[maemo-developers] Proper documentation (was Re: [maemo-developers] HildonProgram input to gtk_widget_show()?)

[From: Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

> The N770 forces developer do it Nokia's way or not at all.

What do you mean?

* Gtk programs work out of the box
* For SDL programs you need to export one environment variable
* For programs which do not use Gtk nor SDL, you need to set
  one X property
(these are so that Task Navigator can associate them
with the correct .desktop file)

And like on other Linux Desktops, you need to have a .desktop
file so that your program appears in the menus.

And like on Debian, things need to be in a package so that
they can be managed.  This is IMHO actually the hardest thing.

Doesn't sound that much, does it? :-)

Btw. Have you checked out my "clueful developer test":
  http://maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-developers/2006-August/005316.html
?


> The big ones that immedietly come to mind are:
> 1) gstreamer which I understand if you want to offload multimedia
>   to the DSP.  It's just too bad that it's not stable.

Want to != forced to?

> 2) dbus/libosso.  blech, complex solution to a simple problem.
 very "Windows" like

If one wants to integrate well to any other Desktop environment, one needs
to implement some of their stuff too.  I don't see Maemo being more
difficult in this respect than any other Desktop environment.


> 3) hildon-specific gtk widgets instead of just modifying the
> stock GTK widgets to work well on the N770 platform

Are you sure the "just modifying the stock GTK widgets to work
well on the N770 platform" doesn't mean "rewriting the whole
widget"?  :-)  In that case it's probably easier to make another
widget, that way you could at least get an API that's designed
for the job.

Btw. With which Gtk widgets you have problems on N770?


> Porting existing applications to the N770 involves rewriting some
> things and kludging the hell out of others. 

For integrating them well; yes, maybe (depends on one's definition
of integrating well.  Integrating SDL games means mainly re-mapping
the keys if the SDL app otherwise is a suitable candinate performance,
screen-size and interaction-wise.)

For porting; no, it doesn't.


However, I do agree that the documentation could be improved.


> Writing new applications for the N770 locks your application into the
> N770 platform or you implement a lot of things twice, once for the N770
> and once for everything else. 

Maybe one could think of it as a chance to reflect on the application's
design and refactor it's parts to be more independent of each other? :-)

If the UI's would be done with something like Glade (like AFAIK most
Gnome programs are), having two UI XML descriptions shouldn't be that
bad.  This of course depends on whether the constraints of smaller
(physical) screen size force larger UI design changes, but that's
a physical constraint, not a software constraint.  (it also requires
the UI tool to support Maemo)


> it's much more pleasant to debug outside of a N770 or a scratchbox.

I don't have problems in debugging in (x86) Scratchbox.
What kind of issues you have?


       - Eero