Hey guys

I'm going to be installing the vmware image of the sdk, and get started trying to make apps for the n900. I've got a fairly robust history in scripting and coding languages cause I'm a web developer, but this'll be my first adventure in python and gtk. So a few questions..

1. Are there any good reference lists for getting started making apps? I expect so, but where?

2. How do you build an interface? I'm going to want to be able to split my screen into three sections, Left, Right, and footer.. is this possible?

3. What are some really important tips you'd give a total newcomer to all this?

Hopefully the answers to these questions will help anyone else who's looking to do this, as i'm sure with the n900's surge of attention, I'm not the only person looking to get their feet wet in app development

Thanks!

I'm really lazy. I develop for Linux (could even do this on Windows with GTK for WIndows). I then have a series of hacks to auto-hildonize my application.

So I use Glade as an interface builder (I haven't tried to use it with Hildon widgets, thats what my auto-hildonization is for).

GTK has VBox, HBox and Table (which has span support) for being able to seperate out the screen into various parts. I use these heavily in my apps.

Depending on what I do, I regularly use the PyGTK Tutorial, the PyGTK Reference, PyMaemo APIs Reference, Diablo and Fremantle API Reference for areas PyMaemo hasn't documented clearly enough.

Other than that, nothing too special. Except for maybe my auto-hildonization, I personally think Dialcentral code is pretty clean to use as an example (I know, unbiased aren't I?). ejpi is a bit smaller of a project which might make it more approachable but I haven't pulled all of my improvements I made to Dialcentral into ejpi yet.

I suggest to take two well-known PyGTK-Apps, play with them, look at their code. then start something yourself:

First, add the extras-devel repository to your scratchbox install: open the file "/scratchbox/users/maemo/target/FREMANTLE_X86/etc/apt/sources list", paste the repos:
Then do "apt-get update" to refresh the catalog of available software for fremantle. Finally, do "apt-get install gpodder" and "apt-get install maemo-wordpy".
Launch the applications, learn how they work. Now search for the *.py files of these two applications and analyze their code.

Some docs:
http://wiki.maemo.org/PyMaemo
Showcase:
http://wiki.maemo.org/PyMaemo/Screenshots

I'm striving with the same newbee challenge as you, with much of the same background.

Some of the problem is that much of the information available at this site reflects the transitional phase we're currently in - moving from Maemo 4 to 5. Some of the ver 4 information is still relevant but some is outdated - without it being easy to know which is which. Hopefully the good guys gets things in place before too long.

Anyhow, it seems that currently the best starting point is (not surpisingly) the Maemo Developer Guide, that you find here: http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation/...eveloper_Guide.

However, there are newly published material that is not yet all included. Look here http://www.forum.nokia.com/Tools_Doc...n/Latest.xhtml for the guides etc. that was published on 18 Sept.

For my own part I'm considering to go ahead with Python and Qt since Maemo development will be continued on the Qt platform from next version of Maemo, (already being community supported in ver. 5.)

Except that it seems that the Python Qt widgets are not created yet, are there any other good reasons you will go ahead with GTK?

I got the vmware'd SDK installed this evening and even got a little hello world (or in this case, "omg stuff") app running, after some issues with repositories and other such tedium. So - so far, so good. However...

I installed Glade too, but I haven't really been able to get my head around how it's used with esbox (for example). It's my understanding that you make a window layout, save it as a .glade file and then somehow this is imported into the project... That's as far as I've gotten. Which brings me to my next question, how on earth do you use Hildon widgets? Secondly, do the widgets (buttons, et al) have designated sizes, or do I have to somehow gleam these from the SDK pdf files?

These are all awesome links. I'm sure they'll be more awesome when I actually understand what I'm doing...


Great idea, I'll do this next time I sit down with a large cup of coffee. Thanks!

I had a brief look at the QT applications on the virtual image this evening, too. I was quite intrigued by what I saw.. At a glance it seems more user friendly than PyGTK, but perhaps that's only skin deep. I guess it depends when we should expect the new Hildon2.2 widgets, and also which widgets are missing vs which are available.

Anyone have any ideas?