Re: Nokia 770 (was Re: FOSDEM 2006)

[hns]

Nicolas Roard schrieb:

> On 15 Nov 2005 07:54:18 -0800, hns@computer.org <hns@computer.org> wrote:
> >
> > Why on the Nokia and not show it on a better suited platform like the
> > Sharp Zaurus?
>
> So, why porting on the nokia ? Well, the obvious reason is that at
> least 4 persons in the gnustep community have one (helge, me, damien
> and david) and can possibly work together to achieve something on the
> nokia. Other than that, the nokia is a good device technically,

Strange... I applied to get one from the developer program and did not
even get a negative response from them. That, I have to admit, gave
me some negative attitude :-(

> particularly with its fantastic screen, and runs linux and X11, so a
> port "shouldn't" be too difficult -- I don't see why the Zaurus would
> be a much better suited platform. Plus, if I remember well, the Zaurus
> uses the framebuffer, and we don't have a framebuffer backend. And

No, there is X/Qt for the standard Zaurus (hiding the framebuffer).
Or you can install an alternate Linux ROM or even OpenBSD with
integrated X11 Server.

> more importantly, I don't have a Zaurus :-D

There is at least one of the GNUstep core developer (Fred) who has a
Zaurus.

> Lastly, I'm personally interested by working on a pda environment
> based on gnustep and étoilé, because I think we could do quite
> interesting things (although maemo ui is rather good), and in my
> opinion it would be a good "focus" for étoilé. I wrote this page some
> time ago http://dromasoftware.com/etoile/mediawiki/index.php?title=PDA
> about some key ideas for a pda environment..

I completely agree with most of your ideas. But...

There is already sort of a GNUstep port/fork (what't the difference?)
that
works on a PDA and is not only a Blueprint/Concept.

It is called mySTEP. It has some handwriting engine, is optimized for a
smaller
display, and resembles MacOS X much better. And uses NIBs so you can
completely cross-develop in Xcode.

Well, there are complaints that it is not as smoothly designed as
MacOS.
For example, screen rotation or smooth scaling is not working, the
fonts are not that
good. And some scrollers and widgets have the old *STEP styles.

What I am looking for are developers to help to integrate mySTEP with
GNUstep
(in both directions although that has raised some Copyleft issues -
Adam knows about).

The main issues to solve for GNUstep on PDA are:
* make it small and lightweight
* processor has no FPU - so, use a good FPU emulation
* make ffcall or whatever NSInvocation is based on to enable
distributed objects
* make it useable for pen-only operation (you have no modifier keys,
drag&drop has
large limitations, you can't stack windows the same way as on a large
screen)

These are already solved with mySTEP. So, why to start over again?

Nikolaus (hns)
http://www.quantum-step.com/wiki.php?page=mySTEP