Pandora Pim Software For The Pandora

[randomhack]

I am kinda new here .. but patiently waiting for the Pandora to comeout.
Quite excited at the powerful hardware .. and the full QWERTY keyboard.
Was thinking about writing a PIM (calendar + notes mostly) type application for the Pandora. Ok its not as exciting as a game .. but it will be useful for me. Well we should be able to port some desktop apps but I wanted to write something that is more optimized for a touchscreen and the smaller screen.

Any tips on where to get started?
I am a programmer and mostly use C and Python and do use linux quite frequently for programming (and use cygwin when on windows).

I assume GTK or something close enough will be available?

 

[sephiroth111]

I agree on this. Something that would allow timers, alarms etc. generally I think the Mozilla Sunbird interface is the most common. The old palm application "jot" which turned the screen into an almost mspaint like workspace. for features, I'd probably ask for some sort of alarm system, (implemented through libmad possibly, since that was compiled for the GP2x).

As for languages, I'd go with C and SDL, GTK may or may not be ported, however after a bit of digging in the ARMEL debian catalog, libGTK2.0 SEEMS to be ported, but I don't know what the speeds are like,

it (hopefully) shouldn't need more than 250mhz for fluid management, so we could leave the pandora on for 8 hours at an extremely low clock speed (until the alarm is needed i guess)

 

[pkostrze]

What about running Qtopia? It runs on the GP2X, albeit slowly, so it should run fine on Pandora. Also, because Pandora will have a clock (if I remember correctly) it should work well as an excellent PIM.

 

[sephiroth111]

What about running Qtopia? It runs on the GP2X, albeit slowly, so it should run fine on Pandora. Also, because Pandora will have a clock (if I remember correctly) it should work well as an excellent PIM.

iirc it's also slow and includes a whole bunch of stuff that's unnecessary.

 

[randomhack]

I agree on this. Something that would allow timers, alarms etc. generally I think the Mozilla Sunbird interface is the most common. The old palm application "jot" which turned the screen into an almost mspaint like workspace. for features, I'd probably ask for some sort of alarm system, (implemented through libmad possibly, since that was compiled for the GP2x).

As for languages, I'd go with C and SDL, GTK may or may not be ported, however after a bit of digging in the ARMEL debian catalog, libGTK2.0 SEEMS to be ported, but I don't know what the speeds are like,

it (hopefully) shouldn't need more than 250mhz for fluid management, so we could leave the pandora on for 8 hours at an extremely low clock speed (until the alarm is needed i guess)

1. As for GTK, the Nokia N800 internet tablet has a GTK based interface running on Nokia's linux distro Maemo. It mostly runs fine. It runs on OMAP 2420. But I guess something lighter weight is still nicer.

2. Also .. has anyone used anything from the GPE project? gpe.handhelds.org? Its GPE Palmtop Environment and is based on GTK but it seems to be dead? But again it might be an overkill. I havent used it so dont know whether GPE is good.

What about running Qtopia? It runs on the GP2X, albeit slowly, so it should run fine on Pandora. Also, because Pandora will have a clock (if I remember correctly) it should work well as an excellent PIM.

iirc it's also slow and includes a whole bunch of stuff that's unnecessary.


Qtopia might be an overkill as pointed above. But if someone does port it .. I wont complain

 

[pkostrze]

The beauty of Qtopia is that you can put together a custom build putting in, or leaving out, whatever you want. In the file archive here there are at least two custom Qtopia images...