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
>
><< PGP.sig >>
>
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