Pda Type Apps

[Coder]

As you've probably all guessed by now, I mainly use my GP2X for reading e-books. I got it for that purpose after managing to kill my trusty Sony Clie.

Now, while I had the Clie, I hardly ever used the calendar, but I did use the address book and the Calculator plus a few reference databases and I've found I miss having these available.

So, I'm thinking of writing an address book, a calculator, and maybe some kind of database.

I'd look on these more as display apps, with the majority of data entry done on a PC. They might have a virtual keyboard, but I think those are pretty crap to use.

So, would anyone else be interested in having this kind of app available?

If I'm the only one I'll do something quick and dirty, but if others could benefit, I'll spend a bit of time on them and make them full blown apps.

Waddaya think?

 

[skeezix]

As you've probably all guessed by now, I mainly use my GP2X for reading e-books. I got it for that purpose after managing to kill my trusty Sony Clie.

Now, while I had the Clie, I hardly ever used the calendar, but I did use the address book and the Calculator plus a few reference databases and I've found I miss having these available.

So, I'm thinking of writing an address book, a calculator, and maybe some kind of database.

I'd look on these more as display apps, with the majority of data entry done on a PC. They might have a virtual keyboard, but I think those are pretty crap to use.

So, would anyone else be interested in having this kind of app available?

If I'm the only one I'll do something quick and dirty, but if others could benefit, I'll spend a bit of time on them and make them full blown apps.

Waddaya think?

Keeping track of 'time' would be tough on the 2x, but if you skip calendars you're okay as you say. You might be able to cobble something together using Opie or the mini-X11's already ported to the 2x, though that'd eaat into your SD space quick. Hacking together some simple apps would be piece of cake though, so go for it

(Myself, I carry a few gadgets with me; especially for PDAs, you can get great ones that are a couple years old for next to nothing. But more to point, you want to use your 2x, so get hacking

jeff

 

[Coder]

Keeping track of 'time' would be tough on the 2x, but if you skip calendars you're okay as you say. You might be able to cobble something together using Opie or the mini-X11's already ported to the 2x, though that'd eaat into your SD space quick. Hacking together some simple apps would be piece of cake though, so go for it

(Myself, I carry a few gadgets with me; especially for PDAs, you can get great ones that are a couple years old for next to nothing. But more to point, you want to use your 2x, so get hacking

jeff

Oh I'm going to write them, but how I go about it depends on who I'm writing them for.

If they're just for me, they'll be no frills, no virtual keyboard and not configurable, if they're for others to use as well, I'll pretty them up, make them as all round usefull as possible and put a lot more thought into designing them.

I'm just trying to gauge how much effort to expend before I start.

 

[Alex.]

I'd love to see such personal apps, preferably as lightweight and intuitive as possible. Thanks for your work on your text reader, and good luck with future projects

 

[Orkie]

Yes, use the X server! It's going to be embedded in the Open2x firmware (which is still getting closer to a release, I'm assembling the built in applications now) anyway

 

[Coder]

Yes, use the X server! It's going to be embedded in the Open2x firmware (which is still getting closer to a release, I'm assembling the built in applications now) anyway

X server huh?

Is there any decent docs on its features, and more importantly how to program for it?

 

[Orkie]

The site is at http://x11.gp2x.de/. You'll find some libraries there. Basically any X toolkit will work with the X server (such as LessTif or even GTK+ if you're feeling adventurous) or you can looks for Xlib tutorials (of which there are many) and use the X server directly.

 

[Coder]

The site is at http://x11.gp2x.de/. You'll find some libraries there. Basically any X toolkit will work with the X server (such as LessTif or even GTK+ if you're feeling adventurous) or you can looks for Xlib tutorials (of which there are many) and use the X server directly.


OK, I'm game.

I see you've already ported xcalc, so I'll start with a simple address book.

Expect to be answering a lot of questions until I've got my environment set up and working

 

[kevcal]

The site is at http://x11.gp2x.de/. You'll find some libraries there. Basically any X toolkit will work with the X server (such as LessTif or even GTK+ if you're feeling adventurous) or you can looks for Xlib tutorials (of which there are many) and use the X server directly.


Bit off-topic, but out of interest, how would I go about building a minimal X-server myself (not for gp2x)?

Is it a case of just getting just the xserver source from (say) http://xorg.freedesktop.org/releases/X11R7.2/src/xserver/ and configuring and building that - then writing my own (xlib) apps?

I think I tried it once and it came out huge - any pointers where I can look for inspiration for reducing the footprint? Or am I looking at a more complex task than I'm expecting?

Kev

 

[Orkie]

I use the kdrive source from XFree86 4.3 with the patch that is in the downloads section on the GP2X11 website (for using the controls as a mouse). I don't think you'll get it much smaller than I have without some serious work though.

 

[ak_]

I'd love some pda-like apps on the 2x, i think it really lacks this kind of stuff. Qtopia is ok but a pda-dedicated gmenu2x section with some nice homebrew 2x apps in it would be so great ...

Btw, maybe i'm wrong, but it seems like gp2x lacks a good image viewer, doesn't it ? The one i tried are slow and not very handy. An ACDSee-like app with fast zooming would be so cool, first thing that comes to my mind is viewing roadmaps saved in jpg, this kind of stuff ...

Anyway, my answer about these pda-like apps is : go for it !

PS : do you plan to add keyboard and mouse support ?

 

[kevcal]

I use the kdrive source from XFree86 4.3 with the patch that is in the downloads section on the GP2X11 website (for using the controls as a mouse). I don't think you'll get it much smaller than I have without some serious work though.

Cheers for that - yeah it wasn't for the gp2x - just my own 'stuff'..
I'll have a look at that and see if I have more success.
Thanks again!

 

[Lobo]

I'd definitely use some apps like that! Go for it!

And please do include a virtual keyboard!

 

[hitbyambulance]

my Treo no longer syncs with my PC, so yeah, i need some of this...

 

[DaveC]

The site is at http://x11.gp2x.de/. You'll find some libraries there. Basically any X toolkit will work with the X server (such as LessTif or even GTK+ if you're feeling adventurous) or you can looks for Xlib tutorials (of which there are many) and use the X server directly.


OK, I'm game.

I see you've already ported xcalc, so I'll start with a simple address book.

Expect to be answering a lot of questions until I've got my environment set up and working


Address book would be nice. I think a VKB would be good to have. While you will most likely use a PC when possible you may need to enter a name/addres while away from the PC.

A unit converter would also be nice to have. You may have seen the ones for PDAs and PCs that convert units of length, velocity, temperature, mass, weight, numbers (binary, hex etc), volume, time etc. Something similar to this:

http://www.codeproject.com/cpp/tcxunitconverter.asp

It would be kind of cool to have a nice looking interface too. Good luck.

 

[pkostrze]

I'd like to see Qtopia run a little faster, that's already got all bases covered as far as PDA apps...

 

[Parkydr]

If you're using the X server I've got xvkbd compiled

here

 

[Coder]

If you're using the X server I've got xvkbd compiled

here


Thanks, unfortunately I changed my mind about the X server, I'm going to look at it in more depth later, but I wanted something quick and easy for this project.

I've snagged xvkbd for later use though.

Actually, since there seems to have been a surge of interest in this thread, I may as well let everyone see the prototype address book.

I've put a copy Here.

Here's a screenshot:

Controls are as follows:

Left/Right Shoulder buttons swap between left and right panes.
joystick up/down move through the list (left pane) and through the fields (right pane)
joystick left/right move within a field (right pane)
Start exits the program.

Controls for the keyboard are:

A+joystick up/down/left/right move around the keyboard
A+joy-click selects the letter.

The keyboard performs different actions depending which pane you're in, in the left, choosing a letter will take you to the first entry that begins with that letter. In the right pane, the letter is entered at the current cursor position.

The shift key (Sh) changes to uppercase until a letter is selected. Additional characters are available on the number keys when shift is selected. The backspace key (< ) deletes the character to the left of the cursor.

I think that's about it. Oh, there's always a blank entry at the end of the left pane, use it for adding new records.

Have fun and let me know if there's anything missing or anything that doesn't work.

Cheers,

Coder.

 

[DaveC]

Looks nice.

Maybe you could have it so that if you press a button a "help screen" comes up with all of those instructions you just wrote. This would help if some of us forget the commands.

Thanks for the app.

 

[seen12]

It would be cool if built a tone dialer into the address book so you could place calls simply by placing you gp2x next to the hand set, maybe add a few other usefully tones to.