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In this edition...

  1. Front Page
    • Debian's "Squeeze" devkit installed to autobuilder to bring accurate, cross-SDK dependencies
  2. Applications
    • Nokia N900 Live Wallpaper
    • First user experience week concentrating on preferences dialogues
    • UX week #2 focusing on icons
  3. Development
    • Maemo 5 "Info Center" provides centralised reference documentation for Nokia-supported frameworks
  4. Devices
    • Example screenshots of MeeGo GUIs for netbooks and smartphones
    • MeeGo screenshots and Nokia: things to understand
    • Video: Intel & Nokia presenting MeeGo running on different kinds of devices
    • Mer 0.17 on Joggler with 3D acceleration
  5. Announcements
    • Help Maemo make N900 and future MeeGo products better
    • Keep track of your N900's location with "I am here"
    • Ring Clock is a colourful clock applet for the desktop

Front Page

Applications »

Debian's "Squeeze" devkit installed to autobuilder to bring accurate, cross-SDK dependencies

On 24th March, Niels Breet implemented the plan which had been discussed with the Maemo development community: deploy the PR1.2 SDK to the autobuilder so that applications in Extras can take advantage of new features when PR1.2 is released. Unfortunately, there were two unforeseen circumstances: pretty much every package started declaring a dependency on a later libhildon than is available on public devices and PR1.2 wasn't released as quickly as the community expected. The Maemo Community Council, and the maemo.org team, discussed solutions with the community and Javier S. Pedro outlined the plan: to upgrade the Debian devkit in the Fremantle autobuilder to the Squeeze version (from the current etch one), and start using "improved shlibdeps" (a.k.a. .symbols files) to version dependencies on a much more granular basis (minimal required version of libraries will be calculated per symbol instead of per library). We plan to ship .symbols files for most of the SDK libraries.

This means that packages built in the PR1.2 SDK using no PR1.2-introduced functions will work on a PR1.1 device and even on a 1.0 device. This was done on 14th April and the repository re-indexed with rebuilt packages. After a brief problem with Akamai caching network, packages from Extras-devel are again installable. This allows developers to sanity check their applications before promoting them to Extras-testing for beta testing.

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Applications

Development »« Front Page

Nokia N900 Live Wallpaper

Although hinted to be available in the forthcoming PR1.2 through some desktop widget trickery, Vlad Vasiliev got bored and has posted a video demoing a "live" animated wallpaper on his N900: The live wallpaper app is in beta stage. The app does a smooth movement of wallpaper in the background. Live wallpaper is a Google magic on its Nexus One. This app is not that interactive as Google Nexus One's wallpaper but slowly getting there.

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First user experience week concentrating on preferences dialogues

Thomas Perl's "UX weeks" kicked off with preferences dialogues, best practices and a concentrated attempt to improve several applications': What do we expect as a result of this week? A list of best practices for preferences dialog design on Maemo 5. Example screenshots of good dialogs (and why they are good). Example screenshots of bad dialogs (and why they are bad + improvement suggestions). Developers of affected apps contacted and provided with mock-ups, patches, .ui files, etc. The thread seemed to garner quite a lot of interest, and is a way by which many people can improve applications - without being a developer, or a "proper" designer.

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UX week #2 focusing on icons

Not one to rest, Thomas Perl has now started the second UX week; concentrating on icons - both in the applications menu, and Application Manager: This week I got the suggestion by someone that we should focus on icons. I'm not a graphic artist myself, but I know there are lots of helpful and able designers on this forum - it's your chance to help out here and make the UI more prettier. Designers should then help out with fixing the icons or creating new ones and sending them to the application maintainer who can then hopefully easily replace the icons without having to do much coding. There's room to help in highlighting sub-optimal icons, as well as posting your own suggestions for improvements.

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Development

Devices »« Applications

Maemo 5 "Info Center" provides centralised reference documentation for Nokia-supported frameworks

Easy to find and navigate documentation for Maemo development has often been a valid criticism. However, the landscape's (probably) improved with Nokia providing an "info centre" resource for their fully supported frameworks and APIs. In announcing the resource, Jarmo Tikka said, Maemo Info Center service is a developer documentation library that features a collection of current information relevant to Maemo developers, ranging from designers to programmers. Maemo.org wiki will have all same tutorials available as Maemo Info Center so that Maemo community members are able to contribute and develop Maemo documentation further. See http://wiki.maemo.org/Documentation for wiki versions. There's an argument that further splitting up the "official" resource between Forum Nokia, the maemo.org wiki (which includes "unofficial" technologies like Python) and the new Info Center may only increase the confusion of developers who start at Google; however your editor is hopeful that the resource can grow to become a space for all Maemo reference material.

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Devices

Announcements »« Development

Example screenshots of MeeGo GUIs for netbooks and smartphones

The interwebs have been feverishly pouring over the Moblin-inspired screenshots unveiled as "MeeGo" by Intel at their Developer Forum. Among the announcements there's talk of their MeeGo collaborative platform with Nokia. That includes some UI examples - for both netbooks, as seen here, and mobile devices - together with feature lists and roadmaps. Nothing specific in terms of actual device releases, of course, but Intel have confirmed that MeeGo v1.1 should land in late October 2010. Quim Gil has pointed out (see below) that these aren't necessarily indicative of any final device shipped by a manufacturer; but do give an indication as to the "base" MeeGo UI which manufacturers will build on; or possibly replace.

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MeeGo screenshots and Nokia: things to understand

As mentioned, Quim Gil has been managing expectations about the "MeeGo" screenshots: The only MeeGo real screenshots are the ones coming from a real MeeGo release. Take the rest as potential previews, concepts, proposals. MeeGo screenshots can refer to one or many UX categories: nobody is trying to squeeze the Netbook UX in a handset etc. MeeGo screenshots can refer to the system UI or applications; then vendors can ship their devices with those apps or another, with that same system UX or a different one (changing the theme or bringing deeper changes).

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Video: Intel & Nokia presenting MeeGo running on different kinds of devices

Following on from the screenshots above, an early draft of MeeGo - which bears more than a passing resemblance to its Moblin parent - has been shown off on various devices and form factors by an enthusiastic Intel. Engadget says, Here we go open source fans, the first debut of MeeGo 1.0 running on Intel silicon -- an Acer Aspire One netbook with a Pinetrail processor to be precise -- sporting a simplified UI that looks to have inherited far more Moblin DNA than Maemo. You've got tasks, appointments, most-used apps, and a quick-launch bar all up front. We're also seeing 3D gaming support; Zones, Applications, People, Internet, Media and Settings tabs; and real-time social networking integration for Twitter, Facebook, and instant messaging with task bar alerts As Engadget then points out, this is Intel's take on the base MeeGo UI and - with Quim Gil's comments above - Nokia's may well be different.

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Mer 0.17 on Joggler with 3D acceleration

Carsten Munk - the hacking guru behind Mer - has been working on Mer, MeeGo and Qt on the O2 Joggler, which we mentioned last week. He's now succeeded in getting Mer 0.17 - which runs Maemo 5's hildon-desktop - running on the small x86 device. The posted video has some errors (due to 24/32bpp buffer), but looks good and nice. Carsten has since recompiled Clutter and solved the display issue and posted a new Mer image for people to download from jogglerwiki.info.

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Announcements »« Development
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Announcements

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Help Maemo make N900 and future MeeGo products better

Nokia's MeeGo Devices division (aka "Maemo Devices") has posted a long survey to gauge user opinion on the N900: Tell us what you love about N900 and what you'd like to see changed. Your answers will help us improve N900 and make future Nokia devices better than ever. At ten pages the survey's quite long, but there's a good set of questions in there - and lots of space to complain about Ovi Maps!

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Keep track of your N900's location with "I am here"

Many people have been concerned about the loss or theft of their N900. Rafal Chomentowski has developed a new application, "I Am Here" which allows you to request - via SMS - information on your N900's location: I have been working previous weeks on an application, that I personally needed very much. This application allows you to do following things: 1. Configure what messages will activate configuration wizard, will start sending reports and stop sending reports. 2. Set GPS report settings: send last cached GPS position? send fix position? [...] The application is still under heavy development, so interested developers and designers should get in touch.

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Ring Clock is a colourful clock applet for the desktop

Manoj Kumar has unveiled a very swish desktop widget for Maemo 4 (diablo) showing a snazzy "ticker"-based clock. Called Ring Clock, he says its a colorful clock applet for the desktop with date display. Different color for the hour, minute and seconds rings can be selected through the color panel, to match the desktop theme/background color scheme. The applet also acts as a power launch for the Osso clock alarm UI. Double clicking on the applet launches the alarm utility, which otherwise is accessible only through a round about route from the Control panel. A Maemo 5 version is, apparently, under development.

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