Copernicus | # 1 | 2014-06-30, 02:58 | Report

Fettuccine is a small app that allows you to collect a set of links to webcam sites, and browse through those webcams quickly and easily. It also allows you to quickly link to each webcam's home page, and has a customized refresh rate for each webcam.

Webcams can be tagged with identifiers for use in creating categories (such as "Beaches", "Mountains", or "Volcanoes"). The main webcam list can be filtered by these tags.

Webcams are entered into Fettuccine via an XML file. As of the current version (0.8), the XML format is a bit sparse, and I don't yet have a DTD for it. You can see an example of the syntax by examining the default Fettuccine xml file:

http://jpietrzak8.github.io/Fettuccine/fettuccine.xml

(This file can be loaded directly into Fettuccine via the "Import Webcam List" option in the drop-down menu.)

Also, please note that when a new XML file is loaded, all previous webcams are removed. I will hopefully have a more convenient method of adding new webcams in the future!

A screenshot:

As of version 0.9, Fettuccine can now also run as a homescreen widget:



A short overview video of Fettuccine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0URUZZ50s7o

Fettuccine is a free and open-source project, released under the Gnu GPL (version 2 or later, at your option). You can find the source code at Github:

https://github.com/jpietrzak8/Fettuccine

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Last edited by Copernicus; 2014-07-05 at 23:30. Reason: Updated to version 0.9

sixwheeledbeast | # 2 | 2014-07-01, 22:35 | Report

Thanks for this very useful application.
I have setup an XML file with local traffic cameras, very useful for avoiding traffic in the morning.

A couple of comments.

Firstly the icon is the stock Qt image in HAM, I guess the uuencoded image in the control file was the wrong one?

Lastly I seem to have had the devices watchdog kick in and reboot if Fettuccine is left running for a long period of time, maybe 20 minutes or so (was the only thing running at the time). Only done it once so maybe I'll keep an eye on it for now.

Copernicus | # 3 | 2014-07-02, 00:17 | Report

I'm glad to hear that you were able to use the XML file! I'm still trying to figure out a way to more easily add webcams into the app. So far, the best I've been able to come up with is to provide a field in which the user could paste an address. (And this would only work on the N900; Qt doesn't yet support cut and paste on Android. )

Ack! And I was kind of proud of my most recent foray into vector graphics; I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this "icon" thing. Let me go ahead and push an update with my icon...

Ah, I can believe that. I threw this thing together in a very short period of time, and haven't really tested it much at all; I could believe that there are memory leaks or such. I'll see if I can't clean it up a bit. Thanks!

New Fettuccine icon:

Attached Images

 

sixwheeledbeast | # 4 | 2014-07-02, 07:07 | Report

Well seen as it's easier to edit the XML file on my Desktop and then SCP it over...maybe a good idea would be an option to get the XML file from a location on the web.
Also if the application reloaded the file on startup if more cameras were added it would update it and add them.
You could then subscribe to a XML "channel" in a way.

I may test out the tag and tag filter by adding more cameras in a different county with different tags, when i get a moment.

mr_pingu | # 5 | 2014-07-02, 07:21 | Report

Can't the xml be edited from the application itself?
I mean we should have a repository with possible cams and a way to browse this repository in fettuccine and add them to the list of saved cams.

The repository packages / webcam can be a simple text file with all info needed and fettuccine should append "downloaded" cams to it's "saved" cams. I am aware of the limitations like: Who can host, how can users contribute with own cams, how to make sure the host just doesn't dissappear?

Another idea: maybe there should be a sort of import dialog/wizard which can append all needed strings to the xml? Like that dialog in HAM, the way you can add repositories HAM.

TomJ | # 6 | 2014-07-02, 07:39 | Report

I wonder if it could be persuaded to import official xml feeds, such as TfL's? http://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/open-data...on-this-page-3

Copernicus | # 7 | 2014-07-02, 10:23 | Report

and

That does sound like a better way to do it! Hmm. I think it would be easy enough to implement a UI for this, but I'm not really sure what would be the best way to handle the server side of things. As you say,

A Maemo.org wiki page might be a possibility; the Fettuccine Github wiki page might work as well... But yeah, I'm not sure I know of a perfect solution for serving files like these. At the very least, I suppose it'd be useful to let folks retrieve these files from private servers...

Well, I actually started out trying to do it that way, but got frustrated with just how much typing was involved; many of these webcam links tend to be long and chock-full of machine-readable gunk. (If I could get cut and paste working better, it might be bearable...)

Copernicus | # 8 | 2014-07-02, 10:41 | Report

Wow! I didn't know anybody offered webcam feeds like that. And yeah, it looks like it would be possible to pull all the webcam links right off of their XML. On the other hand, they've got a lot of terms and conditions...

And there are some requirements that I doubt I can meet, such as:

whayong | # 9 | 2014-07-02, 17:39 | Report

Would be awesome if I could input live surf cam feeds for my local surf spots. Definitely like the traffic cam idea too.

TomJ | # 10 | 2014-07-02, 19:49 | Report

Another thought - desktop widget? Combined with Calendar Home and OMWeather, a couple of traffic cams con a desktop could be the perfect "today" screen to check when getting ready in the morning...