Dia is designed to be much like the commercial Windows program 'Visio'. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.
[http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/]


Not much to add besides: I was impressed while looking for a suitable vector graphics drawing program for our 770th: .dxf, .svg, .svgz, .eps and xfig-formats accepted.
Only thing missing: a freehand drawing function.

If you want to give it a try: dia-0.94-N770v0.1_arm.deb
Be aware: as it currently includes almost all features and shape libraries, the installed size is about 8MB. As it loads all the plugins on startup, it is not really fast, but I guess it is sufficient to remove some plugins from /var/lib/install/usr/lib/dia and some shapes from /var/lib/install/usr/share/dia to reduce the size and increase the speed later on.
Maybe I will make several packages out of the installation taking this into account.

In order to have a different task icon for the toolbox-window, I had to add a second entry to the Extra-menu, you can use either of them to start the application.
Does anyone know how to convince the N770 to show a different icon without adding another .desktop file - the window already has a different wm_class...

I think there are still a view screen refresh problems, but hey, this is the first version compiled for the N770.



The spash-screen at startup somehow just appears in the scratchbox, but not on the real device.
So be patient during startup.

Use at own risk! It is a demanding application - your Nokia 770 may reboot spontaneously.

Michael

Last weeks I have been very busy, and I have not written too much in this blog. In the next three months it is possible I have good news about the 770. Until then, I will try to keep updated this blog with my progress in the porting of wxPython. I am trying also to port ZSNES, because my brother wanted it to play some SNES games on his 770. I am having problems with the macro assembler. It seems it can not to assemble the macros for other architecture but x86. Anyway, I have not taken a very deep look at it.

By the way, the title of this post comes from one of the funniest books I have ever read.

I'm currently working on compiling/adapting yet another vector graphics drawing program...
...named Sodipodi [engl: "ZigZag"??]. It uses .svg files as its native file format, therefore you can still edit any files later on with OpenOffice, Visio, etc. or view them using FireFox. It is way more compact than bitmaps, so its ideal for mailing your sketches while you are connected via GPRS.

Why another utility?
Okay, the functionality of Dia is way more advanced. But even when I removed many sheets and disabled almost all the plugins, it still consumes alot of memory and CPU-power.
Furthermore, there seems to be an issue with screen refreshes and I'm not sure if it is caused by the resource consumption or there should be some "refresh" calls within the code.
Basically I cannot make Dia run faster soon, given my time restrictions. Maybe it'll be faster on upcoming releases of GTK/maemo platform with further optimizations or the replacement of some widgets, especially the color selection widget.
So for the meantime, we need some software that is useful/usable and still responsive.

I had a look at some open source vector graphics editors to find out which one would easy to port to the N770 (menu structure, screen area and most important: dependencies). First, I decided to compile inkscape, as it looks cool and is GTK-based. However, it relies on some C++ / GTK obejct wrapper dependencies (gtkmm, ...) which was to awkward to do in just a few hours [I need some sleep from time to time and go to work the next morning ;-) ] Then, I found out that sodipodi and inkscape not just have identical functionality, they share the same roots. Sodipodi is more suitable for the standard N770 setup, as we just need the additional libart, which is easy to compile, everything else was already there. Besides this, it is possible, to alternatively dock the toolbar to the main drawing area.

Advantages

• uses less resources than Dia, reacts in interactive time on user input.
• Especially home-made Color-Chooser Widget more useful and faster response compared to GTK_Color_Button/Selection from Dia
• Menu-Bar is dockable

Installation
My preliminary version can be found here: sodipodi_0.34-N770v0.2_arm.deb
I modified almost all of the dialog boxes in order to show a close button.
There is also a menu setting to switch all dialogs to windows, but this doesn't look so nice.

Cliparts and examples are not included. There are some available separately at http://www.openclipart.org/cgi-bin/navigate/signs_and_symbols/flags
and http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/ [files/sodipodi-cliparts]




ToDos:

• further reduce footprint, see if we can remove some unneeded parts (XMLEditor)
• try to make the GUI start with an activated dockable toolbar.
• fullscreen mode??
• 
  

Intermediate build:

sodipodi_0.34-N770v0.3_arm.deb

• starts the GUI with an empty sheet (landscape!) and a docked toolbar to the left... just for convenience... still todo: have to carefully check all dialogs: the softkeyboard might shrink them...
  

Okay, here are two lightweight utilities for your N770:

galculator - a scientific calculator.
It supports different number bases (DEC/HEX/OCT/BIN) and angles bases (DEG/RAD/GRAD) and features a wide range of mathematical (basic arithmetic operations, trigonometric functions, etc) and other useful functions (memory, etc) at the moment. galculator can be used in algebraic mode as well as in Reverse Polish Notation.
[http://galculator.sourceforge.net/]



Installer package: galculator_1.2.5.2-N770v0.1_arm.deb
Requires about 480kB when installed.

leafpad - A simple and lightweight text editor
... fast and only 112kB installed.



Installer package: leafpad_0.8.7-N770v0.1_arm.deb
Home page: http://tarot.freeshell.org/leafpad/

These two were very little efford to recompile and package. Therefore just worth one posting ;-)

BTW: I recently read about the ongoing Maemo development: As it looks like, the next version will make porting apps easier (HildonWindow like instead of the rotten HildonAppView wich steals a border of about 20pixels from the canvas area), furthermore, there will be a new application packaging and binary format... altogether it looks like I will have to redo all the applications I've packaged so far...well, lets see.

I was looking for a little database toy for the N770, basically I was thinking about some frontend for SQLite and I finally found it here: http://gtksql.sourceforge.net/


Here is the binary, it is from the experimental version 0.43, as I wanted to have the features, so as always: use at your own risk!

gtksql_0.43-N770v0.1_arm.deb


Requirements:
You need to have SQLite installed, you may use sqlite_3.2.7_arm.deb
from http://www.owenwilliams.plus.com/maemo/


Michael

After the first couple thousand times you reboot your 770 and look at the bland blue Nokia logo and the pair of pedophilic hands, you are thinking it is time for now startup images. It is a simple enough hack, and here are the rules.

1. The images must be PNG format, no larger than 800×480, and up to 24bit color depth.

There are three images displayed at startup. These are:

1. The first Nokia Image - Have not been able to change that. I have not dug far enough to find out where it is. I suspect it is being called as part of the kernel splash routine.
2. The second Nokia Image - /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/hildon/qgn_indi_startup_nokia_logo.png. This image has the dimensions of 415×68.
3. The hands image - /usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/hildon/qgn_indi_nokia_hands.png. This image is 800×480.

I grabbed a couple of thematic images from the web

and the second one

I backup the current images, and copied / renamed the new images to the appropriate directory (to replace the two original image files). The bluesun logo replaced the Nokia logo and the Serenity logo replaced the hands.
After a restart, i now have a more unique set of 770 startup images.

NOTE - I tried padding the bluesun logo out to 800×480 in order to cover the green debug text, but got a completely blank screen with that. So 780×480 works and 800×480 does not (For the Nokia Logo image only). Not sure why. One pixel smaller than max may be sufficient to function, but i am out of time for this today.

ubergEEk

PS - Like everything else on this blog, use at your own risk. Just because it worked for me, does not mean I assume responsibility for anything you do.

Last weekend I built the debian curl package for maemo (Nokia 770's platform). Eventually I'm going to use the package to build a mirroring utility.

Only minimal changes where required- such as disabling the generation of postinst and postrm scripts.

curl and libcurl3 both install using the Application Installer and work well. However not all of the build tests wouldn't run under qemu-arm (the HTTP tests were complaining the socket was already bound). I'll try again with CPU Transparency next weekend.

All the binaries and sources are here.

Update: Slight changes to packages (URLs changed above)
Furthermore using CPU Transparency didn't help with the build tests, although I haven't given up yet...

First - A metapackage is a aggregated package that contains the contents of several other packages.

Metapackages are useful if you find yourself re-installing the same packages, in the same manner often. One that screams out to be packaged for me is a osso-xterm metapackage. The quandary with all metapackages is to be both complete as possible within a given context, and yet contain nothing extra. And of course have the widest possible appeal. I selected:

• osso-xterm
• tiny-vim
• slocate
• openSSH
• usbnet.sh

In addition, i split my fixup scripts into three pieces, and rewrote them with full restore functions.

Firstly - If you are planning on installing this metapackage, remove any of the packages identified above. My package will overwrite them and (pkg management) confusion will result if you try to remove them afterwards.

The three scripts are:

• setup-meta-xterm-2006.04.27.sh - creates symbolic links, configures vim, openssh and allows for a complete restore (if needed).
• automount-mmc.sh - patches the OS for automounting of a second rs-mmc partition. also includes a full restore.
• filemgr-fixup.sh - maps the root filesystem and /MMC into the filemanager. also includes a full restore.

After an install, these scripts are located in /var/lib/install/usr/opt.

Installation

1. remove any packages this metapackage may overwrite
2. install the xterm-metapackage
3. open xterm
4. enter ’sudo gainroot’
5. enter ’su -’
6. (optional) passwd setup - if you haven’t set it up already
1. enter ‘passwd -l root’
2. enter ‘passwd root’ (and set the root password)
3. enter ‘passwd user’ (and set the user password)
7. enter ‘cd /var/lib/install/usr/opt’
8. enter ‘./setup-meta-xterm-2006-04-27.sh’ this will take a few minutes
9. (optional) enter ‘automount-mmc.sh’ to automount a 2nd rs-mmc partition.
10. (optional) enter ‘filemgr-fixup.sh’ to provide file manager access to your root filesystem.

I have tested the script for both installation and restoral several times on my 770, but that is not a validation that they will run correctly in all scenarios.

The package is at

ubergEEk

PS - Like everything else on this blog, use at your own risk. Just because it worked for me, does not mean I assume responsibility for anything you do.

Following up on a post last week, I took the 4 standard themes and modified the default font to 14pts (instead of 16.75) and packaged them. When installed, they are at /var/lib/install/usr/share/themes.

Since the maemo theme manager only looks at /usr/share/themes for themes, I had to write a setup script located in /var/lib/install/usr/opt. It creates symbolic links, so that removing the package really removes them.

Install

1. Install the theme package
2. Open xterm, enter ’sudo gainroot’
3. enter ’su -’
4. enter ‘cd /var/lib/install/usr/opt’
5. enter ‘./setup-themes-14pt.sh’
6. the themes should now be visible under the personalization applet.

the package is at

First note - If you are going to remove this theme package, run the setup script with the ‘restore’ parameter. I am not sure how the 770 would react with empty theme links. It should be fine, but it has not been validated (yet).

Second note - If you uninstall these themes while one of them is the active theme, it would probably brick your 770 (requiring a firmware flash). I have verified that if you trash the active theme (for any reason), it will probably get stuck in a continuous boot cycle. (you been warned)
ubergEEk

PS - Like everything else on this blog, use at your own risk. Just because it worked for me, does not mean I assume responsibility for anything you do.