Most of the cool hacks these days are done using the N900 for obvious reasons. For this little experiment, I needed the good old N810 with its USB Host Mode (as the N900 doesn't support USB Host Mode right now) to get things going. An alternative approach would be to use BlueMaemo running on a N8x0 (with a USB device attached) acting as Bluetooth HID device for the N900 and running pyDance from the N900 on the big screen with its TV-out.

Here's a walkthrough video on how it's done:

I hope to post the packages needed to get this going shortly. Attila was kind enough to package the joydev.ko kernel module for Diablo, so we're just missing pygame/SDL_mixer with OGG support in the repositories. It's not Stepmania, but it works just as well with only minimal code changes.

As you probably already know, all gPodder versions (Linux Desktop, Maemo 4 and Maemo 5) use the same codebase, and as Python is an interpreted language, the choice of which UI to run can be made at run time (you could do this for compiled languages, too, but it's easier for interpreted ones). In current versions of gPodder, this happens by using command-line arguments. gpodder alone will start the Desktop version (which does not work on Maemo for obvious reasons - an "auto-detect" feature might be implemented in the future). On Maemo 5, you will usually want to use gpodder --fremantle, which will start the Maemo 5 UI as you know it (that's also the command that gets executed when gPodder is started from its application icon). On Maemo 4, the command is gpodder --maemo.

If you are a gPodder/Maemo old-timer, you might still remember the "good old days" of two-panel, stylus-based podcast goodness with multiple selections, the funky context menu and the thick toolbar on your N8x0. Ever wondered how that would feel on the N900? Try it out! Simply run gpodder --maemo in X Terminal and give your podcasts a little retro interaction (the database and downloads are the same in both versions and are therefore shared).

Try it out - it might come in handy if you are a stylus cowboy or have really small fingers (or a big N900 and normal-sized fingers...). Also, give the multiple-selection feature in the episode list a try. All you need is gPodder version 2.5, as it contains some compatibility fixes to make the Diablo version not be totally unusable on Fremantle.

The news are a bit slow these days, because the summer term really took off after the easter holidays, and the free time for coding has decreased accordingly. Nevertheless: Some updates have hit Maemo Extras-Testing yesterday.

gPodder 2.5 "Knock knock knock Penny" was released and with it another Maemo 5 package rolls into the Extras repository (the Diablo package for Maemo 4 has also been uploaded and promoted to Extras already). Apart from some string changes ("Settings" instead of "Preferences", for example) that we found during the first UX-Week, this version fixes YouTube video downloads - the downloaded files now get a suitable extension (a bug that was introduced by YouTube changing their website a few weeks ago). Another nice feature for those of you with a fast Internet connection: YouTube video streaming. You can now chose to stream subscribed YouTube videos instead of downloading them if you prefer that. Review it and vote for gPodder 2.5-1 here

In gaming news, Paul Hudson (aka Hudzilla) has fixed some bugs in the code of his Brain Party game, and I've now uploaded a new version of the Maemo port for this game. The development repository of Brain Party has now also been opened over at Launchpad: Brain Party on Launchpad, and Paul promised to merge the Maemo patches upstream as soon as I send them to him, which I'll do today :) Review it and vote for Brain Party 0.5.91-1 here

One and a half week ago, we started the "UX Week" sprints in the Forums, focusing on one aspect of third-party applications for Maemo per week. This week, we're focusing on icons, so if you are an artist of want to help out as user or if you are a developer in need for some well-balanced icons, please get in touch in the forums and on the Wiki. And if you don't want to be productive at all, just stop by and look at the great artwork the artists have come up with so far already.

Brain Party from Hudzilla Games has been released as open source for Linux some days ago. A thread on t.m.o suggested somebody port this over to Maemo. An afternoon of tinkering later (and with the help of Javispedro's SDL-GLES library), I've got the game to run on the N900 (see the patch for details on the changes - as you can see, the original source code is pretty clean, so porting was mostly straightforward after being told about SDL-GLES, fixing a parameter for glTexImage2D and doing some math to scale the game to the N900's screen and scale the input coordinates the same way). The package is currently in Extras-Devel, soon to be promoted to Extras-Testing. In the mean time, you can grab binary and source packages from this page (use apt-get -f install afterwards to satisfy dependencies).

Please test it and vote for it on the Maemo.org package page when it enters Extras-Testing (did you know that you can follow @maemoextras on Twitter to see packages entering Extras-Testing and Extras? Now you do..).

It's good to see developers porting their games to Linux and open sourcing them, which makes learning from their code and porting the games to other platforms very easy. If you like the game, please support the developers by purchasing Brain Party for the iPhone (you probably don't have an iPhone, so show the N900 game off to your freedom-hating friends and tell them that they should purchase the game for their iPhone/iPod touch on the App Store). The game is also available for Windows Mobile and Xbox 360.

This week, it's once again time to update two of the more prominent apps in my collection: gPodder 2.4 "The Pants Alternative" for both Diablo and Fremantle and MaePad 1.5 "Productive" for Fremantle.

With the installation of PR1.2 on the autobuilder, MaePad can once again be built on it, so I've resumed uploading of MaePad releases to Maemo.org.

So, what's in it for you? Let's start with gPodder:

• Progress bar for loading episodes (and optimized episode list loading)
• "All episodes" view is not grouped per-podcast anymore (all episodes are now sorted descending by date)
• Faster download resuming on application start (with progress dialog)
• Automatic clean-up of finished downloads
• Simplified layout of progress indicator dialogs (e.g. deleting episodes, unsubscribing from podcasts)

And now for your favourite productivity tool, the MaePad:

• "w" in the checklist/sketch view now saves the database
• Fullscreen mode of checklists uses portrait mode (for shopping use, etc..)
• Node type displayed in overview (there's a themeing issue here with the highlights and the secondary text color.. suggestions welcome)

Now it's your turn: Please test the new packages and then vote for the packages here: MaePad QA page and gPodder QA page. Any bugs that you will find should be reported here: new bug against gPodder and MæPad t.m.o thread.

The PR1.2 SDK on the autobuilder adds a dependency on a newer Hildon version that cannot be fulfilled in earlier firmware versions, so I'll build a package compatible with pre-PR1.2 firmware soon and publish the package on the MaePad homepage for manual installation during this transition period until PR1.2 becomes available for end users.

Some weeks ago, a user of MaemoPad+ asked me if it was possible to port MaemoPad+ to the Desktop, so users of Tablet PCs can make use of it. Apart from that, this can also be useful for users of MaePad to copy their "memos.db" file from the N900 to their PC and edit the file (or just view the contents) on the big screen. The file format used by both MaemoPad+ and MaePad is the same, so users of the mobile versions can share their database files with the Desktop version (and vice versa), which by the way looks like this at the moment:

Most of the Maemo 4 libraries are readily available in Debian (hildon, libosso, hildon-icons, etc..), so the initial port has not been too difficult, even though proper Desktop integration obviously needs more work, and there are some ugly crashers still hidden inside the code ;)

I wonder if it's possible to also package Maemo 5 libraries (Hildon 2.2, etc..) for Debian and upload them to the Debian repositories - this should make it easier to port Maemo 5 applications to the Linux Desktop without having to re-write the whole UI layer. Another cool thing would be to have Hildon 2.2 for Diablo, which would allow us to "backport" Maemo 5 apps to Maemo 4 - again, without the work of having to re-write the UI.

Packages for Ubuntu are available from the MaemoPad+ PPA, and the source is available via Git. Please send backtraces of crashes or (even better!) patches against the "desktop" branch in the Git repo.

Now that a preview of the PR1.2 SDK has been released, it's time to push the latest updates into the current Extras repository, so users that won't be upgrading to 1.2 as soon as it's out will get recent packages until they decide to upgrade to the new release. Over the last days, I've updated some of my packages with minor updates and long-requested features:

• Panucci: FM transmitter in menu, HTTP streaming (ideal for podcasts). The "rotate to landscape mode when the keyboard is open" fix has been merged from gPodder.
  QA page for Panucci 0.3.9-5
• RæMote: Updated bugtracker URL and fixed the UI glitch where button "highlights" get stuck. It has only been out for two weeks, and therefore it has not entered Extras yet, so your votes are extra important here.
  QA page for RæMote 1.2
• headphoned: Support for pausing FM radio has been added - this is useful when you listen to FM radio using a Bluetooth headset. Please read the info comment about FM radio support on the QA page.
  QA page for headphoned 1.8

If you can spare some minutes, please help test these applications on your device and vote for them afterwards on the QA pages that are linked above.

More updates to other apps are queued for this week, stay tuned.

After the very interesting Nokia Mobile Developers Forum in Hagenberg on Friday and Saturday (Petri Niemi did several interesting Qt introductory talks), I decided to play a bit with QGraphicsView again and this time try to come up with an app that actually does something: SketchyAetch!

Having not done much with C++ for several months, the GCC error messages (at least for C++) are still kind of cryptic. The fact that code gets pre-processed by moc does not help here, as the error messages might appear in a different location than where the real error/typo is. It should not be too difficult to get around these issues after some practice, and from that point on, getting things done (in C++) with the Qt libraries should be nice.

Already-drawn lines will fade away when you shake your device just like you would expect. The package is available in Extras-Devel.

Now something for the Qt fanboys out there: If you're running gPodder 2.3 on your device, you can try

   python -m gpodder.qtui

for a PoC "yes we could use Qt for the UI layer". This is not something that we will be working on in the near future (after all, the Hildon-based Maemo 5 UI is perfectly fine and "native" and it will get some more fine-tuning with the next release), but it shows that it won't be too difficult to do a DirectUI GUI for gPodder on top of the existing podcast client for M6/MG. We probably get around to implementing a DirectUI GUI for gPodder later this year when it's time to think about "Maemo 6" support.

Looking back how strange the gPodder Fremantle UI looked back in June 2009 (and how much changed in both the Framework and gPodder until the first Fremantle version was released), there's no rush in switching to Qt or DirectUI (at least for existing applications). I just hope that good Python bindings will be available for DirectUI/Qt when it's time to support the new UI, but I'm sure the PyMaemo team will do a great job just as they did with Hildon/Fremantle.

Maemo 5 is very polished these days, and I expect it to be even more mature when PR1.2 is out. It's also nice to see the Qt bits fall in place, DirectUI widget demos being made available, and MADDE becoming integrated with QtCreator, so the tooling support is ready when it's time to write M6/MeeGo apps. Maemo 6/MeeGo is for later this year, now it's time to enjoy Maemo 5, the N900 and all the great open source apps :)

Back in January, I've given a talk about Maemo Development at the Metalab Vienna. It's been up for some weeks now (the talk is in German, but at least I was using the N900 during the whole presentation. BTW: Is it possible to disable auto-rotate in the image viewer?): (direct link)

Maemo 5 "Getting Started" from metalab on Vimeo.

This upcoming weekend, the Nokia Mobile Developers Conference is taking place in Hagenberg, Austria, and if you happen to have time on March 5th and 6th, register for free (free shuttle busses are available from Vienna to Hagenberg and back). I'll be giving a talk about Open Source Applications on Maemo 5. Say hi if you happen to be there! :)

Yesterday, MaePad 1.3 was released. Apart from updates to the Finnish translation and a new Hungarian translation, this release adds Vim-like keybindings to the UI, which allows you to be very productive when managing lots of checklists.

The enabler here is the hardware keyboard that allows for indirect multi-touch interaction with good, tactile, haptic feedback (something that no touchscreen to date can provide - you can't type "blindly" on any touchscreen).

Watch the demo video here:

The package is available as binary .deb from the MaePad homepage and the source is available in the Git repository (no package in Extras until Bug 9070 is fixed). Leave feedback in the forum thread, including ideas for additional shortcuts.