Squeak on Handhelds (Update)

J J azreal1977 at hotmail.com
Sat Mar 10 16:43:46 UTC 2007


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 <water at tunes.org>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Subject: Squeak on Handhelds (Update)
>Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 12:40:00 -0800
>
>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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