Because all the cool kids blog about it these days..

• Follow the FHS (get rid of workarounds such as Optification)
• Remove Maemoisms and Scratchboxisms
• Follow freedesktop.org specifications (at least bugs 657, 1303, 3817, 3818, 3828, 3822, 3913, and 4766 according to this wiki page)
• Allow many different UI toolkits and languages (it's OK if you decide to provide official support for only a few of them)
• Make sure other UI toolkits integrate nicely (mostly covered by following wm-spec, icon-naming-spec and systemtray-spec and not inventing "MeeGo"-specific technologies and non-standard implementations)
• Make sure notifications work from other toolkits (libnotify-based vs. Qt-only notification widgets)
• In general, follow the ideas from the Mainstream Linux Aligment wiki page (the page is broken atm, but you'll be able to see the bug IDs)

If any of these specifications/standards do not meet the requirements, please work with freedesktop.org or other related institutions to get your extensions discussed, fixed and then integrated into the relevant specifications.

People will still develop mobile UIs specifically for whatever device will come along in the future, but porting from/to "mainstream" Desktop Linux should be as easy as possible.

There's a lot of awesome open source Linux/UNIX (GUI) software out there, it just needs some UI love to be usable on mobile devices. Don't make it harder than it should be.

(And with that I mean that it's easier to relayout a GTK+, FLTK, wxWidgets, Swing or Tk UI than to port everything to "the one true toolkit".)

This is especially true since open source developers usually develop in their free time, and porting an app to a new toolkit/environment is something that can't be done in two afternoons. Relayouting UIs can be done in that time.

Adding paradigm-shifting cool new UIs will still work without breaking backwards-compatibility and without restricting developers to one language/toolkit.

Oh, and Mer solves most of these issues by basing itself on a "standard" Desktop distro and only changing stuff that's really necessary.

After a week of initial testing of MaePad 1.0 in Extras-Devel and some very helpful feedback from users, MaePad 1.1 "The Large Hadron Collision" hits the street (or more precisely, Extras-Testing). You can read the list of changes or go straight to the package page to test it.

In other news, gPodder 2.2 "LA X" (release notes on gPodder.org) was uploaded to Extras-Devel at the end of last week. This new release includes the promised UI changes and some other under-the-hood changes, but there have been some minor regressions (broken streaming for example) which have since been fixed in the development repository. Please test gPodder 2.2 (on the package page) and report bugs against it in the bug tracker, so that any issues can be fixed before the next package version.

Again, please report any bugs you find to the bug tracker, and don't go whining in the forums - it's a hassle to search and hunt for bug reports on the web, and your "bug report" forum post might never be seen by any of the developers of any given app.

gPodder 2.2 is of course also available for Maemo 4, and has been pushed into the Diablo Extras repository already. Starting from this version, no Chinook builds will be provided for gPodder anymore, but due to the interpreted nature of Python code, you can install the gPodder package from the Diablo repositories should you really need to run gPodder under Chinook. If you are reporting bugs against gPodder for Maemo 4, be sure to mention "Maemo 4", "Diablo" or "N8x0" in the bug report.

Ready to go into Maemo Extras during this week: Panucci 0.3.9-1 and headphoned 1.6 (thanks to all the testers for taking the time to test, review and rate these packages).

The hack week continues with some goodness for your ears (and the undisturbedness of people sharing the subway or bus with you): headphoned 1.6 adds support for Bluetooth headsets, so when you disconnect your Bluetooth headset, playback of music will automatically pause, which seems to be a much-requested feature. Thanks to Alan and Faheem for making this possible. Again, now that the package is ready, it's your turn to test and vote the package into the Extras repository.

Now that headphoned supports Bluetooth headsets, the only problem is that you still need to get your device out of your pocket to start playback. That's why I quickly hacked some automatic playback start goodness into Panucci (which is of course optional). The (due to space constraints irritatingly named) "Auto-play on headset" option will automatically start playback in Panucci when your Bluetooth headset or your wired headset with microphone is connected:

(Yes, I'm a big fan of the Marina Theme...)

I'm not promoting the new Panucci version yet, as I want the previous release (0.3.9-1) to go through Extras-Testing first. The version with headset support (0.3.9-2) is already in Extras-Devel, and I'll promote it to -Testing after the first one got through (thanks to all of you who have reviewed and rated the package in -Testing).

In short, this means that you will be able to keep your N900 in your pocket and simply connect/disconnect your Bluetooth headset to control playback, which I think is quite nice... (no support for BT headset buttons in Panucci so far, as I can't really test this myself - send patches and/or D-Bus logs)

Last Thursday, Claes Norin asked me if there's going to be an app like Maemopad+ for Fremantle. "Neat idea", I thought, and started hacking, overhauling the whole UI, refactoring some ugly parts of the code and making it generally shine and be usable as every day productivity companion on the N900. Claes was kind enough to provide me with valuable feedback and the necessary artwork. Now, let me introduce you to... MaePad!

Due to the big changes in the UI and source code, MaePad is only available for Fremantle at the moment, but I hope to be able to provide it for Mer as well when it becomes available for the N800 and N810.

If you are feeling adventurous, please try out MaePad 1.0, which is available from Maemo Extras-Devel now.

Now that the winter term has finally ended, and February is in sight, it's time to do some overdue fixes, releases and other random stuff. After headphoned 1.5 has found its way into Maemo Extras (thanks to the testers), it's Panucci's turn. Here is a list of user-visible changes in Panucci 0.3.9:

• Playback in "Silent" profile (thanks to Martin Grimme et al in bug 6694)
• Default is forced-landscape mode, the menu has automatic rotation and forced-portrait mode
• Volume controls removed (Maemo 5 already handles volume control for us)

If you are a Panucci user, please take the time to review and rate it: Maemo.org package page for Panucci

You can expect at least two apps/releases in the next few days: MaePad (Maemopad+ re-born for Maemo 5) and of course a new version of gPodder with my.gpodder.org sync and the re-designed UI.

Due to popular demand, the Headphone Daemon is now available for Fremantle and the N900, too. A package is in Extras-Devel and should be available for QA testing in Extras-Testing soon. There is also a discussion thread on t.m.o and the packages page for QA.

In other news, I'll be giving a talk about Maemo.org and Maemo development at the Metalab Vienna on the 22nd of January. This is in preparation of the Hackathon that's happening on the weekend after the talk (a good opportunity to hack on CLI Sharing, maybe..).

In general, it seems like the N900 seems to get up to speed here in Austria now: The Nokia App Forum Alps is organizing a competition for mobile applications, so hopefully we see some new apps coming out of this. And if you happen to be around Hagenberg in early March, do join the Mobile Developers Conference.

A new gPodder version will be out "very soon now" - just one bug and one feature (my.gpodder.org API) left to do. I hope I'll be able to do it this weekend, so you can all enjoy the #maebar UI updates and new features such as Flickr support.

Quick note about the stable version: Thanks to the hard-working testers, gPodder 2.1 has received its necessary karma points in Extras-Testing before the quarantime time is up, so we are just waiting for some more days to pass before gPodder 2.1 will finally enter the Extras repository.

In the mean time, there have been some important developments in the Git repository, mostly based on ideas from the Barcelona Long Weekend - thanks to all the people who provided valuable input, especially Tuomas (tigert) for all the hard work. I have created a new set on Flickr with some screenshots of the current development version:

The new UI is not set in stone, and still has some rough edges, so I'd like to receive some feedback on what can be improved.

If you want to test the development version interactively, use Git to checkout git://repo.or.cz/gpodder.git on your device, and then run bin/gpodder --fremantle --verbose inside the checkout to start the development version in debugging mode. Make sure to have the current version of gPodder installed to drag in the required dependencies (alternatively, install the dependencies by hand). As with all development versions, if it breaks (or messes with your downloads/subscriptions), you got to keep the pieces.

Thanks in advance for the feedback :)

There are several reasons why you would like to charge your N900 battery in a N810. Maybe you have a spare battery that you want to charge while using the other battery in your N900, or maybe your N900 refuses to charge the battery by itself. Please note that even though it works for me, the standard disclaimer applies - it's all your fault if this destroys your devices and/or batteries :)

Now, let's have a look at the pinouts and connectors of both batteries:

So, the connectors seem to have the same size, even though the batteries do not. Trying to put the N900 battery into the N810 is not straightforward, as there is a white piece of plastic that prevents the battery from getting close to the connectors. The solution is to simply use the N810 stylus as a lever to push the battery towards the connectors:

After the stylus and battery are fixed, simply connect the N810 to the power adapter, and it should start charging. Thanks to Quim for this helpful hint :)

The usual way to do rotation to portrait mode in Maemo 5 is to set special flags on a window and let the window manager rotate our window and relayout after the switch. It's not as fast as it could be, and task switching (even between two portrait mode apps) is only possible by switching to landscape mode. Apart from that, things like the system menu don't work in portrait mode.

For some applications, an alternative could be to stay in landscape mode and simply rotate widgets without the window manager even knowing...

It's probably best described in a short demo video of how a simple media player could look like (sorry for the sloppy video, forgot my digital camera, so the webcam had to act as a replacement) - have a look, and tell me what you think. (For comparison, have a look at the older Panucci rotation video that uses the "normal" way of going into and leaving portrait mode.)

With the Long Weekend just a little more than one week away, I though about doing some experiments with gPodder's UI. Some users want a quicker way to play/download/delete episodes instead of opening the shownotes window and using its application menu. Here's one approach I tried out today (I know the icons are pixellated and ugly - please consider them as placeholders):

The idea is that you click on an episode, and instead of opening the shownotes view, you get this selection screen where you can choose to play/download/delete the episode or view the shownotes. Of course there have to be some fancy animations, because that's what all the cool kids do today. Just watch the video on YouTube and tell me what you think in the comments here (especially in terms of non-standard UI and annying animations - seriously ;).

In unrelated news, headphoned 1.4 for N800/N810 has been released and pushed to Maemo Extras with support for Panucci and MPlayer for all your "public transport situation" avoidance needs.