Enhancing launcher - feedback

c_c cchandel at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 20 04:39:49 CEST 2009


Hi,

Steven ** wrote:
> 
> But what is the motivation for writing another set of phone apps?  And
> why as part of launcher (and not standalone apps)?
> 
  Well, Illume is perhaps the best way of going about for the notifications
and categories, which makes Launcher just an interim solution till that
happens. And its taking time - I've already had this phone for a year now.
Do I want to continue waiting? No.
  The motivation for some amount of phone functionality comes from the need
for Speed. I find the current set of SHR apps still slow and they're already
written in C.
  How do you speed that up significantly? By making them load up all at once
and letting that app stay in memory. Launcher already runs in the background
(for me at least) - so I thought, let me see how  fast it would be if the
needed functionality was integrated with Launcher. I've got the phonelog
working as of now - and it comes up usable in less than a sec. We could do
with a faster phonelog on SHR right now.
  Normally, a large number of calls I make made are based on the log - with
a limited few from the contacts. And I use sms extensively and haven't
really found a decent app that meets my needs. So I started off (and am
pretty much still looking at) integrating phonelog and a threaded sms app
into launcher.
  I need contact data for showing names instead of numbers, hence I'm
getting contacts data into a local db - but I'm really not (as of now)
looking at a full fledged contacts app or a dialer.
  Eventually, if a better solution arises that replaces Launcher - I could
always spin off the sms app as a standalone - though that will make it
slower than it would be when integrated.
  I'm using Launcher as an experimental (though stable) app to see what I
really need in a smartphone and if it helps other users - great. It's just
that nothing else really meets my needs yet as well as I would like it to. 
  BTW - are there so many phone apps? Paroli is one and targets OM, SHR is
another and litephone is the only third. I don't think there are that many
options available right now but correct me if I'm wrong.
  So - to summarise - I'm not really looking at a full set of phone apps
(right now). I think I can wait for the dialer to come up - it's quite fast,
and a separate contact app would be fine too (preferably if I can send it
some data over dbus from the log for eg). But I want a faster phonelog and
sms app.

  Progress.
 
 * I've got sms/missed calls notifications working better (using opimd -
thanks to Sebastian Krzyszkowiak!)
 * reminders (for notifications) works while the phone is awake
 * phonelog works - but no contact names yet
 * fixed duplicate entry because of directories bug
 * monitoring the /usr/share/applications directory seems stable now (but
needs more testing)
 * lots of dbus improvements - yet not enough I think

  Still pending :-

 * solution for the cellbroadcast info for location
 * dbus service from C has me foxed - cant get it going
 * need to get contact names in the phonelog
 * I'm finding the dbus - opimd combo slow (for now). So I'm working on
caching the needed data locally.
 * reminder alarms when suspended
 * changing colour of the clock (needs a local edc?)

  I wanted to release a test version yesterday - but couldn't. Will release
one as soon as it gets to a state where it feels usable enough.

  I've got some icons (thanks to Evgeniy Ginzburg) but I still need more.
Particularly the ones for sms, calls and notifications (need svg's). And
some interesting sounds for the notifications alarm.
  I'm keeping the svn at shr-launcher.googlecode.com updated (for those who
might want to look at the code) - but it may not always compile with full
functionality.
Thanks.
-- 
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