Squeak on Handhelds (Update)

Brian Rice water at tunes.org
Sun Mar 11 01:42:55 UTC 2007


Short answer: no.

Long answer:
I am not personally willing to take on the responsibility of making  
the VM sources suitable for multiple OSes and hardware platforms  
(which if done properly should involve actually patching sources in  
the SVN repository which is more than a purely technical challenge).  
My goal is to make Squeak libraries, frameworks, and images suitable  
for demonstrating and using innovative interface ideas. The goal is  
that I can pull out a Nokia 770 and instantly sell Squeak as a  
platform and my consulting services based on a quick demo. If that  
motivates VM ports, I'll be tickled pink, but I can't afford to do  
that - I don't know where next month's rent is coming from often enough.

If someone wants to volunteer (or donate funds) to coordinate that  
kind of project, it would be vastly helpful, since Squeak handheld  
VMs have not been published in a couple of years (except for the  
Nokia VM's which are totally unmodified SVN sources from 3.7(!) which  
means that they really don't integrate with its Gtk-based user  
interface).

Obligatory compliment: Squeak is pretty easy to get running on  
embedded platforms.
Obligatory rejoinder: There's plenty of room for improvement in  
helping Squeakers create a porting branch of the Squeak VM and in  
maintaining such a branch with the least effort in concert with main- 
line Squeak updates. Hosting such projects at an official Squeak site  
like squeakvm.org would also be an improvement.

On Mar 10, 2007, at 8:43 AM, J J wrote:

> This sounds really cool.  Will the project also make VM's for the  
> different platforms?  I have a Sony Erikson that I would love to  
> put Squeak on.
>
>> From: Brian Rice <I do not like spam>
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> After a recent stint at a product prototyping company that had a  
>> lot  of work going on for touchscreen interfaces, I came back to  
>> Squeak  and looked at the state of handheld software/development  
>> support for  Squeak, and found it stagnant. So I decided to take  
>> matters into my  own hands.
>>
>> First, the Squeak on Handhelds wiki page:
>> http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/Handhelds
>>
>> Which links to Dynapad (dead sourceforge project, although the  
>> author  Aaron Reichow is still a handhelds-using Squeaker with  
>> custom images)  and Faure (not dead, just not updated and a bit  
>> buggy/incomplete). I  started with Faure, since it has an actual  
>> framework for PalmOS-style  user interfaces and browsing. It has a  
>> Url framework that supports  addressing of various PIM data as  
>> well as browsing and editing source  code and file system entries.  
>> There's also a little support for  including other applications as  
>> "pages" to visit (leaves in a  browsing tree).
>>
>> So I contacted Russell Allen, who created Faure:
>>  http://www.russell-allen.com/squeak/faure/
>> and he claims he's busy with other things and didn't mind if I   
>> started working with it. So we now share a SqueakSource project:
>>  http://www.squeaksource.com/Faure.html
>> where I've been cleaning up the framework and setting it up to be   
>> more extensible.
>>
>> I contacted Aaron and he was nice enough to sell me his Nokia 770   
>> after he upgraded to the 800, so I've had a platform to test the   
>> various PDA-oriented images out there.
>>
>> My overall goal is to have a space where most handhelds/ 
>> touchscreen- oriented code can be collected and collaborated on.  
>> Specifically, I  want to gather attention about specific topics:
>> Personal Information Management (PIM or PDA data):
>>   - contacts, email, messaging, todos, calendaring
>>   (See PDA/PDAMorph which I want to replace with a Magritte-based   
>> solution)
>> Idea-processing:
>>   - note-taking, drawing, sculpting, outlining, brainstorming.
>>   (Faure has some basic stuff, and Dynapad *did*, but Golgi
>> Touchscreen Input Interfaces:
>>   - stylus or fingers, gestures or pushbuttons.
>>   (See Genie, and now the InputMethods package in Faure's SqS   
>> repository which gathers a ThumbPadMorph and a simple   
>> QwertyKeyboardMorph from Faure).
>>   - One thing I need to figure out is how to use a click on a  
>> widget  to make the next mouse click show up as a modifier+click  
>> or just 2nd/ 3rd moues button click. I'm probably close but it's a  
>> key feature to  making a soft keyboard widget complete.
>> Simpler screen management:
>>   - Faure's single-pane browsing, or dual-pane browsing for wider   
>> screens, a universal navigation system (like Faure but hopefully   
>> merging with OmniBrowser's framework so less code is needed).
>>   - Simple sweep / flick gestures a la Apple phone interface for   
>> navigation.
>>   - A way to detect screen size on startup and do something   
>> intelligent about it. 240x320 was almost ubiquitous for a while  
>> but  now there's quite a variety of resolutions.
>>   - A way to detect what device Squeak is on and map key controls   
>> appropriately. I discovered that the Squeak VM doesn't  
>> distinguish  function keys from each other and that the Nokia 770  
>> maps some keys  to these X11 key-codes, and I imagine that other  
>> small platforms have  similar issues.
>>
>> I'd like to know: What solo projects are hiding in the woodwork  
>> that  would benefit from this kind of collaboration? Who wants to  
>> donate  code for this project to maintain?
>>
>> I've seen and started poking at Tansel's 4MB previously- 
>> commercial  demo image, all of Aaron Reichow's images, and Pavel's  
>> KernelImages  (which I'd prefer going forward since I can automate  
>> builds of them  that way). Craig says he has a pie-menu-like soft- 
>> keyboard tool that  he uses on touchscreens, which sounds  
>> interesting.
>>
>> I should also state that it's important for an end-user to have   
>> something they can grab immediately for handhelds and  
>> touchscreens  from squeak.org that is self-explanatory in the  
>> sense that it should  always be obvious what is available to do in  
>> the current current  context, and what modes or quasi-modes are  
>> available (especially for  Genie which turns the whole screen into  
>> a different mode without  telling you or giving a novice an easy  
>> escape).
>>
>> I'd also like to know who's interested in the work and might have   
>> something to contribute. Oh, and how I should organize the  
>> project,  maybe to rename the SqueakSource project to "Dynapad" or  
>> "Handhelds"  or such, for example?
>>
>> Comments/criticisms/concerns?

--
-Brian
http://briantrice.com

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