Maemo 5 Beta SDK out [Archive] - maemo.org

qole

2009-04-28, 17:11

sachin007

2009-04-28, 17:14

So can anyone going through the beta sdk shed light on new features/old features dropped?

qole

2009-04-28, 17:15

Yes, did they fix the colours yet? :)
Does the armel target run in Xephyr now?

fredoll

2009-04-28, 17:24

The new thing is that you can now add shortcuts or bookmarks to your desktop

EIPI

2009-04-28, 17:24

You know what excites me most (and yes, I posted this in another thread)?

There's nothing in the Fremantle roadmap (http://wiki.maemo.org/Task:Maemo_roadmap/Fremantle) after today's announcement except:

"Final release when ready. :)"

Anyone else getting excited?

Yes Sir! The only other piece of the puzzle leading to a RX-51 device that I have been able to gather is that Quim said (http://maemo.org/news/announcements/developer_call_mozilla_maemo_danish_weekend/) that Maemo 5 would be in beta and approaching its final release during the time of the Mozilla/Maemo Danish Weekend at the end of May. That is one month from now. How long do the ITOS' hang in beta for? I hope that first week of June brings us all new devices!

sachin007

2009-04-28, 17:25

The new thing is that you can now add shortcuts or bookmarks to your desktop

Wow that is a neat feature.

Anything else?

benny1967

2009-04-28, 17:31

ARJWright

2009-04-28, 17:35

Pretty cool that things are frozen and that the accelerated aspect of app development can happen. Here's hoping that some of the goddies make it to Mer in due time, and/or that I get a Maemo 5 powered device to play... er, help developers test with :D

kanishou

2009-04-28, 18:34

I just finished reading the tutorial (http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/beta/tutorial/html/) and the interface guidelines (http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/beta/hig/html/).

Looks a lot like S60. Porting regular GTK apps will be a lot more difficult. (Like: no more sub-menus etc.)

You can still use standard Gtk menus with sub-menus, it is just not recommended.

Applications designed for the new UI guidelines are very slick, but you can still use all traditional Gtk elements to make ports easier. If something behaves in a totally incompatible way, then it has been implemented as a new Hildon widget instead of changing Gtk functionality. Dialogs are probably the biggest case of changed functionality, but they should generally still work ok without changes.

jandmdickerson

2009-04-28, 19:30

I suppose that most of the information is meant for all Maemo 5 devices, so its hard to figure out what may be coming in the near future. For instance under device orientation in interface guidleines it talks about " . . . progress indicators are only displayed in the landscape orientation. Apart from incoming calls, in this mode no other notifications are displayed on the screen. Instead, the other notifications are indicated by sound, vibration or LED." See http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/beta/hig/html/c113.html

Is this just general instructional language (for voip and other "calls") or specific language implying that soon a Maemo 5 device will be a phone?

Bundyo

2009-04-28, 19:36

So we still won't have fully functional portrait mode?

benny1967

2009-04-28, 19:45

You can still use standard Gtk menus with sub-menus, it is just not recommended.

But that would be like what we have today when an application is not properly hildonized, like the menu would be horizontally arranged and take screen real estate all the time, even if not in use. - Right?

That's not what i meant by "port", that would be running it without (much of a) change.

By "port" i meant integrating the application into the overall look&feel of the target platform. That's gonna be tough with applications like Xchat or Pidgin. (A quick guess would be it's not gonna be tough, but completely impossible without a complete re-write...)

BrentDC

2009-04-28, 20:08

So we still won't have fully functional portrait mode?

From what I've read it seems like there will be an "official" portrait mode -- but obviously some of the UI needs to be altered when switching modes.

For example, from the Hildon Human Interface Guidelines:

The view menu can hold until ten menus at most divided in two columns -- or one column in portrait orientation.

qgil

2009-04-28, 20:09

That's gonna be tough with applications like Xchat or Pidgin.

Are you suggesting that Xchat or Pidgin looked like integrated to Maemo before? I wouldn't say so, and yet thousands of users enjoyed them because they filled a gap.

qgil

2009-04-28, 20:25

Yes Sir! The only other piece of the puzzle leading to a RX-51 device that I have been able to gather is that Quim said (http://maemo.org/news/announcements/developer_call_mozilla_maemo_danish_weekend/) that Maemo 5 would be in beta and approaching its final release during the time of the Mozilla/Maemo Danish Weekend at the end of May. That is one month from now. How long do the ITOS' hang in beta for? I hope that first week of June brings us all new devices!

Hold on. Today we had an SDK beta release, that will be a more solid beta in one month. "Beta SDK" refers to the platform components providing APIs and the SDK tool itself. But if you are talking about 'new devices brought to you' you need to take into account the components tied to the hardware that are not published in the SDK and the applications that are equally missing there.

This beta is out now because we (and you) wanted to give as much time as possible to application developers to have their software ready for the final release.

This beta is also out now because we (and you) wanted to support the Mer project aka Fremantle community edition for N800/N810 giving them as much time as possible to work.

qgil

2009-04-28, 20:28

So can anyone going through the beta sdk shed light on new features/old features dropped?

Do you mind discussing those in any of the "What can we expect..." threads out there, or wherever else you prefer? This way we can keep this beta SDK thread on topic with the SDK itself. Remember that the Alpha SDK thread became a debate about the Cancel button and the Maemo 5 finger friendly UI for the most part.

Thank you.

benny1967

2009-04-28, 21:03

Are you suggesting that Xchat or Pidgin looked like integrated to Maemo before? I wouldn't say so,[…]

Mhm... Actually yes, I always thought they were excellent examples of good ports, that's why I mentioned them in this context.

Anyway, forget those two:
My point was that it's getting even more difficult than it is today if you want to do it right. (And I hope developers want to do The Right Thing.)
The menus may be the most evident example: It'll not be enough to transfer them from horizontal to vertical and remove icons, you'll need to re-design the whole UI from scratch if the original application has more than 10 menu items and some sub-menus.

I also find it hard to understand why a the-device-formerly-known-as-an-internet-tablet has a more restricted UI than, say, my two cell phones with smaller screens and less powerful hardware. Doesn't matter, though, does it? I'll buy, I'll learn, I'll love. As before. ;)

qole

2009-04-28, 21:38

Hold on. Today we had an SDK beta release, that will be a more solid beta in one month...

This beta is out now because we (and you) wanted to give as much time as possible to application developers to have their software ready for the final release... [and] to support the Mer project aka Fremantle community edition for N800/N810 giving them as much time as possible to work.

pffffffffffffft....

That's the sound of my high hopes being drained of air. :(

Thanks for the buzzkill. I was looking forward to a very nice Summer Solstice / Father's Day.

fanoush is going to win, isn't he?

eiffel

2009-04-28, 21:43

From the Hildon Interface Guidelines, I don't think the two-touch (http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/beta/hig/html/x498.html) has been mentioned before:

A two-touch happens when the user taps down with a finger and just after that, without lifting the finger, taps another position with another finger. The two-touch can be used to activate context sensitive menu.
Interesting! And it can be done with a resistive touch screen because it's looking for a "jump" in position without a finger being lifted.

Now here's a possible hardware tidbit (http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/beta/hig/html/c465.html), although it may just be noise:

Many devices feature a keyboard either always present or a slide-out one.
I'm trying to imagine which pocket-sized form factor would have an always-present keyboard with an 800x480 screen.

I also enjoyed the suggestion on the last page to design the interface using a thick blunt crayon rather than a sharp pencil. I get a mental image of a roomful of five-year-olds with their crayon sets busy designing Hildon interfaces.

Regards,
Roger

Naranek

2009-04-28, 21:48

The two-touch is a nice touch, although only time will tell if it'll end up like the pressure sensitivity of the screen. Anyway, it's great they're trying new things and trying to make the best of the current technologies....

I'm trying to imagine which pocket-sized form factor would have an always-present keyboard with an 800x480 screen.

Maybe a device that folds in two so that you need to open it to use the screen. That way you'd have the keyboard there when ever you can see the screen.

BrentDC

2009-04-28, 22:10

Mhm... Actually yes, I always thought they were excellent examples of good ports, that's why I mentioned them in this context.

Anyway, forget those two:
My point was that it's getting even more difficult than it is today if you want to do it right. (And I hope developers want to do The Right Thing.)
The menus may be the most evident example: It'll not be enough to transfer them from horizontal to vertical and remove icons, you'll need to re-design the whole UI from scratch if the original application has more than 10 menu items and some sub-menus.

[snip]

I haven't installed any Alpha or Beta SDK's, but... until we see what is actually involved in porting an application, I wouldn't assume anything.

Right now it usually takes just a few lines of code to reparent the menu. In fact, most of the time it's like just taking the gtk.Menu() and adding it to the window (.set_menu()) instead of the menubar. I would not be at all surprised if 95% of the hildonization of the menu is automatic in Fremantle.

EIPI

2009-04-28, 22:26

Hold on. Today we had an SDK beta release, that will be a more solid beta in one month. "Beta SDK" refers to the platform components providing APIs and the SDK tool itself. But if you are talking about 'new devices brought to you' you need to take into account the components tied to the hardware that are not published in the SDK and the applications that are equally missing there.

This beta is out now because we (and you) wanted to give as much time as possible to application developers to have their software ready for the final release.

This beta is also out now because we (and you) wanted to support the Mer project aka Fremantle community edition for N800/N810 giving them as much time as possible to work.

Thanks for clarifying! It was just wishful thinking on my part.

nilchak

2009-04-29, 01:44

The two-touch is a nice touch, although only time will tell if it'll end up like the pressure sensitivity of the screen. Anyway, it's great they're trying new things and trying to make the best of the current technologies....

Maybe a device that folds in two so that you need to open it to use the screen. That way you'd have the keyboard there when ever you can see the screen.

You mean like a Clamshell (as in the Zaurus style) ?

TheTree

2009-04-29, 02:56

I'm trying to imagine which pocket-sized form factor would have an always-present keyboard with an 800x480 screen.

A plain slate tablet with a split keyboard flanking the display like some of Samsung's and Wibrain's UMPCs. It would be a bit long but it might be possible to make it fit in a pocket.

qgil

2009-04-29, 06:58

[I]pffffffffffffft....

Sorry if that disappointed you. On the other hand, let me remind you that if we would follow your desired schedule probably yourself and surely others would...

blame us for not thinking about the developers giving them the time and the means to have their apps ready before sales start. And not thinking about the users missing dditional applications to install and expand their usage of the device.

blame us for throwing a release out without giving time to have a Extras community process in place and therefore upsetting users for offering them some apps that have installation problem, crash, drain batteries and so on.

probably also blame us for the quality of the software in the first release. Think that the frozen API is also frozen for ouselves.

Then somebody would go down to the us not-learning, not-getting-it and so on.

You want everything and you want it now. That's fine... but we have our timing and priorities to deliver stuff.

If you want to help to have better products sooner a good way to do it is to come up with great applications and a way to make them move from extras-devel to extras-testing and extras, rwaching good and stable quality at the end exposed to Maemo 5 users.

qole

2009-04-29, 07:12

Quim, I never blame Nokia for anything, and I never complain. It's always those other guys. I'm all sweetness and light.

And if I ever said anything that sounded like a complaint, I'm so sorry.

I will never complain again.

Can I have my device now?

(An addict will say anything to get a fix. ;) )

fredoll

2009-04-29, 11:17

You can still use standard Gtk menus with sub-menus, it is just not recommended.

Applications designed for the new UI guidelines are very slick, but you can still use all traditional Gtk elements to make ports easier. If something behaves in a totally incompatible way, then it has been implemented as a new Hildon widget instead of changing Gtk functionality. Dialogs are probably the biggest case of changed functionality, but they should generally still work ok without changes.

It looks like the AboutDialog from gtk is not supported ...

mikkov

2009-04-29, 12:33

It looks like the AboutDialog from gtk is not supported ...

What do you mean? AboutDialog is used in many applications, for example leafpad.

Bundyo

2009-04-29, 13:06

Yesterday I compiled Tear without problems in the Fremantle beta SDK and I'm using the AboutDialog.

epage

2009-04-29, 14:06

May I repeat a humble request for virtual machine images? This would greatly lower the barrier to entry for getting started. I've never successfully setup a scratchbox environment for Diablo development. I imagine I'm not the only one. And no, I'm not demanding this of Nokia but any kind soul in the maemo community.

yerga

2009-04-29, 16:51

Well, as nobody has done this, I'll be the first:

Small Modest screencast (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-D-J0Y7ufM)

It lacks some translations, some icons and it doesn't look so good as in the screenshot in the announcement, eh? ;)
Also, the SDK doesn't run specially well in my machine.

conny

2009-04-29, 16:53

I'm not sure if this was posted already. At least I didn't see.
Here's a screenshot of how the new app menu is looking in the beta SDK.

tso

2009-04-29, 19:23

maybe not the right place to ask, but will we see modest on mer? or at the very least, updated/bugfixed packages for diablo?

VDVsx

2009-04-29, 19:34

I'm not sure if this was posted already. At least I didn't see.
Here's a screenshot of how the new app menu is looking in the beta SDK.

The old menu style is also available, as you can see in my Fremantle beta screencast (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cym7UaUk5s8) :D

conny

2009-04-29, 19:39

The old menu style is also available, as you can see in my Fremantle beta screencast (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cym7UaUk5s8) :D

Yes it is, but at least in the beta there is space wasted at the top and the end of the menu gets clipped :(

qole

2009-04-29, 20:15

Will there be some kind of Mesa (http://mesa3d.org/) DRI (http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/) driver for the graphics acceleration (OpenGL)? Most OpenGL applications in Debian (and Ubuntu) use this system to get their OpenGL.

benny1967

2009-04-30, 08:51

The old menu style is also available, as you can see in my Fremantle beta screencast (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cym7UaUk5s8) :D

Cool. So the answer to my question
But that would be like what we have today when an application is not properly hildonized, like the menu would be horizontally arranged and take screen real estate all the time, even if not in use. - Right?
would have been "No". :)

I tried to understand the API-docs meanwhile and it seems that the app_menu-constructs are there in addition to the ones we have and are not a replacement - even though they are preferred. (Again, this is what I understood; doesn't mean that I got it right this time.)
Reading the tutorial and the HIG first I was under the (wrong?) impression that the new application menus were the only way to implement a menu-like structure within a Hildon application as of M5.

fredoll

2009-04-30, 09:30

qole

2009-04-30, 17:05

Yes, did they fix the colours yet? :)
Does the armel target run in Xephyr now?

chirp chirp chirp

So I guess the answers are no and no?

daperl

2009-04-30, 17:19

So I guess the answers are no and no?

If anyone answers him their soul is mine

[more silence]

fpp

2009-04-30, 19:47

So I guess the answers are no and no?

Time Is On My Side

[Hey, it's still only Spring...]

krisse

2009-04-30, 23:24

Sorry if that disappointed you. On the other hand, let me remind you that if we would follow your desired schedule probably yourself and surely others would...

blame us for not thinking about the developers giving them the time and the means to have their apps ready before sales start. And not thinking about the users missing dditional applications to install and expand their usage of the device.

blame us for throwing a release out without giving time to have a Extras community process in place and therefore upsetting users for offering them some apps that have installation problem, crash, drain batteries and so on.

You're absolutely right. Nokia did completely the right thing in letting the developers have the SDK first. The switch to diablo caused problems because it was so immediate, so it's great to see that lessons have been learned from that update.

qgil

2009-05-07, 10:47

If you are experiencing problem with Clutter performance (slow SDK) please have a look at http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo5_clutter_performance

qgil

2009-05-07, 11:45

Also interesting: /development/sdks/maemo_5_examples/

EDIT: URL pulled until the page is ready-ready.

Andre Klapper

2009-05-07, 14:49

If you are experiencing problem with Clutter performance (slow SDK) please have a look at http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo5_clutter_performance

There's also https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4180 for rants. ;-)

Naranek

2009-05-08, 18:56

So what's the situation on the new calendar framework? Is there already info about it somewhere?

mikkov

2009-05-08, 19:33

Here it is http://maemo.org/api_refs/5.0/beta/calendar-backend/annotated.html

But I'm guessing you were after some easier-to-read information :)

yerga

2009-05-08, 20:07

Perhaps the changelog for the calendar-backend could be more useful: http://pastebin.com/f388ab7ec

Naranek

2009-05-08, 20:34

Thanks for the links! This is a nice start and gives some insight about what to expect :)

mikkov

2009-05-09, 11:54

Also interesting: /development/sdks/maemo_5_examples/

EDIT: URL pulled until the page is ready-ready.

it's still linked from maemo5 sdk page and dead links look kind of amateurish. So perhaps saying this "ready-ready" thing at that URL would be a good idea