or compiling ?

for packaging to deb please visit this thread
for compiling check out development apps in your app manager

/Edit : install PyGTK editor it is useful for writing in any devel language

Good Luck

./sifo

You could develop in almost every coding language directly on the N900 itself (some might take more work than others to set up correctly, though).

I write all my C and C++ stuff on my N900, using vi to write the code and gcc/g++ to compile (I have never even used anything that can compile C code on my desktop/laptop(s), unless you count Scratchbox in a VirtualBox machine, for porting aircrack-ng and a couple of other things to the N900).

You can develop in any scripting language (Python, Ruby, etc) as well, and so long as you have the actual packages required to run the code, you should be fine there, as well.

Java might be trickier since getting all the OpenJDK stuff or some other java sdk and runtime environments working perfectly might be more of a problem - never tried.

Hell, if you felt like it and have an Android device, with some work you could develop Android apps, on the N900, and then run them from the N900 on your Android device over USB hostmode (I tried this a few months ago, and I set up the very primitive low level Android SDK tools succesfully, never could get ADB to connect over usb, but I didn't have too many opportunities to try.)

And I believe, at least in Extra-Devel, there are some actual IDEs for certain coding languages ported (monoDevelop or something like that comes to mind). I never looked at the IDEs because I like the aesthetic of coding on the command line. But there's also a handful of very nice code editors (i.e. text editors but with language-specific syntax highlighting/coloring). I personally recommend TxPad out of those, but others are also available (PyGTK, as mentioned in a previous post, is another one).

So the short answer is yes, the longer answer would be coding language specific, because for some languages, setting up the required tools on the N900 might take more work than it's worth.

And don't forget Free Pascal: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=73701
(I actually tested older version on device. New version is not optified, so you need some manual optifiying/symlinking).

Or are you writing apps for Lego-robots? [http://bricxcc.sourceforge.net/] Then you must wait couple of weeks until I get compiler tested and pushed to the extras-devel.

Wow

This is amazing. I installed monodevelop it works like a dream. This is great stuff N900 can do almost anything that I never of.

If you want java development just install iced tea from the repositories and you can compile .java files with ease from the command line

compiling would be fun as well. will try that

The easiest way is to install "Easy Debian".
This would bring a virtual Debian environment in your tablet.

In that, you can install gcc, gdb & ddd and enjoy developing & debugging! C/C++ applications.

I'm using MonoDevelop on desktop - on the device it seems to crash a lot, but developing with mono is great if you don't need the devices level interactions.

Actually, the OpenJDK is available via the extras repository:
http://maemo.org/downloads/product/Maemo5/icedtea6/

Don't be confused by the name icedtea. This is the full OpenJDK. Admittedly, this version is quite old but it gives you all the things you need to develop and run Java applications.

On the other hand, the main intent of packaging the OpenJDK was to allow running exisiting Java applications, not to develop new ones. I wouldn't actually suggest to start with Java for Maemo development but rather advice to go with a language that also supports the mobile UI or at least offers bindings for these.


Personally, for the beginning I would suggest Python + the PySide Qt bindings. This should give a pretty flexible programming environment. Also you will be set for easily porting your work to, e.g., Harmattan.
Edit: And you don't need to compile anything which rapidly speeds up the develop and test cycle.

When talking about Qt, I would strongly recommend to implement the UI in QML. First of all, QML is also interpreted and can be easily edited, even in place, on the device itself. Secondly, by choosing QML you also have the easiest migration path to other Maemo or Maemo-based platforms like Harmattan or Nemo/Mer.

Edit2: There is also a nice guide and introduction to Pyside and QML written by thp: http://thpmaemo.blogspot.de/2011/01/...-on-meego.html
While this guide was actually written for MeeGo (even for the Netbook UX as far as I see) very much should still apply also for Fremantle. This should give you a pretty quick start.