Worth Developing A Contacts App For Pandora?

[agent_orange]

Well I was thinking about what could I contribute to the Pandora in terms of software, and thought about developing a contacts application. Not exactly a killer app I know, but this would not be simply a clone of any offering from Microsoft. I propose to add features such as:

*Customisable fields
*Customisable view templates
*Backup/Synchronise with either your own desktop or a public server
*Skinnable?
*Directly import contacts from Google, MSN, ICQ, Outlook etc & maybe later on from your mobile using BT

However looking at the some of the latest Pandora videos it appears there already is a contacts app. So I am curious as to whether this small project idea is a wasted effort or not. What do you guys think?

 

[skeezix]

And support vCards and other standards, to make exchange easy.

There has _got_ to be a dozen such things for linux already? (But they might be part of larger packages with tonnes of dependancies; I'm sure there are KDE and Gnome Palm type sync tools that include such things, and the mail clients include such stuff.. but Thunderbird might be big.)

f you want to pursue it, maybe you could find something thats in a fat package, and pare it down into a small tight little contact manager and phone book?

*shrug*

jeff

 

[Karel Jansens]

Well I was thinking about what could I contribute to the Pandora in terms of software, and thought about developing a contacts application. Not exactly a killer app I know, but this would not be simply a clone of any offering from Microsoft. I propose to add features such as:

*Customisable fields
*Customisable view templates
*Backup/Synchronise with either your own desktop or a public server
*Skinnable?
*Directly import contacts from Google, MSN, ICQ, Outlook etc & maybe later on from your mobile using BT

However looking at the some of the latest Pandora videos it appears there already is a contacts app. So I am curious as to whether this small project idea is a wasted effort or not. What do you guys think?

If you´re really serious about making a good contacts/small database app, may I suggest you get your hands on a Psion series 5(mx) or even a series 3xx and try to copy the built in Data app as closely as possible?

 

[Svartalf]

There has _got_ to be a dozen such things for linux already? (But they might be part of larger packages with tonnes of dependancies; I'm sure there are KDE and Gnome Palm type sync tools that include such things, and the mail clients include such stuff.. but Thunderbird might be big.)

Angstrom has at least two different PIM suites in GPE and Opie. Opie requires Qt Mobile and is a FOSS reimplementation of TrollTech's Qtopia environment. GPE works with Maemo and GNOME. GPE syncs with pretty much any modern GNOME or KDE Linux system. Via Funambol, you should be able to sync it with Windows machines. Opie's PIM will sync with KDE PIM/Kollab, Outlook, and the Qtopia desktop software- with specific sync apps as needed for the Outlook sync.

I'm thinking the front-runner for ease of getting there with things would be GPE at the moment. Opie would require a bit of re-work on the system and no assurances of having it all play nice with the Pandora launcher stuff...

 

[todd]

This is certainly an important app I would like to have on the Pandora. And synchronizing with my desktop machine would be critical. Cross-platform would be great, too. My thoughts have been leaning toward starting with "TWAB" (www.tiddly-twab.com). It's a variation on TiddlyWiki and thus runs under the browser and is contained in a single html file (which holds both code and data and, potentially, graphic assets). Some enhancements to TWAB that would be nice:

• support vcard import/export
• style sheet to print envelopes
• a robust strategy to synchronize two copies of the address book
• more attractive UI

Yes, a browser is a little heavy-weight. But it's present and it's certainly cross-platform.

--Todd

 

[EdCa22]

Well I was thinking about what could I contribute to the Pandora in terms of software, and thought about developing a contacts application. Not exactly a killer app I know, but this would not be simply a clone of any offering from Microsoft. I propose to add features such as:

*Customisable fields
*Customisable view templates
*Backup/Synchronise with either your own desktop or a public server
*Skinnable?
*Directly import contacts from Google, MSN, ICQ, Outlook etc & maybe later on from your mobile using BT

However looking at the some of the latest Pandora videos it appears there already is a contacts app. So I am curious as to whether this small project idea is a wasted effort or not. What do you guys think?

If you´re really serious about making a good contacts/small database app, may I suggest you get your hands on a Psion series 5(mx) or even a series 3xx and try to copy the built in Data app as closely as possible?


+1

 

[agent_orange]

QUOTE
And support vCards and other standards, to make exchange easy.



Yup, vCards support ofcourse, just forgot to list that

QUOTE
There has _got_ to be a dozen such things for linux already?


That does not surprise me one iota, however I havent come across one that is pretty light weight or isnt attached to another larger app such as Thunderbird. But even though there could well be a bit of re-inventing the wheel, atleast we will have the opportunity to have direct input.

QUOTE
If you´re really serious about making a good contacts/small database app, may I suggest you get your hands on a Psion series 5(mx) or even a series 3xx and try to copy the built in Data app as closely as possible?


Doubt I could get one of those any time soon. My mum has a Psion though Cant for the life of me remember what series it is. Could you possibly summarise the pros with the Psion contact software? Thanks

QUOTE
style sheet to print envelopes


Nice idea havent thought about that.

QUOTE
Cross-platform would be great, too


Well I am a Java developer so surprise surprise the proposal is to develop it in Java

I will try a make a mockup with some screen shots so to illustrate some of the ideas in a much better was, as currently they are mostly sketches made during quiet times at work

 

[Karel Jansens]

QUOTE
If you´re really serious about making a good contacts/small database app, may I suggest you get your hands on a Psion series 5(mx) or even a series 3xx and try to copy the built in Data app as closely as possible?

Doubt I could get one of those any time soon. My mum has a Psion though Cant for the life of me remember what series it is. Could you possibly summarise the pros with the Psion contact software? Thanks

Eric Lindsay wrote up a great summary of Data. It is here (note the links to Psion´s other masterpieces of software). No screenshots I´m afraid, as Mr Lindsay strongly believes in the power of words.

It turns out to be bloody hard to find screenshots of Data. It appears to be just so simple and intuitive that everybody assumes you know how it looks like.

 

[todd]

Well I am a Java developer so surprise surprise the proposal is to develop it in Java

Hmm... Not be a troll... h34r:

I'm also a Java developer by day. I'm attracted to the platform, too. Doubly so once you start adding in the other languages that are starting to run on the JVM (e.g., JRuby + Monkeybars is pretty sweet).

However, watching discussion on the forums, it sounds like the only JVM which currently runs on Arm is not so speedy. So while Sun's JVM is great, we might not have access to a Sun JVM on the Pandora for a while (or, quite probably, ever). Which is sad. I would absolutely love an OS which had a good JIT-optimized JVM in the kernel, running Java app's on a par with native code.

But the current situation makes me think that Java app's on the Pandora probably will fit neither the "lightweight" nor "snappy" categories for the forseeable future.

That's what makes me think something like TWAB is a reasonable compromise. No, the browser doesn't start up fast, but I'll probably have one running somewhere anyhow. And the first 75% of the work is already done.

Not to discourage you either way! If the app seems responsive enough, I'll thank you, run it and try to contribute as well. Just sayin'....

--Todd

 

[timofonic]

I find this quite useful.

It could be nice to accept to put VoIP addresses (SIP) on it, not just phone numbers.

Of course it would be nice able to click on the phone number and call it using bt or by some VoIP, the same with emails and others. What I mean is able to send certain camps to an app for using it.

What about other formats like Vcf?

Google Maps integration could be very interesting, specially when wanting to go to certain location you don't know where is. You write the coordinates or finding it by the address.

I would like the app to be Open Source, multiplatform and easy to interchange the data on it. Light weight could be a big plus, so C/C++ with some lightweight widget or using the one already used by most of the Pandora apps.

What about making a sister calendaring software? Or better yet, mixing both into one app.

- Using Remind, a very powerful calendar and alarm service. It's able to run in daemon mode, so it's a perfect fit.

What about the apps by OpenMoko? They have openmoko-contacts and openmoko-dates. Maybe they could be used.


https://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Talk:Calendar
http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Remind
http://www.roaringpenguin.com/products/remind
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Import_Vcf_Contacts
https://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Talk:Calendar
http://blogs.gnome.org/thos/2007/09/11/ope...es-first-shots/
http://lwn.net/Articles/247240/
http://blogs.gnome.org/thos/2008/03/21/ope...k-applications/

 

[reyawn]

There has _got_ to be a dozen such things for linux already? (But they might be part of larger packages with tonnes of dependancies; I'm sure there are KDE and Gnome Palm type sync tools that include such things, and the mail clients include such stuff.. but Thunderbird might be big.)

Angstrom has at least two different PIM suites in GPE and Opie. Opie requires Qt Mobile and is a FOSS reimplementation of TrollTech's Qtopia environment. GPE works with Maemo and GNOME. GPE syncs with pretty much any modern GNOME or KDE Linux system. Via Funambol, you should be able to sync it with Windows machines. Opie's PIM will sync with KDE PIM/Kollab, Outlook, and the Qtopia desktop software- with specific sync apps as needed for the Outlook sync.

I'm thinking the front-runner for ease of getting there with things would be GPE at the moment. Opie would require a bit of re-work on the system and no assurances of having it all play nice with the Pandora launcher stuff...


Yes - as mentioned by Svartalf, I believe that the full GPE suite of applications will likely be available on release (or earlier), as it is practically free to include.

If you watched the latest video in the blog, you notice some of the apps from the GPE suite already there on the desktop. Check here for more on GPE.

 

[thantik]

Well I am a Java developer so surprise surprise the proposal is to develop it in Java

it sounds like the only JVM which currently runs on Arm is not so speedy.


Actually I've been told by a couple people that the JVM (JamVM) on Angstrom is comparable to a JIT-Compiled JVM and in some cases, faster.

Can't remember if someone told me it was lacking a certain feature set or not though.

 

[Tor]

I really dislike GPE, I admit it freely. I hope that won't be the only choice for the Pandora.

 

[RavenX]

A contacts app would be nice, but what I really NEED is a calendar app that will sync with an iCal URL (Google Calendar) to provide me with offline access to my Google Calendar.

Anybody know of anything like this already existing in the Angstrom distro or open enough to port to the Pandora?

 

[timofonic]

A contacts app would be nice, but what I really NEED is a calendar app that will sync with an iCal URL (Google Calendar) to provide me with offline access to my Google Calendar.

Anybody know of anything like this already existing in the Angstrom distro or open enough to port to the Pandora?

Well, I really think a contacts+alarm+calendar+todo list is the way to go.

Please think about this, this is one of the most interesting app of a PDA and will make Pandora virtually one.

Imagine you have a meet with certain person at certain date and in certain location, it will be in some months so you'll probably forget it if not noting it in a visible way. Then you have your Pandora, and use the X app:

- You add the contact data of the person, he gave you a file over email or bluetooth with all his relevant personal info (name, address, email, intent messaging accounts, SIP...).

- You note the date and exact location for the meet. The app shows you a map from Google Maps or other services.

- Months later, you wake up in the morning and a list of things to do in the day gets displayed in the screen. You see one of the tasks in bold, a meet at 16:00 at certain location.

- Because the distance is relatively long and not want to go late to the meet, an alarm runs at 15:00. More than enough time for displacing to the meeting point.

- You don't remember how to go to the location, so you see the map and send the coordinates to the GPS app.

- You finally are there at the planned location at the exact date and time thanks to your Pandora.

- You receive a call from him, you see it's him because of his phone number. He says it's in certain locating and will come a bit more late than planned. You check the location in the map and calculate it will be in 30-40 minutes, so you browse internet using bluetooth or wiki and play later some game(s). You also do some VoIP calls to advice you will come a bit later to other places, because VoIP costs you a lot cheaper than cell phone calls.

- The other person finally went a bit late because some problems with the alarm clock. You told him the story and he gets amazed of your device, wanting to get one too

 

[lulzfish]

All good except for the part where the Pandora has GPS and a cell phone built-in.
I think a simpler version of that without the maps would be perfect, it's basically what my Palm Z22 does.

The Palm software just asks the user how far ahead to set the alarm, like "15 minutes" "2 days" etc.

 

[Svartalf]

I really dislike GPE, I admit it freely. I hope that won't be the only choice for the Pandora.

No, there's also Pimlico and a few other choices (anything on the Maemo platform is a likely candidate to move over and might just drop on with no effort on our part...).

[edit]
It's just that GPE is out of box completely on the Angstrom build (Do an bitbake gpe-image and out pops the whole lot. ).

Here's the image builds that I know of that produce full-on PIMs onto the image:

gpe-image.bb
gpe-image-blank-user.bb
gpephone-image.bb
gpephone-image-vm.bb
minimal-gpe-image.bb
opie-image-16mb.bb
opie-image.bb
opie-kdepim-image.bb
opie-xqtlauncher-image.bb
qtopia-core-console-image.bb
qtopia-core-gui-image.bb
sectest-gpe-image.bb
x11-gpe-image.bb
x11-gpe-java-image.bb
x11-office-image.bb
x11-pimlico-image.bb
x11-sato-image.bb

To be sure, I think the OpenMoko related images will probably have a PIM and there may be other PIMs and images lying about in Angstrom I don't know about. Opie could be accomodated as with qtopia once it's license changes to LGPL- but you'd have a bit of re-work to make it play nice with the OpenPandora stuff because it doesn't work the same way as the GPE/Maemo/Pimlico/Sato stuff does.

 

[timofonic]

You can do the call phone over bluetooth to your phone or VoIP. For the GPS, you just use a bluetooth GPS adapter

 

[Svartalf]

You can do the call phone over bluetooth to your phone or VoIP. For the GPS, you just use a bluetooth GPS adapter

The GPS stuff is about in the same class as the Nokia answers- GPS itself isn't going to be hard to add in as an after-release item if it's not in the Angstrom builds at rollout.

 

[agent_orange]

Some good ideas there, I am certainly encouraged by some the responses. Yes I know the performance of the JVM on the Pandora is a major obstacle - thats a gamble I am willing to take.

I agree with those saying this should be a combined app with calendar and todo functionality, unfortunately my new job is quite heavy and I have to take German classes, time is at a premium. So the initial version (which can be tested without a Panda ) will be solely a contacts app...

...ofcourse if anyone is interested in contributing with development, feel free to get in contact with me.