Next out of my porting pipeline will be an email application for the iLiad.

It is a port of Sylpheed Claws.

http://claws.sylpheed.org/

An unlikely sounding name but it is feature packed, yet with a small footprint, expandable via plugins and a good "fit" for the iLiad's Gnomish roots.

The plugin part means other developers can expand it to do more iLiadian things and do so from a more comfortable framework than having to do all the messy parts (installers, matchbox, erdm, etc...)

And I'm a sucker for an email application that makes this promise when you first start it up. :)

Interesting!

Now we will be able to read our emails on the iliad aswell.

I assume it will take advantage of iliad's wi-fi. Will i be able to check POP3 email accounts with it?

A bit more polish still to go, but I've got it refreshing and working.

It supports pop3, imap and OpenSSL for both so you are secure over WiFi at Starbucks. :)

With a 4GB CF card this thing can hold some serious mail boxes!

BTW, Scotty,

You seem to have an application that enables you to save your screen as an image, probably with time code. Could you share a little bit about that?

Greetz,

Henk

BTW, Scotty,
You seem to have an application that enables you to save your screen as an image, probably with time code. Could you share a little bit about that?
Henk
It's called fbshot, hidden somewhere in one of the ipdf threads (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8266&highlight=fbshot). :scholar:

@ project (http://projects.mobileread.com/iliad/projects/fbshot/) site

It is a port of Sylpheed Claws.



Okay, now I'm getting REALLY angry.

I've been locked out of my device for weeks now (2.7.1), I still see no move on iRex side to fix this and I'm strongly considering requesting the sources to the GPL-software they use NOW.

The whole "nanana, we might give you some sort of access some day"-attitude does not seem like a good business-decision.

Eg. I presented the iLiad at a university hospital, people where very interested in it since it runs Linux, has builtin WLAN, can be locked in an aseptic bag and still be used and they feel as if this would give them some nice options to deploy it on a project.

Well, they weren't impressed when I told them that I was locked out of the device since I was stupid enough to do a software update...

you know people tend to think "Hey i spent 650 EUR on that nifty device, now I can do what I want with it". If the reality is that you can't do what you want with the device you bought, you have every right to get upset.

The other things I like about Sylpheed Claws are that its code is very clean, well architected and well documented.

Today I learned of yet another reason to like the code.

They found my posting here and contacted me to offer support in my porting efforts!

I like these people! :D

Of course this is a bit of bad news for Antartica, we've got to get his excellent tool chain updated now so I can get source patches off to them and the other projects I've been porting...

Scotty, I know you already have pleanty of suggestions coming in. What about an RSS Reader? I use RSSOwl (www.rssowl.org) on my linux desktop. It's a nice (small-ish) gnome app. I'd imagine it'd fit right in on the Illiad. ;)

Edit: Nevermind, I just realized it's a Java App, and takes up a good amount of memory when it's running. I guess it just has the appearance of being lightweight.

I told them that I was locked out of the device since I was stupid enough to do a software update...

Stupid is such a strong word, and I think not very accurate. Trusting might be more appropriate...

I personally got angry when I read the posting explaining how this was a "High Priority" to fix because a wireless access support person might tell an iLiad owner to use a WEP key that would do something malicious.

Right... like any of those people even know what an iLiad is, much less want to lose their job for doing something that blatantly malicious.

I absolutely don't understand why they have released an SDK when they locked up my device.

Scotty, I know you already have pleanty of suggestions coming in. What about an RSS Reader? I use RSSOwl (www.rssowl.org) on my linux desktop. It's a nice (small-ish) gnome app. I'd imagine it'd fit right in on the Illiad. ;)

I had viewed RSS as being Yet Another Plugin File Format but now that you mention it, a nice small Gnomish RSS application would be popular right now...

Looks pretty awesome, does it have a calendar?
Is it also possible for you to make it in landscape view?

Pretty soon the reading function will be 'lost' among the great many applications.
It's not like a complain, i think it's great that we (i mean scotty and the others in the know-how) take advantage of the speedy processor, the touch screen and the (partly)closed code.

What I'd really like to see is a working web browser. That would make the iLiad one of the coolest limited use UMPC on the block.

What I'd really like to see is a working web browser. That would make the iLiad one of the coolest limited use UMPC on the block.

Er, now you can browse when the network is up, can you? Simple use the terminal aplication to call wired.sh start, or wireless.sh start (having a real network as Default, not the hack network, of course). I havent tried because I am sort of offline in this Solaris cluster.

You can use lynx

Can you?

I didnt know it was still possible after the 2.4 version.

Even if it is, it is much to difficult for me right now, as my programming skills are zero (or NaN as some would say ;) )

Can you?

I didnt know it was still possible after the 2.4 version.

Even if it is, it is much to difficult for me right now, as my programming skills are zero (or NaN as some would say ;) )

I have compilled the dillo web browser for the iliad, but I'm short of time and didn't even tested it.

What I've not done is putting the appropiate calls to liberipc/liberdm. I would like to test if it works prior to start making modifications...

Just wait a couple of weeks and I hope to have had time to look at it (or at least try it).

Antartica.

P.S.: I've tested browsing the web using the included minimo and it doesn't fare very well. Wikipedia works, but mobileread doesn't. And is slooooooow. And crashes often. You should not use the "browser" in the 2.4 hack, as it adds further unstability (usually crashes after rendering the first page). But if you do an html file with a content like:

<html><head></head><body><a href="http://www.wikipedia.org">Go!</a></body></html>

and click it (after enabling your web access, of course), it's reasonable.
Ah! And remember to click often the "lock-keys" icon to make a fast refresh to the screen (usefull when you have clicked something in the page).

I have compilled the dillo web browser for the iliad, but I'm short of time and didn't even tested it.

What I've not done is putting the appropiate calls to liberipc/liberdm. I would like to test if it works prior to start making modifications...


I have a working dillo as a part of an RSS reader I have in the pipe. Give me a couple more days and I'll shoot you the source.

What I'd love to figure out is whether minimo is just unstable or if iRex made it unstable... it is using up one heck of a lot of the iLiad's internal storage and as far as I've seen it isn't justifying its existence. :(

and the best part is that soon all those hungry 2.7.1 users will be able to use all these nice apps...:-)
I wonder when the notification will arrive that I can now download the .sh enabling iDs update...

What I'd love to figure out is whether minimo is just unstable or if iRex made it unstable... it is using up one heck of a lot of the iLiad's internal storage and as far as I've seen it isn't justifying its existence. :(

It is unstable in the Nokia 770 already, and the iLiad browser departs even more, so guess...

Pretty soon the reading function will be 'lost' among the great many applications.
It's not like a complain, i think it's great that we (i mean scotty and the others in the know-how) take advantage of the speedy processor, the touch screen and the (partly)closed code.
Reading online is still reading. :)

Anyway, the device is too expensive to be only a reader, though I think it is still great for that purpose. iRex opening up the install mechanism is a great move. If they could just get their DRM situation cleared up, I think they could really sell units.

@Scotty1024, I noticed you started a thread about bluetooth keyboards to use with sylpheed-claws. Does that mean it doesn't accept scribble input, only the screen keyboard?

@Scotty1024, I noticed you started a thread about bluetooth keyboards to use with sylpheed-claws. Does that mean it doesn't accept scribble input, only the screen keyboard?

You can scribble, you can tap. But to enter longer emails you start longing for a real keyboard, or at least I do.

You also get back a sizable chunk of screen real estate.

My personal favourite would be actually http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/30/eleksens-fabric-keyboard-umpc-case-in-the-wild/

It's an prototype for a cover seconding as keyboard. And it's with usb plug, so it's only one hid kernel module away.

It's an prototype for a cover seconding as keyboard. And it's with usb plug, so it's only one hid kernel module away.

You would like to think its one module away, but alas it isn't.

I experimented with grabbing Zaurus and iPaq loadable modules. But iRex compiled the iLiad's kernel with some curious choices as to what got compiled in.

These choices mean we have to have our own loadable modules, and even a simple USB keyboard requires more than one module to get it running.

One thing that is only a single module away is CDROM/DVD support. I've plugged in a DVD drive and mounted a FAT32 CD-R I cut just so I could prove it worked. :D

The iLiad ships without ISO-9660 support, this is another module I intend to get working. (ISO-9660 is the standard filesystem for CD's) I figure myself and/or someone else will be creating a Linux iLiad distro sometime soon. It will be useful to be able to mount a CD directly to install tools off a distro CD.

hm. that's depressing.

But an USB DVD drive, that's neat.

These choices mean we have to have our own loadable modules, and even a simple USB keyboard requires more than one module to get it running.


for the usb mouse there was two options in old linux kernels: either the usbmouse module or the hid module. The point is that USB keyboards and mouses are supposed to come in two flavours: Boot and HID-Report. The Boot devices do not Report its configuration and the driver needs to use one by default. This is whan usbmouse was for, and it should be also a "usbkeyboard" around. On the other hand, HID-reported drivers are able to understand any input device.

I guess I am not telling anything you have not learn already! But just in case.

. Does that mean it doesn't accept scribble input, only the screen keyboard?Well, you can always attach the scribble input as an image. Funny to send email handwritten.

Well, you can always attach the scribble input as an image. Funny to send email handwritten.

Yes, but very much more personal :-)

Yes, but very much more personal :-)

Here comes an idea.. for Scribble(!): to Add a "send as email" button. :bulb2:

Even with some Xmas cards packaged. We should tell iRex to think about it.

Well just for giggles I tried the USB keyboard.

I modprobe'd it, plugged in the USB keyboard, checked /proc/bus/usb/devices and hello, it was hooked up!

Tried typing, nothing.

Went back to my ssh terminal and realized, the iLiad was hung tight.

So round one is a loser on the wired keyboard.

On the bluetooth front I'm finally out of the kernel layer and trying to get the bluez user space stuff up.

I have compilled the dillo web browser for the iliad, but I'm short of time and didn't even tested it.

What I've not done is putting the appropiate calls to liberipc/liberdm. I would like to test if it works prior to start making modifications...

Just wait a couple of weeks and I hope to have had time to look at it (or at least try it).

Let me know if you want any help in this... If there is a web browser that load https urls, and handles refreshes a bit better then you would be able to use web mail (ie, SquirrelMail, etc)

Get one with javascript and we can start looking at Gmail... If you have a network connection to send email, you may as well do it properly... :D

(And some would say that a web browser is the key to an o/s)

start looking at Gmail... If you have a network connection to send email, you may as well do it properly... :D

I think "properly" means IMAPs/POPs/SMTP and not some funky dhtml-webmail-client. Just syncing your IMAP mailboxes and dropping WLAN afterwards will give you a much better battery life than having WLAN up during reading and writing your email.
And: using a Bluetooth-Keyboard might even prolong your battery life compared to using the tablet.

I think "properly" means IMAPs/POPs/SMTP and not some funky dhtml-webmail-client. Just syncing your IMAP mailboxes and dropping WLAN afterwards will give you a much better battery life than having WLAN up during reading and writing your email.
And: using a Bluetooth-Keyboard might even prolong your battery life compared to using the tablet.

The major feature to a proper email client is the ability to work offline. I've got 1GB of mailboxes on my iLiad and I can sync new emails in and outgoing emails out to 5 email accounts in a short online session.

From the specs I've seen the BT dongle uses less power than the Wacom tablet... and a proper keyboard will allow for quicker generation of email.

In an ideal world I would just press the sync-button before I leave my house and the iLiad would download my newspaper, my RSS-feeds and sync my IMAP-Mailboxes.
I'm very confident that exactly this is possible easily with the iLiad and your sylpheed-claws port.

BTW, i just got an NSLU2, which uses the same processortype i think. and here are lots of packages for it. They might work out of the box. http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org

hey, yes i know this i a litle off-topic,but well
i have a FSG www.openfsg.com this is a router that can have a WLAN(i have the version before that only LANS) that run on linux, if you like the iliad because run on it, you will like to connect to inet through another machine running linux...(you will need a modem still)
and yes it's used the ipkg modified of the nslug... if you wanna ask feel free to post, sorry of the Offtopic.

In an ideal world I would just press the sync-button before I leave my house and the iLiad would download my newspaper, my RSS-feeds and sync my IMAP-Mailboxes.
I'm very confident that exactly this is possible easily with the iLiad and your sylpheed-claws port.

Very doable now -- at least the rss feeds. I spent some time poking my Iliad with a big stick to see how to do this. Though I'm a bit concerned at running RSS downloads as root. Has anyone tried setting up a separate user to avoid potential problems...?

I think one of the main differences is that I see the device as primarily as a display rather doing extended processing of its own, although it will be interested in seeing how text entry is with slypheed... And a keyboard. (Hopefully)

Very doable now
Yes, my iLiad now sucks www.taz.de/digiabo (digital subscription of a German newspaper), htmldoc converted to a PDF by my server (better readable) and recursively www.tagesschau.de/mobil and some misc stuff. if I press the sync button.
I'm thinking about an elegant way to package this.

Scotty, do you feel like posting the email client here? I would like to try it.

k2r, same question to you regarding how you did that trick. I don't know which pdfs to download yet, but I guess I will find some :)

Hi Scotty,

I know you're busy with many stuffs. But I think this email application is the one I long for most except the iliad OS v4.0 which will fix all the power management problem (or will it?).

KM

It is pretty cool but it really really really needs an external keyboard. You may have noticed how the keyboard doesn't move much once it pops up. It pops up in a very unfortunate place for Sylpheed Claws.

I think I've figured out how to overcome the next obstacle in the BlueZ kernel death march. But I'm still thinking I won't have a working keyboard, I can't figure out if I have the kernel source configured wrong, have the wrong patch level compared to iREx or if iRex has simply just removed input support from the kernel the supply... and as you may have noticed, they ain't talkin'.

I can post the kernel config file if that helps?

I can post the kernel config file if that helps?

Please, do so! (I'd also appreaciate the diff from oe 2.4.19-rmk7-pxa2 kernel: 02-diff-2.4.19-rmk7-pxa2-irex1.patch or whatever is named).

Thank you very much. I greatly appreciate all the effort you're putting in the forums to ease the life of the "early developers".

BTW, I fully understand that the APIs are still evolving. I don't find nothing wrong with chainging APIs/ABIs in the firmware updates. It's just a matter of having the new ones when they change ;-) .

I can post the kernel config file if that helps?

Actually that would be a huge help. Part of the house of cards to this has been tweaking the kernel config to try and match the one of the kernel in the iLiad (kmod or no kmod, Exelon Development board or Intel pXA255, PXA255 USB support or ....)

This is actually very safe development for developers as I've proven over and over again by crashing and restarting my iLiad. :D

Of course if you all wanted to post a working USB keyboard loadable kernel driver... it would enable a whole new collection of applications for the iLiad.

And of course iRex could work with Eleksen to produce an iLiad keyboard/slipcover: http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/30/eleksens-fabric-keyboard-umpc-case-in-the-wild/

I don't have a working USB keyboard driver, otherwise I would have shared that a long time ago. It might be easy to create one, but I've never tried...

Anyway, see attached file.

Just a warning: please don't try to load a custom kernel, it will brick you iLiad (no working filesystem, no working ethernet, etc, etc.)

#
# Input core support
#
# CONFIG_INPUT is not set
# CONFIG_INPUT_KEYBDEV is not set
# CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV is not set
# CONFIG_INPUT_JOYDEV is not set
# CONFIG_INPUT_EVDEV is not set

#

Thank you for posting the kernel configuration.

input is available as a module but perhaps it doesn't work either if the base kernel was set to NO rather than MODULE... This is what I was starting to suspect!

As Barb from Princess of Wands would say: Sugar!

I don't suppose there is any chance of reconfiguring the kernel to Module for:
CONFIG_INPUT
CONFIG_INPUT_KEYBDEV
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV

Like for perhaps a 2.8.1 release? :)

And yes, I'm not crazy enough to flash my own Kernel without JTAG.

Just a warning: please don't try to load a custom kernel, it will brick you iLiad (no working filesystem, no working ethernet, etc, etc.)

In case anyone didn't understand the above, he isn't say it might, he's saying it will. The reason is that the iLiad uses proprietary kernel code to support the Sandisk Disk on Chip which is the device that provides the iLiad's onboard storage.

That code is not available publicly and with out that code you can't produce a working kernel for the iLiad.