Teemu’s Blog

Antonio Gomes has released a 0.1.1 RC1 of Manaos web browser for Nokia 770. Installing it on the device takes a little hacking, but is doable. You can find installing instructions from here. Version 0.2 should fix the installing problems, but I think I might test the 0.1.1 version just to see how well it works. It would be really nice to have a open source Mozilla based browser for Nokia 770.

In some of my earlier Python related postings someone asked if Python Imaging Library (PIL) has been ported for Maemo. It seemed like it is not, so I decided to give it a try. I’ve never before created any Python .deb packages so, this was sort of my first experiment in this area and I decided to write here how I did it. In case it would be of use to someone.

The created PIL package for Maemo can be downloaded from here. Anyone interested in porting Comix for Maemo now? One point I need to mention is that I have not tested the PIL library that I’ve created for performance and quite frankly I have no idea how to optimize it, so if anyone is interested just go ahead.

I made a test using PIL on my Nokia 770 and created a blended image of the two default wallpapers. Here’s the result. Keep on reading if you want to know how I ported the library for Maemo.

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Lately my blog has drastically biased towards the Nokia 770 internet tablet, but this is far too interesting news to be left out. Skype is coming on the Nokia’s Series 60 platform. Allaboutsymbian.com reports experiences of using Skype over 3G network using Nokia 6680 phone. The report states quite clearly that 3G network might not be suitable for Skype calls and that we might have to wait for some WLAN capable Series 60 phones coming to the markets. Anyhow, very interesting piece of news.

It is time to make a post about some great input that I’ve gotten from the readers of my blog. Thanks to everyone who has made comments. Keep on commenting people.

Ok, first of all thanks to Kasper Souren for pointing out that if you are having “permission denied” problems, or otherwise problems running the downloaded scripts, you sould do a “chmod +x *.py” in the folder where you have the script in.

Also big thanks to Martin N for giving a nice example on how to make the python script fully hildonized by adding it to the start menu and also how to get the icon to the task list while your app is running. Here’s what he wrote…

Hi Teemu, I’ve found a solution in the Maemo SDK Tutorial:

Based on this I created the following two files for your example:

uitest.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=UITest
Exec=/home/user/python/uitest.py
X-Osso-Service=example.uitest
Icon=qgn_list_gene_default_app

example.uitest.service:

[D-BUS Service]
Name=example.uitest
Exec=/home/user/python/uitest.py

…and created those links:

ln -s /home/user/python/uitest.desktop 
/var/lib/install/etc/others-menu/extra_applications/
uitest.desktop

ln -s /home/user/python/example.uitest.service 
/var/lib/install/usr/lib/dbus-1.0/services/
example.uitest.service

Actually you don’t need the desktop file to have an icon in the task list, but I think it makes the hildonization complete.

Edit: Please note that the version parameter in the .desktop file refers to the desktop entry specification version instead of the application version. Thanks to Karo for pointing this out.

Ok, the hugely popular (a minor overstatement) “Coding for Nokia 770 using Python” tutorial continues. The code for part 2 example is already 180 lines, but have no fear, I’ve included the example file for download and will also go through the code and try to explain what it does. Again the “tutorial” is about developing an user interface and the actual application doesn’t do anything useful. It is meant to be more of an example than actual application. Example shows how to create buttons, panels, text area, simple dialogs and a menu using pygtk and hildon.

Since everyone loves images, I’ve included an image of the application that the example creates. To read more, click the link below the image. The example code can be downloaded from here.

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Andrew Flegg has created a perl script that goes through the maemowiki application catalog and creates an RSS feed about the new and updated software. This makes it easy to follow what new stuff there is for Nokia 770. Feed is updated at 4am UK time every day. Read more about it on Andrew’s site. The feed itself can be found from here. I added it to my Bloglines account and it works great. I found already couple of new applications that I hadn’t noticed earlier.

Tux Paint has been ported for Nokia 770. This is how it is described on their site.

Tux Paint is a free drawing program designed for young children (kids ages 3 and up). It has a simple, easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who helps guide children as they use the program. (See the full list of features.) It provides a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help your child be creative.

Being a fun program for kids doesn’t mean that adults couldn’t enjoy it also. To download it go to maemowiki so you can get also all the dependencies.

This morning I read a post by michaelalanjones from internettablettalk.com and I have to say he has got a point in what he is saying. Some people are complaining about lack of software for Nokia 770 and are almost demanding something to be developed. This is something that causes dislike among open source communities. This is not how it should be.

A device like Nokia 770 is still, even though it is relatively popular, a sort of a geek gadget. There is no big companies developing software for it, like for example for some Windows based PDAs. The whole approach with this device is different. It is very hard for a totally new device to get software developed for it. But the approach that Nokia has chosen with the Nokia 770 could not be better.

Since it is based on standard Linux operating system, application development for it is very easy. It does not require very much effort to port some existing Linux Gtk application on it, as we have already seen. But as michaelalanjones mentioned, people should remember that free software is usually developed as a hobby. If someone wants some sort of application developed, they should contribute somehow to the community. There are plenty of ways contributing and it always does not even require coding skills. People can help with for example documentation, testing and reporting bugs etc.

One reason why I started to blog about coding for Nokia 770 with Python was exactly this. People want some specific applications and with Python it is relatively easy to develop something and it is relatively easy to learn. Still, it requires quite a lot of time and effort to develop actually usefull software so that is something that the people who use the free software should understand. Someone has sacrificed their personal time to develop the software.

Ok, enough preaching for today. Go on people and contribute to the open software community. If you give something, you are more likely also to get something you want.

Eduardo de Barros Lima has released a new version of Gnumeric spreadsheet application for Nokia 770. It includes some fixes to previous versions, but still has some minor bugs in it. For more information read Eduardo’s post in his blog.

New version of Rhythmbox has also been released. Read more about it in this post. This fixes some issues with DAAP sharing that some people had experienced with the earlier versions.

Nokia has made the source code for Python for Series 60 available via Sourceforge.net. Let’s hope that many developers join the project to develop it further. Python for Series 60 is now in version 1.3.1 and it is quite usefull for fast mobile application development.