First, let me apologize for not pushing a lot of updates lately, I recently moved to Finland so have been quite busy the last few weeks. :)

I recently pushed 1.2.2 to extras-testing which has the option to “Save attachments” from the application menu when viewing an MMS, which should help everyone do whatever they want with the media they receive. :) Please help test and vote for it at http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/fmms/1.2.2/

In closing I’d like to thank everyone for downloading and using this application! Just another 500 000 downloads to the first million! ;-)

PS. Is this the first application from maemo.org to reach 500 000? :)

Since an image says more than a thousand words here are some pictures showing what has been changed in fMMS since 1.0.3. Pictures after the break.

Status bar icon shown when Havoc mode is connected:

Status bar button shown when Havoc mode is connected:

New MMS notification:

Localized strings:

Thats all for this time, hope you continue to enjoy using fMMS and report any issues or missing features!

PS. Received VCARDs should now show up as a button, clicking this button should ask you if you want to import it to the addressbook. :)

Finally, the day we all been waiting for… fMMS is in extras!

Thanks everyone who helped get fMMS where it is today. :)

Quick run-through of the basics (more or less copy-paste from earlier posts):

• Auto configuration of MMS APN.
  So, this will work for everyone in PR1.2 (assuming it’s like PR1.2 SDK), but you can get it to work now on a fresh fMMS install by copying /etc/operator_settings from PR1.2 SDK, but what it does is try to configure all MMS related options automatically (PR1.2 should be right around the corner, right? ;)).
• Connection modes.
  They’ve been around a while now, but I’d like to explain them again as it’s not really obvious how they are intended to work.

• Polite: This mode only connects to the MMS APN if no other connection is active.
• Rude: Automatically takes down your current connection, connects to the MMS APN and when it’s done reconnects to the previous connection if possible.
• Havoc: This is what other phone does (albeit much more reliably), it opens a second connection to the MMS APN in parallel with the one currently open. As an added bonus, the MMS APN is hidden from the “Connections” UI in this mode as it does not need to be visible.
  Due to the nature of the kernel in Maemo 5 there are some ugly hacks involved in this, so if your current connection and the MMS APN configuration share the same network namespace, things might get ugly. Also, if the application fails in some way when opening/closing a connection in this mode it MIGHT lead to the modem not being able to open a new GPRS connection until a device reboot. You have been warned. Note: I’ve been using this mode for more than 3 months and not yet had it happen to me ;).

Finally! 1.0.0! Working it’s way to -testing as you read this! Link for QA: http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/fmms/1.0.3/

There’s a new thread at talk.maemo.org for fMMS 1.0.0 and later; http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=643490#post643490.

Everything you might need should be available in the above link, however I plan to follow up with a few posts going through the application in more detail.

Thanks for reading, testing and commenting!

Also, a big thank you to those of you who have donated!

Finally, the day of days! Today marks a milestone in fMMS development – I consider it ready for Extras. Baring any serious bugs in this release I’ll bump the version number up to 1.0.0 and promote it to -testing within the next few days. :)

Looking back there are some things worth pointing out:
Original brainstorm posted 2009-09-27 (here).
Over 300 thumbs ups/down on the brainstorm (here).
Original wiki-page containing the research of what was needed for MMS on the N900 (here).
Some early IRC-logs from #maemo on FreeNode: http://wiki.maemo.org/Mms_implemention_conversation

My N900 arrived on the 9th of December 2009.
Was receiving SMS Push messages by the 30th of December (yes, took a while, I had exams the week after I got my device!). Link.
Proof of concept posted on 2010-01-02: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=450237&postcount=101. Code still available at https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=1210.
First package with ugly UI 2010-01-04: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=453107&postcount=117

Since then there has been over 11 000 downloads of the deb-package from garage as well as over 160 000 (!) downloads from -devel.

All of this would not have been possible without the great community AND the great support from Nokia.

Thank you all for testing, giving feedback and taking your time to read this.

/frals

So, since my last blog the two things standing between fMMS and extras have worked themselves out (almost, still waiting for PR1.2 to go live). I hereby like to present: fMMS 0.9.0 aka “Getting really close now…”.

Quick overview of the features:

• Auto configuration of MMS APN.
  So, this will work for everyone in PR1.2 (assuming it’s like PR1.2 SDK), but you can get it to work now on a fresh fMMS install by copying /etc/operator_settings from PR1.2 SDK, but what it does is try to configure all MMS related options automatically. If you are coming from an earlier version of fMMS it *should* automatically copy over your settings from the current one, hopefully.
  When introducing this I also made fMMS add it’s own APN automatically, which means you no longer need fAPN.
• Forward option in Viewer.
  It basically takes the text and the attachment (only one, which got some funky logic attached to it) and opens a new Sender for you. It does not save the subject from the previous message.
• Connection modes.
  They’ve been around a while now, but I’d like to explain them again as it’s not really obvious how they are intended to work.

• Polite: This mode does only connect to the MMS APN if no other connection is active.
• Rude: Automatically takes down your current connection, connects to the MMS APN and when it’s done reconnects to the previous connection if possible.
• Havoc: This is what other phone does (albeit much more reliably), it opens a second connection to the MMS APN in parallel with the one currently open. As an added bonus, the MMS APN is hidden from the “Connections” UI in this mode as it does not need to be visible.
  Due to the nature of the kernel in Maemo 5 there are some ugly hacks involved in this, so if your current connection and the MMS APN configuration share the same network namespace, things might get ugly. Also, if the application fails in some way when opening/closing a connection in this mode it MIGHT lead to the modem not being able to open a new GPRS connection until a device reboot. You have been warned. Note: I’ve been using this mode for more than 2 months and not yet had it happen to me ;).

As always, comments, suggestions etc appreciated at http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=616398#post616398

Not been long since my last post, but one of the two things stopping me from promoting to -testing is now implemented. Thanks to all the great minds on IRC (#maemo on freenode, come visit!) and lizardo for translating my C-code to working python ctypes code (example).

The native addressbook widgets are all part of 0.7.0, as well as what should be perfect number contact matching and no more mistakes where it shows the wrong contact if the name was a subset of another name. Joy all around!

In the next release I’ve added some caching of name/avatar lookup which should lead to some load time improvements if you, like me, get most of your MMS from the same few persons. :)
Another fix in the next release is that ‘Havoc’ mode will work correctly with APN’s requiring username and password on connect. :)

Btw, 0.7.0 is available in -devel now!

Images of address book widgets after the break!

Some screenshots:

Been a while since my last post (and a server crash, hence the empty blog).

I’ve recently uploaded fMMS 0.6.2 to extras-devel which has a ‘new’ configuration option: “Connection mode”.

What it does is enable different ways fMMS treats connections and what it tries to do when a new MMS arrives.
The options:

1. Polite (Default behavior

After a couple of great days in Helsinki last week and a busy weekend I finally had time to implement some of the great suggestions I got. I’m completly stunned by how easy and obvious things are after sitting down with a bunch of great designers.

Only big feature missing right now is auto-setup of APN as well as autoconnecting regardless of active connection. As these are quite complicated problems it might be a while before it works flawlessly for everyone, however there is a proof-of-concept available in iapconnect.py for the connection part.

Regardless – I’m quite happy with how far fMMS has gotten in just over a months time!

Thanks for reading (and testing fMMS) – pictures of the updated UI after the break!

First, the improved main view, now showing direction of the message, who sent it or who’s receiving it.

The new “Composer” – it’s in the git repo but not yet packaged.

Contact search (by pressing “To” in the composer).

Composer with an image attached.

Received message (“Viewer”).

Since there are a few votes on this bug and it’s still to receive a target milestone, I present… fAPN 0.3 – now (soon) in extras-testing!

So what is fAPN? fAPN is a graphical front end for adding another GPRS AP on the N900 – for example when you need a separate connection for getting your lovely MMS.

What it does is more or less this, as well as adding a ‘user_added’ value so it’s visible in my GUI (by doing this only user added APNs are listed, so should be no risk of removing all your APNs )

Comments? Write a line below, drop me a PM on talk or send me a mail.

Talk-thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=39951