[maemo-developers] where to find docs to get started with simple (or not so simple) apps?

[From: Norman Ramsey]

I'm an experienced Unix developer, but my experience predates such
novelties as GTK and D-Bus.  (I'm a dinosaur.)  I'd like to develop 
an application that seems to me to be very simple, but it involves
interoperating with a lot of existing maemo technology, and I don't
know quite where to look for documentation.

Here's what I'd like to do:

  1. My server at interesting.org captures data from the outside world
     and periodically logs an interesting event.  I could actually do
     the log as an RSS file if I wanted to, and that's probably the
     best way.  I know how to do this on my own.

  2. I'd like to create a new D-Bus service for 'things related to
     geocaching'.  At the moment, the only message this service will
     understand is 'a new geocache has been published'.  This message
     will include four fields: name of cache, time of publication, URL
     of cache if known, and full text of the publication announcement.

  3. I'd like to create an app for this service.  When it receives a
     'new geocache published' message, I would like it to send a D-Bus
     message to the clock saying 'set off an alarm NOW' (or one minute
     from now) with suitable alarm parameters.  Then the app should
     probably exit after a few minutes.

  4. I need to write a daemon that has the following properties:
        - is launched at boot time
        - every hour, if device is connected to the internet, polls
          server at interesting.org.  If a new cache has been
          published, sends the appropriate D-Bus message so that an
          alarm will go off
        - if four hours pass without a poll, *ask* for an internet
          connection and then do the same

So I have these questions, most pressing first:

  A. How can I find whether it is possible to control the Clock
     application via D-Bus, and if so, what messages to send where?

  B. What D-Bus things do I do to ask if the device is connected or to
     request that a connection be opened?

  C. What function do I call to sit and wait for delivery of a D-Bus
     message?

  D. What's the approved way to have a daemon launched at boot time?


Also, if anybody knows of Lua bindings for D-Bus, I'd love to hear
about it.  (Lua is already on the platform but only in the form of
busybox, so I plan to port Lua and its socket bindings.  If it's easy
I'll also port mime and GTK bindings.)

Thanks for helping out a new developer!



Norman