qw 0.1 is now available for Maemo 5

My second new game this year - qw - has been released for Maemo 5 today. Version 0.1 (a tech demo, not a proper final release) gives you a sneak peek on the gameplay with 9 different levels and four-player support (if you hook up an external USB keyboard or get together really close for some N900 keyboard multiplayer action). The gameplay is simple: You need to control your player cursor (either via touchscreen gestures or keyboard) and enclose areas of the game with lines in order to fill them with a colored image. Beware of the enemies, as they will destroy your lines and split your points in half. If you enclose one or more small enemies, your points are multiplied.

A .deb for Maemo 5 is available from the qw homepage and packages for Symbian are also available. Try it out and send some feedback :) Enjoy!

That Rabbit Game 1.2 is now available for Maemo 5

I've blogged about it already, and even showed some code during an Interview at Nokia World, but there have not been any releases of That Rabbit Game so far, mostly due to Ovi Store QA not understanding what Optification means and requesting that the version number of the application appears somewhere in the app UI (after 15 days in QA). I've made the requested changes, added scoring and pushed new releases (of version 1.2) for both Symbian and Maemo 5 to Ovi QA.

Until the game gets published on Ovi, I decided to release packages on the website so you can download and enjoy the game right away - and maybe even provide some feedback. Please don't mirror/redistribute the packages, but link directly to the website. Download That Rabbit Game for Maemo 5!

Controls are via accelerometer (to tilt the rabbit head left/right) and via touchscreen (tap to flap your wings - the longer you tap, the harder the wings flap). The goal is to lose 10 coins in 90 seconds by getting shot 10 times. After that, the next goal is to lose the 10 coins in as little time as possible. Yes, you control the rabbit head, and not the crosshairs.

Updates and changes will be announced via @thatrabbitgame on Twitter, so follow it and tell your friends. Enjoy!

gPodder 2.11 in Extras-Testing fixes YouTube downloads

A new version of gPodder is out. If you are having problems with YouTube downloads recently, this release is for you. There are also some other minor changes and fixes (detailed changelog for gPodder 2.11). No translation updates or major new features, though. Grab the new package from Extras-Testing. The usual disclaimers apply. If you can, please test and vote for gPodder 2.11-1 in Extras-Testing, so other users can enjoy the fixes as soon as possible.

As always, a new Diablo package has also been uploaded and should be available in Diablo Extras for all N8x0 users soon.

gPodder 2.10 for Maemo 4 and Maemo 5 released

As promised last week, a new release of gPodder is out. The package for Maemo 5 is already in Extras-Testing, so test it and vote for it. The package for Maemo 4 has already been uploaded to the autobuilder and should be available shortly.

This new release brings yet another round of UI improvements, and it also incorporates the feedback that I got at the MeeGo Conference:

• Expose "Pause subscription" in UI
• Multi-delete in episode lists (Maemo bug 5182)
• Setting for episode auto-delete on startup
• Custom episode list model (faster loading)

You can find a detailed ChangeLog at gpodder.org/changelog/2.10.

If you are not yet a user of gPodder, why not take the opportunity to try it out? You could subscribe to the MeeGo Conference 2010 Video Podcast (Yahoo Pipe) and (re-)watch the sessions on your device. Of course, audio and video podcasts are supported as well, as are YouTube user channels and Soundcloud users.

MaePadWeb 2.0: Take your MaePad anywhere (even on a N8)

The companion app to MaePad that has been announced some days ago is now available in Extras-Devel for your N900, with some nifty features:

• Fully edit the checklists in your database
• Native Maemo 5 look and feel in the browser (title bar, toolbar, lists, ...)
• Dynamic themeing based on current Maemo theme
• Per-session password for some security (inspired by MAD Developer)

This means that if you are using the NSeries theme, it looks like this, but if you are using Digital Nature, this is how it looks (and that should work for all themes). On your device, you will see a simple info window. Now, that's bringing the Maemo 5 UI to your Desktop computer's web browser. But does it work on mobile devices as well? Of course! Let me present you MaePadWeb running in the Symbian web browser on a N8-00:

If you think that this looks shopped, check out the video for further proof and to see the checklist editor view in action :)

This project brings together some great technologies: Python (for the backend) and HTML/CSS and JavaScript (using JQuery for convenience) for the frontend. Apart from the artwork, it does not depend on anything from Maemo 5/Hildon that isn't available in MeeGo already. In fact, Python with SQLite3 support is the only real dependency of this app on the backend side. With all the confusion on what to use for MeeGo Handset UIs (MeeGo Touch Framework, QWidget-based Qt, QWidget inside QGraphicsView, QML, Qt Components, ...), the HTML/CSS/JavaScript combo seems like a good cross-platform alternative (you still have to run the backend somewhere, but it can run on the same device, of course). All you need is a good browser/JS engine/rendering engine combo (Fennec/QtWebKit on MeeGo Handset, MicroB on Maemo). This also works on the N8x0 with MicroB :)

Fine-grained playback status in gPodder and Panucci

I've just uploaded Panucci 0.9-alpha0 to Maemo 5 Extras-Devel. This package is the first one based on the new codebase, which includes support for sending fine-grained playback status messages to gPodder and also receive metadata about episodes from gPodder. This makes listening to podcasts and managing your listening queue even more comfortable. The following screenshots are from development versions of gPodder, but you'll soon be able to enjoy these new features with the upcoming release. Until then: Please test Panucci 0.9-alpha0 in Extras-Devel (I won't be promoting this package to -Testing yet, but report bugs against it if you try it from -Devel), so we can fix any outstanding bugs until the first final release.

So, what's working so far? gPodder gained the display of the current position and total time in the episode actions dialog:

This position information is automatically sent from the newer Panucci version (so it depends on you using Panucci for playing podcasts). Another cool side-effect is that this information will be synchronized with gpodder.net if you are logged in and have enabled synchronization, so you can finally start playing back episodes on your computer, and then pick up where you left on your mobile phone on the go. You can also view a detailed overview of what parts of an episode are played on gpodder.net:

This is really an important feature milestone for gPodder (and Panucci), and it's nice to finally have playback status and episode duration information inside gPodder. Expect a new gPodder release soon, released together with the new version of Panucci (due to the branching history of Panucci, there are some feature regressions, like missing display orientation controls, but these will be re-added in the next few weeks as we move along).

U-Bahn, Keyboard Repeat Switcher and an updated RaeMote

The last three days can be described as one of the more productive weekends - at least in terms of app count. Two new mini-apps have been uploaded to Maemo Extras: U-Bahn, a scrolling subway plan for Vienna and the Keyboard Repeat Switcher widget. While the former might only be of interest to Viennese locals and the occasional tourist, the latter is really useful when you do more serious work in X Terminal and want your hardware keys to have the "repeat" functionality in the yet-to-be-released PR1.2 firmware update. If you have PR1.2, please try them out and vote for these new packages.

And last but not least: a new version of RaeMote has been released, which adds missing dependencies to the packaging information and also changes the display name of the package to be shorter and searchable. RaeMote is still not in Extras, so your votes are again very welcome on this one.

Coming up: A new version of gPodder is already in the works, bringing you lots of bug fixes and UI refinements that we introduced during the last weeks. Some progress is also being made on getting the new version of Panucci ready, which will bring play position syncing when used in conjunction with gPodder and gpodder.net.

New versions of gPodder and Brain Party out

The news are a bit slow these days, because the summer term really took off after the easter holidays, and the free time for coding has decreased accordingly. Nevertheless: Some updates have hit Maemo Extras-Testing yesterday.

gPodder 2.5 "Knock knock knock Penny" was released and with it another Maemo 5 package rolls into the Extras repository (the Diablo package for Maemo 4 has also been uploaded and promoted to Extras already). Apart from some string changes ("Settings" instead of "Preferences", for example) that we found during the first UX-Week, this version fixes YouTube video downloads - the downloaded files now get a suitable extension (a bug that was introduced by YouTube changing their website a few weeks ago). Another nice feature for those of you with a fast Internet connection: YouTube video streaming. You can now chose to stream subscribed YouTube videos instead of downloading them if you prefer that. Review it and vote for gPodder 2.5-1 here

In gaming news, Paul Hudson (aka Hudzilla) has fixed some bugs in the code of his Brain Party game, and I've now uploaded a new version of the Maemo port for this game. The development repository of Brain Party has now also been opened over at Launchpad: Brain Party on Launchpad, and Paul promised to merge the Maemo patches upstream as soon as I send them to him, which I'll do today :) Review it and vote for Brain Party 0.5.91-1 here

One and a half week ago, we started the "UX Week" sprints in the Forums, focusing on one aspect of third-party applications for Maemo per week. This week, we're focusing on icons, so if you are an artist of want to help out as user or if you are a developer in need for some well-balanced icons, please get in touch in the forums and on the Wiki. And if you don't want to be productive at all, just stop by and look at the great artwork the artists have come up with so far already.

App updates: gPodder 2.4 and MaePad 1.5

This week, it's once again time to update two of the more prominent apps in my collection: gPodder 2.4 "The Pants Alternative" for both Diablo and Fremantle and MaePad 1.5 "Productive" for Fremantle.

With the installation of PR1.2 on the autobuilder, MaePad can once again be built on it, so I've resumed uploading of MaePad releases to Maemo.org.

So, what's in it for you? Let's start with gPodder:

• Progress bar for loading episodes (and optimized episode list loading)
• "All episodes" view is not grouped per-podcast anymore (all episodes are now sorted descending by date)
• Faster download resuming on application start (with progress dialog)
• Automatic clean-up of finished downloads
• Simplified layout of progress indicator dialogs (e.g. deleting episodes, unsubscribing from podcasts)

And now for your favourite productivity tool, the MaePad:

• "w" in the checklist/sketch view now saves the database
• Fullscreen mode of checklists uses portrait mode (for shopping use, etc..)
• Node type displayed in overview (there's a themeing issue here with the highlights and the secondary text color.. suggestions welcome)

Now it's your turn: Please test the new packages and then vote for the packages here: MaePad QA page and gPodder QA page. Any bugs that you will find should be reported here: new bug against gPodder and MæPad t.m.o thread.

The PR1.2 SDK on the autobuilder adds a dependency on a newer Hildon version that cannot be fulfilled in earlier firmware versions, so I'll build a package compatible with pre-PR1.2 firmware soon and publish the package on the MaePad homepage for manual installation during this transition period until PR1.2 becomes available for end users.

Want MæPad 1.2? Vote for bug 9070!

MæPad 1.2 is out now, and includes (apart from bugfixes and usability fixes) some cool new features such as word wrapping, mass-removal of all checked items and the often requested "share your sketches" feature that allows you to upload sketches to Flickr or send via E-Mail or Bluetooth.

Sadly, the "share your sketches" feature makes MæPad build-depend on the "sharing-dialog-dev" package, which is not available in the auto-builder. Anyway, with MæPad 1.2 you can upload useful or even pointless sketches directly to hosting services:

If you want to get MæPad 1.2 into Maemo Extras, please vote for bug 9070. Alternatively, you can grab the armel .deb for MæPad 1.2 from the MæPad website.

In other news, the MæPad Git repository and MæPad on Transifex are now online, so if you want to contribute code or translations, please feel encouraged do so (send me your Transifex username, so I can add you to the MæPad project there to allow uploads).

Announcing MaePad for Maemo 5

Last Thursday, Claes Norin asked me if there's going to be an app like Maemopad+ for Fremantle. "Neat idea", I thought, and started hacking, overhauling the whole UI, refactoring some ugly parts of the code and making it generally shine and be usable as every day productivity companion on the N900. Claes was kind enough to provide me with valuable feedback and the necessary artwork. Now, let me introduce you to... MaePad!

Due to the big changes in the UI and source code, MaePad is only available for Fremantle at the moment, but I hope to be able to provide it for Mer as well when it becomes available for the N800 and N810.

If you are feeling adventurous, please try out MaePad 1.0, which is available from Maemo Extras-Devel now.

Tennix 2009 for Maemo

The updated version of Tennix, the open source tennis game is now available in Maemo Extras for Chinook, Diablo and Fremantle (anyone with Fremantle hardware care to test if it works correctly? Thanks!). The 1.0 release has been announced to the public in February already, but I have only now had time to create a proper package for Maemo. It plays fine with stylus or the D-Pad.

Here is a gameplay video if you can't wait to download it onto your tablet.

gPodder 0.14.0 in Maemo Extras

Just released gPodder 0.14.0 today, packaged it for Maemo and promoted it to Maemo Extras. Highlights: Improved the responsiveness of the UI, so gPodder does not freeze so often. Also: The "Never download" button in the new episodes dialog might come in handy. Please report all bugs you encounter, so we have a chance of fixing them! Waiting for your feedback. -- Thomas