maemo.org - Talk - Telescope: Application Manager Tool

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- - Telescope: Application Manager Tool (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=50689)

Telescope: Application Manager Tool

Since there doesn't seem to be a Telescope-dedicated post and I felt that we were hijacking the other thread I thought I'd start one here.
(Note: I have nothing to do with the app development, just a user) - the developer is Mitrandir .

What is Telescope?
Telescops is an Application switching tool for OS2008.
Simply explained - you press one key (the 'home key'/F5 (the upper hard-ware key on the left side of your tablet)) - and all applications you are running shows as thumbnails on a screen and you can there easily select what app to jump to.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words: Telescope Promo VIdeo: http://www.youtube.com/user/DenielOl.../2/6FhOf4evqtU

Great, where do I find Telescope?
Garage page: https://garage.maemo.org/projects/telescope

Note: Dependencies will NOT be automatically installed when installing the .deb-file from the garage page. However, all dependencies are available in the Extras repository.

Installing from Extras-Devel: http://skriblovsky.net/maemo/telescope.install
Note: This install-file will add the Extras-Devel repository to your device and the nature of Extras-Devel is that it is still in development and you are yourself responsible for accepting that risk and any issues that may come along.

=====
Update 7/9/10
Telescope 0.2.9
D-Bus support. Telescope can now be called by D-Bus method call:
bus: org.telescope
path: /Telescope
method: org.telescope.Telescope.Show (or Hide)
Next version of Diablo5 theme will include statusbar applet for calling task switcher (like in Fremantle)
Workaround for liqbase applications. They will be iconified when telescope appears

Update 7/1/10
Telescope 0.2.8

Huge source code refactoring. I think around 40-60% of source code was refactored in order to improve internal logic of the application, eliminate potential bugs and make it more easy to bring enhancements in future
It's now possible to move selection with joystick if you put following into your /etc/telescope.keys:

Code:

press(Right): internal(selectRight) press(Left): internal(selectLeft) press(Up): internal(selectUp) press(Down): internal(selectDown) press(Return): internal(switchToSelected)
Several potential bugs was fixed
Added a couple of config-options for one guy who tries to adopt Telescope on Ubuntu on N8x0

Update 6/2/2010
Telescope 0.2.7.2
Workaround for OSSO MediaPlayer. Exactly as maacruz suggested -- when user is calling telescope from mediaplayer, mediaplayer will be minimized to hide its video overlay. When video is active, mediaplayer minimizes without animation, so it does it fast.

Update 5/31/2010
Telescope 0.2.7
Support for SDL games and other non-standard windows, for example MPlayer, links2 and others
Changing of window title is now displayed in real time when telescope is active.

Update 5/23/2010
Telescope 0.2.6.2
Several bugfixes:
* Window titles disappearing after screen rotate
* Active window not always highlighted
* Window preview is invalid sometimes

Update 5/12/2010:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mitrandir (Post 654812)

Telescope 0.2.6.1 is here
Changelog:

Portrait mode
Hardware keys control
Starting programs with hardware keys
Changed window decorations (design by Kroll)
Bugfixes

When you open Telescope current window will be highlighted. By default, you can move selection by pressing F5 key again and activate selected window with Escape key.

Hardware keys are configured with /etc/telescope.keys config file. Syntax is follows:

Code:

event(keysym): actiontype(action)

event: only "press" for now
keysym: key name in X11 notation. For example: F4, Escape, Space, Return, Left, Right
actiontype: "internal" for Telescope's internal actions or "shell" for running external commands
action: action itself.
For actiontype=="internal" action is one of "selectNext", "selectPrev", "switchToSelected", which will move selection forward, move it backward and switch to selected window.
For actiontype=="shell" action is shell command to start.

Below, Telescope and 6 open apps:

(The screenshot is from an N810 running Diablo and the Diablo5 theme).

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

By the way: Is the ThinkLinux theme (as seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGf_4BUL3J8 ) available yet in a package? I'd love to pair telescope with that theme.

Or is it now rolled into the N810 "Diablo5" Theme (seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF7B7kMqCkc and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoeZSmpDees )?

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

heh, i was waiting for stable release for create new thread dedicated to telescope but you did it before :) Thanks

I do love your idea of SpeedDial and wondering why i havn't thought about it before. Although, such "favorites view" would be useful only with small number of items (<12 for example).

I'm not sure right now if it is possible to monitor browser to handle which webpages are most frequently viewed. Of course we can make manual addition of webpages, but in this case i don't know what preview telescope should show for manually entered web address.

It was planned to use F5 button inside telescope for moving selection between previews and use second hardware key to accept the selection and switch to selected window (just like with builtin task switcher). But if we support launcher view, it would be convient to show it on F5 click. How to combine these?... Why so few hardware buttons on N810!?...

BTW, ThinkLinux (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=42319) was just a base for Diablo5 theme by Kroll. AFAIK, there is no package right now, but Kroll is working on it (doesn't you, Kroll? :)) Actually, Telescope was started from Kroll's idea of having something more maemo5-styled for task switching for Diablo 5 theme.

P.S.
Please feel free to post your ideas to Feature Requests page on garage too!
https://garage.maemo.org/projects/telescope

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mitrandir (Post 622143)

I'm not sure right now if it is possible to monitor browser to handle which webpages are most frequently viewed. Of course we can make manual addition of webpages, but in this case i don't know what preview telescope should show for manually entered web address.

The only way I can think of is that Tear for instance has a tab that shows 'most visited web pages'. I'm assuming that data would be stored somewhere in a file. Another option would be maybe, for microb browser, to have the user add bookmarks in the browser into a folder named 'telescope' and then telescope would read from those. I don't really like either option I must admit as they are both browser specific. Maybe manually adding URLs would be the cleaner way of doing it :)

Btw, I still think you should do an official [Annouce] post of Telescope when you feel it's ready for prime time - I just felt like we were hijacking the other thread. Guess this can be used until you're ready to 'announce' :)

Keep up the great work, I am really enjoying your application a lot!
But now back to playing Аллоды Онлайн ;)

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mitrandir (Post 622143)

I do love your idea of SpeedDial and wondering why i havn't thought about it before. AS

What?! Should I remind u about my idea about «top applications»?! :mad: :D

Quote:

It was planned to use F5 button inside telescope for moving selection between previews and use second hardware key to accept the selection and switch to selected window

Actually I still think about other method of using hardware buttons. May be the best way is to make all buttons tunable with GUI options manager.

Quote:

but Kroll is working on it (doesn't you, Kroll? )

I do! But I'm soooo lazy and I have so few free time to proceed my work on my theme (Diablo5). Actually I'm able to make the package which will remove tasknavigator and change the statusbar... But I want to make full theme.

Quote:

The only way I can think of is that Tear for instance has a tab that shows 'most visited web pages'

BTW, Mitrandir made a few improvements for tear, so he knows something about tear code... And this «SpeedDial» is not speedy at all! Would you like to have the Telescope so fast as tear? :D

Quote:

But now back to playing Аллоды Онлайн

Oh, please! Come back to reality ;)

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kroll (Post 622827)

BTW, Mitrandir made a few improvements for tear, so he knows something about tear code... And this «SpeedDial» is not speedy at all! Would you like to have the Telescope so fast as tear? :D

Oh, please! Come back to reality ;)

I'd love to see some of those Tear improvements as Tear is way too buggy and limited for me to use at the moment.

Off to level my lvl 12 scout.....

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 622975)

I'd love to see some of those Tear improvements

http://skriblovsky.net/maemo/ Here it is :)
or
http://skriblovsky.net/maemo/install.png
As I remember there is some futures:
— new scroll method
— less likely that you "catch" the link when you scroll through a page
— new scroll bar (very tiny)
— RSS support
— better .swf support
— open page in a new window (hold hardware menu button (under the 5-way navigator) and tape the link)
— scroll by «space» button and scroll up by «shift+space» buttons.
— some modifications of address bar

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kroll (Post 623046)

Thanks I installed it (happened to have the N810 with me) and I do like the space and shift-space scrolling and link opening option. Nice.

Some things that I can't get used to with Tear though are;
- it's tendency of freezing up completely if you switch away from it to another application while Tear is a screen where you are typing/editing something,
- the inability to install a repo when clicking on a deb that belongs to a new repo (I had to switch to microb to do this just now),
- the horrible way it 'selects' text. I can't see what text I am dragging/marking to copy, etc as I go.

If those would be fixed I might even try Tear again ;-)

And Kroll, maybe you can help me with my two questions on: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...285#post623285 :-)

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

Quote:

Originally Posted by silvermountain (Post 623242)

Some things that I can't get used to with Tear though are;

I'm completely zero in programming, so please, "push" Mitrandir to improve the Tear :p

Re: Telescope: Application Manager Tool

Potential bug: when running mauku and doing open-twitter-replies mauku launches a second window.
it takes me back to the telescope page and then mauku crashes.
never seen that happen before and might have something to do with the app launching a 'copy' of itself.