Database Users

Lets Built OpenSource Projects for PPC. 6 Projects Posted. Updated 7th Feb 2008.

NOTES:
The projects if developed will become a generic code baseline for each and every developer seeking codes.
This means projects in this thread is just to give everyone a basic working conceptual code which can be used anywhere in similar projects.
Just think people has great ideas to work on, but they dont have baseline code from where to start as most of them might be learning.
So this thread should help them out giving a working base code..
Any1 interested in building couple of OpenSource Projects for PPC? Ill post concepts.
Lets built next generations of applications together as open source which people can use to learn things as well.
The reason open source is so that everyone can contribute code for a project, and work together to built the best.
Anyone Interested???
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Project 1: File Indexer for PPC [FIndexer]
Not Sure if it exists or already available.
Added:
01 Feb 2008
Description:
To index each and every file on PPC with custom options on indexing.
Purpose:
In todays world where 1gb,2gb,4gb cards are available, we store tons of file on our PPC like ebooks, songs, music, videos.
Many times it is not possible to search using a search utility as it may consume battery and we need to wait till file is being search.
This is the place where this FIndexer comes in to picture, where we index our file either manualy or scheduled.
And then searching a file will just take 1 second to return the results.
Language:
C++ is best language for this kind of project because of speed.
Database:
Not sure, but either SQL or Access DB.
Type:
Open Source
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Project 2: File System for PPC [PFS (Pocket File System)]
Not Sure if it exists or already available.
Added:
01 Feb 2008
Description:
Idea came from Microsoft new file system WinFS.
Correct me if i am wrong, this File system is a file table itself where it keeps track of each and every files in details in Real Time.
Purpose:
In todays world where 1gb,2gb,4gb cards are available, we store tons of file on our PPC like ebooks, songs, music, videos.
Many times it is not possible to search using a search utility as it may consume battery and we need to wait till file is being search.
This is the place where this PFS comes in to picture.
Why use any indexing software also?, let this File system handle it in real time.
Language:
C++ is best language for this kind of project because of speed.
Database:
Not sure, but either SQL or Access DB.
Type:
Open Source
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Project 3: Tic Tac Toe (x & 0) Game (BlueTooth Enabled)
Not Sure if it exists or already available.
Added:
01 Feb 2008
Description:
This is a game which we always played for fun in good old days and still we play.
We might have wasted good amount of papers to play this game. Classic X & 0
Purpose:
We hardly see any bluetooth enabled games for PPC. Thats the purpose to built a very basic game with 2 players mode on bluetooth.
This may be a good code for all the developers round here who wants to start with some bluetooth code.
Language:
C++ is best language for this kind of project because of speed.
Database:
Not sure, but either SQL or Access DB or XML
Type:
Open Source
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Project 4: Multipurpose Single Line Marquee Scrolling Today Screen Plugin [Like Stock Tickers]
Not Sure if it exists or already available.
Added:
01 Feb 2008
Description:
A today plugin which scrolls like a stock ticker in 1 or 2 lines, and provides useful configurable information like battery info, world time, live money rates, notifications, one liner quotes, jokes, appointments, bluetooth status, and much more, in 1 or 2 scrolling lines.
Purpose:
Many might have noticed too many of today plugin gives a scroll bar to your today screen which dont look good.
This is where this plugin comes in to picture.
This should be completely customizable right from scrolling speed to colors to information to flashing colors speed, bold and much more.
Language:
C++ is best language for this kind of project because of speed.
Database:
Not sure, but either SQL or Access DB.
Type:
Open Source
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Project 5: Application Specific Backup Tool (Can be a great tool)
Not Sure if it exists or already available.
Added:
04 Feb 2008
Description:
There are several backup tools which takes backup of PPC as a whole and can be restored easily, but:
How many times you feel that you had installed tones of applications and had taken a backup of those, and now when you get a new PDA, you feel like you dont want to again install all the applications installed previously due to certain reasons. By restoring the backup you end up again with all unrequired applications again.
This tool will help you to eliminate those problems by taking backup of each and every application configurations seperately with version informations. Yes now you can backup configurations of your games, your theme managers, your music player configurations and everything and have choice to restore them back again seperately as required.
Yes people who develope tools with configurations involved may have to coporate to tell us where they save the data of their application so we coders can add a plugin code to backup that particular application.
You can say that this tool has a builtin database information of most of the application to backup the configs.
Purpose:
Description above says it all
Language:
C++ is best language for this kind of project because of speed.
Database:
Not sure, but either SQL or Access DB or XML
Type:
Open Source
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Project 6: Application data which synchronizes with Web Services.
Not Sure if it exists or already available.
Added:
07 Feb 2008
Description:
Again this is an application which most coders are going to like who are learning mobile codings. This application mainly shows how to communicate with mobile device application with web service to keep data in sync. Data can be either contacts, games scores, or any text based details.
Yes a today screen plugin would be nice to show some information on sync or other details.
Purpose:
To provide generic code to each coder seeking this kind of communication.
Language:
C++ is best language for this kind of project because of speed.
And either .Net or Java for Web Services.
Database:
Not sure, but either SQL or Access DB or XML
Type:
Open Source
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All Projects should be easily skinnable by anyone.
People willing to part of this project, than please post your details as follows:
Name:
Skills:
Comments:
Once we have a team than we will go ahead and create documents like
RUD (Requirement Understandings Document)
SRS (Software Requirement Specifications)
What do you guys say??
Wanna work together as one, and built a new world for everyone?
Wait for everyone's view, either good or bad.
I am not sure how good above to projects are, but this thread mainly wants every coder, designer, tester to work together and built something.

List of Contributers (Coders, Designer, Tester, Others)
This place will list all the Contributers (Coders, Designer, Tester, Others)

Screen Design for each Projects goes here
Screen designed by contributers goes in this post.
NOTE:All screens designed will be copyright of the designer and should not be distributed or used without a permission.
Attached a Screen for an idea for Project 4
Notice the first Plugin in Yellow border.
Created by me.

List of Features and Request for Features and Suggestions
List of Features and Request for Features and suggestions goes in this post whomsoever wants. Then the team can make it happen.

Builts / Releases
Builts / Releases Goes in this section.

Technical Disscutions
Important Technical Disscutions will be posted and collected in this post.

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zbop has done something similar to what you are looking for in number 4. You place info in reg. keys and then update that info via Mortscript (or however you want) and then it gets scrolled on a today screen line. Check out http://discussion.treocentral.com/showthread.php?t=141375 post #269 for the latest version.

more than 600 views but just 1 reply!
I wonder how does open source developers meets and work together

I decided to give this initiative a fighting chance so I am going to 'sticky' this thread for one week.
If there are no takers I will 'unsticky' it.
Unfortunately, I do not currently have time to take part in this project my self as I am learning to program for Linux and OpenMoko specifically.

greenhacks said:
more than 600 views but just 1 reply!
I wonder how does open source developers meets and work together
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They don't, they start by making something, small, runnable, interresting, then share it, with the source.

This is more than i could expect from this forum. Thanks a lot.
This is a try to bring many great people in this forum and to develop something great for the forum.
Projects mentioned in this thread is just for start.
People can give their own new ideas so all work together and make something great for all the forum users.
i have no other intentions to start this thread other then bringing all together.
Starting this thread i thought i will also put my skills to help new guys.
Thanks again, and i hope this works out.

Here's a project idea that came up in the herald forums - use your touchscreen as a psudo-wacom tablet while tethered. Yes it would only be on/off and wouldn't sense pressure differences, but would still make for a cool project.

Heared of Android?
I guess you have heared about android,an all open-source linux based platform.And about the total of 10M bounty by Google as an award for the top 50 applications tha will be developed for the platform.So I'm guessing any developers with the skills to do such projects will have their hands full.
After all it sould be reasonably easyer to programm for an all opensource platform than for WM,a closed source platform.
Just my 2 cents.

nstamoul said:
I guess you have heared about android,an all open-source linux based platform.And about the total of 10M bounty by Google as an award for the top 50 applications tha will be developed for the platform.So I'm guessing any developers with the skills to do such projects will have their hands full.
After all it sould be reasonably easyer to programm for an all opensource platform than for WM,a closed source platform.
Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Count the number of applications developed in this forum by everyone for so called 'closed source platform of wm6'
I do agree with your thoughts and dont say you are wrong, but hey thats a whole different ball game.
Always remember
When a company runs out of concepts, then company organises a competition with great prices. At the end company gets thousands of new concepts. winner gets the price, company gets new product.
same thing happens in open source world as well as close sourced.
If all think in this direction then i can bet, xda will run out of members.
not trying to defend, but this is something which simply cannot be debated or this is not a right place.

tene said:
They don't, they start by making something, small, runnable, interresting, then share it, with the source.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then lets make something small, runnable, interresting, and share with the whole world!
It was very dificult to find this kind of groups, thats the reason internet became so famouse, where we can find different people with great skills from different country and make things possible.

[APP] Barcode Scanning Application

Hello all,
I was hoping you could take a moment and provide some feedback on a software project that myself and a group of others created for a business module we are taking.
The idea is a simple (and certainly not unique!!) one.
1. Take Picture of Barcode
2. Decode
3. Get Amazon results for that barcode
The software (attached) has been thrown together just to demo the concept. It uses a web service to do the decoding which makes it pretty slow, it is not production quality software, it is just for testing the concept.
If you have a second and give it a go, please take a second and answer the following:
1. Did it work?
2. Would you use it? (If not, why not)
If you don't feel like downloading it, it would be great if you could take a second and reply saying why you don't want to, e.g. "I just don't think I would find it useful.."
Thanks,
Scott
P.S. Sorry if this is not the correct place on the foum to post this, but it seemed the most appropriate.
P.P.S. I tired to attach the source to this as I am not sure how to create a cab and so this might not run correctly on peoples phones that have not run .NET apps before, but the attach page kept timing out...

Great stuff!!!
I have not downloaded the app.
Here's why:
There are other FREE barcaode apps out there that do the same but query more than one system.
Suggestion
Expand your query to other database
Market your product by telling what's different from the others

Will try this...I'll give some feedbacks after few days...cheers

Definetly going to try this out. Thanks for posting, and ill report back also, after some testing. Thanks again.
dschoenike

Cheers for the feedback. Just a word of warning, this is a really really REALLY rough prototype.
@tricsio: Thanks for the feedback, this is exactly the sort of feedback we were looking. Our plans to expand this are:
1. Do image recognition on the device to remove need for sending big files
2. Instead of querying amazon directly with barcode as we do now, send it through an intermediate webservice that we control, which will search multiple sites and return this list back to the device.
3. We also considered things like integrating it with our University's library system to check if a book is available, on loan, the shelfmark etc.
@admins that may read this, I didn't notice the sticky before posting, I am going to read it now and edt the post if it violates any of the rules, sorry about that.

Android Software Development

Hi all,
I work in IT but have never done any programming at all before. I would like to get started in developing apps for Android. Does anyone have any pointers tips on doing this. Is Android the wrong place to start with programming or should I be ok? Does anyone know of any good resources which should get me started, either online or in book form?
Any advice appreciated,
Michael

Manning has a Developing for Android book. http://www.manning.com/ableson/ You'll need to learn Java so start there too. Or look into Titanium http://www.appcelerator.com/

Promoting your site, isn't a good idea

I don't necessarily want to discourage you, but doing proper software development isn't the easiest thing to learn. There's a pretty steep learning curve surrounding object-oriented development, and the alternative is something you'll either hate or misuse.
Most people starting to program first learn how to make things happen in code procedurally: do A, then when that's done do B, then when that's done do C. Trying to program user interfaces this way is awful because the user workflow does not necessarily follow each little action in a specific order (and the interface has to continue to be responsive while your program is working). Your code will almost certainly suck and you'll spend most of your time testing, fixing bugs, and rejecting feature requests because they are "impossible" until you learn the better way: break down the problem into discrete blocks of related data and resources (the objects), define all the ways each block can be manipulated (the methods on those objects), define the conditions under which different actions must take place (thread messaging, event handlers), and tie all of that together into an application.
If this sort of thing interests you, great! I myself used to work in IT and found software development to be a much more interesting, open, and creative field. Mobile development is an especially fun field because you can deal with smaller projects and your customers are normal people, not businesses. I caution you not to jump right into the deep end, though; read several books on java and OOP, start with a smaller project and redesign/rewrite it several times until it's perfect, then you'll be ready to take what you've learned and apply it to something incrementally bigger.

Financial Application Development

I have barely developed anything since the BASIC days on the C64 and Amiga, and now feel inspired to create some financial applications for the Australian market - such as superannuation projections.
How hard is it to develop? A few standard calculations like you would see on a spreadsheet would work, with some graphing.
Most financial applications I have found are pretty basic and don't account for inflation in rising wages and fees, etc.
I believe I could attract at least a dollar for a well developed application for superannuation alone.

I have installed the Android 2.2 SDK and have no idea where to start. I presume this is some sort of emulated Android device I can test my applications on.
Are there any tutorials on how to get started? What's the development language?
All I need to do is create a simple text interface to input a few parameters to run some complex financial calculations on the back end.
A really sophisticated application would pull live interest rates or other data and enter that in.

Start with this:
developer.android. com/resources/tutorials/ hello-world.html
(take away the spaces, I cant post links yet )
These are all great tutorials that will walk you through the basic processes and applications/layouts. The only issue you will have is when/if you decide to go through the "Tabs View" tutorial, there are a lot of errors in the code, and I have no idea why no one have changed it, but you can PM me for the correct version.
If you want some basics on Java, just do a google search, there are a lot of great tutorials out there for beginning Java. I recommend doing this first, just so you have a good understanding of Java(which is the development language), it will *REALLY* help out. You can incorporate other languages, but for the time being, stick with Java.

Yes, the SDK comes with an emulator so that you can test your programs without having to install them on a real device. In addition to what Jimmy said (and I can't stres highly enough that you should start with the Android Developer's website and tutorials), you can go to Stack Overflow which is a programming Q&A website. People there are generally very helpful, as long as you've shown you've actually put some effort into solving your problem before you posted your question.

Fair enough... So it's basically about learning to programme for Java? How hard would it be, realistically, for someone with no application development experience?

You need a basic grasp of objected oriented design & programming, along with an understanding of the Java language. When it comes to gui aspects & all communication with other apps/data on the device, you have Android, rather than the usual Java class libraries such as awt or swing.
How hard? It's doable, imo, but will depend on aptitude. Start with Java & then add in Android when you feel like more material to get your head around.

So basically getting started requires me to learn application development like on any other platform, in OO and Java. I may as well do a course or something then. Would a few weeks doing some sort of intro course help?

I'm sure an appropriate course could be very helpful. Though I'd steer clear of those short courses claiming to turn anyone into a valuable skilled programmer in only xx weeks, if only because the tutor will probably know less than you on the subject. Better one which makes credible claims regarding its introductory nature. A couple of degree level intro modules on OO or Java should be of help.

[Q] What debug and log tools are available?

Hi,
I'm interested to know which debugging/logging tools are available.
I'd like to get more information about the processes at startup, and specially logs of the CPU usage by each application over a period of time.
I've been searching for some time and the only I've found are the old Htc Test applications, but can't get what I want.
Noted that HTC devices have a builtin debug tool (debuglog.dll). Anyone knows how to use it?
Also found the following the following post describing the HTCDiagDriver and the possibility to analyze the device using QUALCOMM eXtensible Diagnostic Monitor.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=12624471&postcount=2
Anyone uses it?

Global debuglog can be enabled via DebugTool.exe (available in Htc Test Applications). It depends on debuglog.dll, yeah. Read manual, it works quite well.
Then, if you want to get log for selected app, launch it via IDA.
Also we have CeLog available, I will post needed launchers soon. I can hardly call it useful as we have retail/ship SYS builds. The only useful purpose for us is page faults chart.
EDIT: CeLog attached.

Some of the builds come with the Perfman package. That s.o.b. will really slow down your device, though, and it creates a massive log file, which I could never find the tools to analyze. I think celog does it, though, which is pretty sweet.
The htc debugger works better. You just change one of the debug flags and reset, and the device starts writing the log file. It doesn't slow down the device nearly as much as perfman. I think celog may work on that log file, too. You can royally eff up your device with that tool, though, if you mess with the radio flags. It's pretty cool how it writes to flash memory. Too bad you can't change other things with it like the page pool size.

ultrashot said:
Also we have CeLog available, I will post needed launchers soon. I can hardly call it useful as we have retail/ship SYS builds. The only useful purpose for us is page faults chart.
EDIT: CeLog attached.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been playing with the tool on my Tornado and observed the following (usage related):
Use it while the device is disconnected from PC. The overhead of repllog.exe (connected to ActiveSync on XP PC) and syncing is just filling your log. For my installation (no further MS Mobile development tools on the PC) kerneltracker.exe does not connect to the device anyway.
Though obvious, the files CeLog*.exe have to run on the device, so copy them to a convenient place there.
The CeLogAttach.exe seems to start the kernel logging and it slows down the device (kind of obvious). There is no way to stop this logging. Something like CeLogDetach would be needed, if it exists, to restore the state before CeLogAttach.exe was run.
The CeLogFlush.exe will flush the existing log but also immediately start the logging again.
The CeLogStopFlush.exe does just what the name tells - it stops the flush to file of the (still ongoing) logging.
After transfering the celog.clg file (from \Release\ directory of the device) it can be opened in kerneltracker.exe. Then you see all the kernelactivities logged and aligned per process/thread on a zoom-able timeline (10ms - 10s) including the labels of the logged primitives. With event filtering you can sort out what you are not interested in. Here you may need advice on what to look after when you want to hunt down a certain device behaviour.
I have checked for page-faults, Virtual Memory related actions (Allocate, Copy, Free) and also Module actions (load, free) to get a clue if and how modules and paging (or better said: the use of the Page-Pool) is correlated. Nothing eye-striking coming up here, but it may just be for the unknowing observer like myself.
@ultrashot: I could not find anything I would call a "page faults chart" - where is that - or what is that?
Looking further: If I change certain device properties (like increase the pagepool or playing with OSB advanced options) I fear that the logged information here is just far too detailed for a useful compare. For that you would have to create identical conditions for the action under scrutiny - something that cannot be done with a disconnected device.
So I have to admit that all objective compare of such tuning and tweaking is far above my head and I just have to join the many that make more or less clever assumptions trusting on their model of actions in their heads. I hope that the better knowing heads continue to spread their wisdom without only telling RTFM or guide with LMGTFY (which can help if the results really point to right places).

tobbbie said:
@ultrashot: I could not find anything I would call a "page faults chart" - where is that - or what is that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use Event filter->Miscellaneous->Page fault.
I am not too advanced user of this tool. If we had builds with extra celog instrumentation, we could have take much more from this tool. However, there are some articles in the internets about celog, so anyone who wants to be get more info may just try to google it. I don't want

ultrashot said:
Use Event filter->Miscellaneous->Page fault.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what I did already when telling about the items I cared below. Page faults are however part of generic virtual memory management and they do also apply for any normal loaded executables. As you know I seek for traces of module related paging and the use of the page-pool.
So it will stay with the trial and error and side-by-side compare with two devices having different settings. Not a big thing doing that...

Some interesting articles on MSDN regarding the paging pool (aka "pagepool"):
Kernel Blog article explaining the fundamentals (highly recommended): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ce_base/archive/2008/01/19/paging-and-the-windows-ce-paging-pool.aspx
Pagepool Variable explained and simple methods to measure impact: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa451041.aspx
-> this is what kitchentools are patching in the kernel
Then some more backup on virtual memory - just to complete on that:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ce_base/archive/2006/10/30/what-is-virtual-memory.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hegenderfer/archive/2007/08/31/slaying-the-virtual-memory-monster.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hegenderfer...aying-the-virtual-memory-monster-part-ii.aspx
And to get back to the debug tools topic of this thread, linked form the first article an introduction to the Remote Kernel Tracker to explain what you can actually see there (and why you cannot see certain things as we have shipped ROM builds and not profiling builds to deal with): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sloh/archive/2005/05/17/introduction-to-remote-kernel-tracker.aspx
Great insight if you want to get a glimpse of how Windows CE operates under the hood.

...reading a little deeper in the MSDN articles, Sue Loh mentions there when talking about the paging pool size determination:
The best tool I know is that readlog.exe will print you a page fault report if you turn on the “verbose” and “summary” options. If you get multiple faults on the same pages, your pool may be too small (you may also be unloading and re-loading the same module, ejecting its pages from memory, so look for module load events in the log too). If you don’t get many repeats, your pool may be bigger than you need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To avoid dealing with a full setup of the Mobile Development toolsets, could any one (ultrashot - you have been so helpful - could you??) post that mentioned "readlog" tool? If there is something like "CeLogDetach.exe", please add it too.
BTW: you may notice that the paging pool is a central part of the Windows CE memory management when it comes to running executable code from "memory mapped files" (as Sue Loh calls them). In my understanding these are simply what we know as "modules".
A lot of tweaking strategies go around that when building ROMs with OSBuilder. There are several ways how to avoid or optimize the use of the paging pool for certain or all modules in OSB. I think these options deserve an own thread and I am not sure if the one OSB thread we have should be cluttered with discussing this.

don't have any of those.