RE: [iPAQ] Browsers and Mail Clients

While we are at it I think it may be advantageous for us to pick a standard scripting language with gtk/glade bindings. This would allow some pretty rapid prototyping (and writing) of applications for the ipaq and use glade to define the UI. Not sure there's enough room for Perl or Python on the ipaq, but it would really make development of end user application much, much faster.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris McFarlen [mailto:chrismc@fastlane.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2000 10:33 AM
> To: Vladimir Vukicevic; Tanikella, Rajanikanth
> Cc: ipaq@handhelds.org
> Subject: RE: [iPAQ] Browsers and Mail Clients
>
>
>
> >I wrote the beginnings of a Gtk-based mail app that uses
> IMAP (through
> >c-client) as the back end. I'll try to clean it up and
> release the source
> >in the next few days so that others can play with it --
> right now it does
> >little more than display your INBOX and let you pick
> messages from it. I
> >am targetting the iPAQ screen size from the start, so I'm
> trying to keep
> >it as visually small as possible.
> >
> >There is also a possibility of building a small web browser based on
> >GtkHTML...
>
> If we are going to start writing GUI applications
> ourselves(rather than
> porting existing apps), we need to define a standard for
> doing this. This
> should include at least: GUI layout standards(maybe a gnome or KDE
> "handhelds" spinoff), IPC conventions(or again variations on
> existing),
> syncing protocols and operations to Desktop or network.
> There should be
> common code to do all of this easily. I guess since I opened
> my big mouth,
> I can start and RFC for the effort. I am a software engineer ("QNX
> development, server applications" is my title) and have been
> with linux
> since you had to make floppy disks to install it. I don't do
> much front end
> work (I try to avoid it), but I have experience with GTK and
> straight Xlib
> APIs. I don't know why I am giving a resume here...
>
> Anyway, if anyone has some comments on doing this, lets hear
> them, I'll add
> my thoughts to an RFC and post it somewhere(where?).
>
> Questions I have for the community (these are all about GUI):
>
> Should we create our own beast or derive something from one
> of the Desktop
> managers (gnome vs. kde battle ensues)?
>
> Should we try to look similar to WinCE, or Palm? What about
> this wheel menu
> I've read about on this list?
>
> I know you can rewrite the GTK drawing routines; maybe
> redoing the draw, and
> relocating menubars will be sufficient for a nice interface?
>
> We probably want to use 100% screen size for all apps; do we
> really need a
> WM? I know GTK will work without one [a WM] if you just run
> it the same
> size as the screen resolution (I have done a project for a
> touch screen
> kiosk like this, it turned out really nice). Add a program
> that can toggle
> apps (pseudo-WM, maybe the gnome-panel can do this for us)
> and we're golden
> ;) This may not work, for us...Anyone see any caveats
> here(mainly can we
> still interact with gnome, I think the answer is simply
> "Yes", but I'm not
> sure.)?
>
> I'll think more about this when I can't sleep tonight, you
> guys let me know
> about the above.
>
> Chris McFarlen
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Sep 20 15:34:06 2000