Prioritary cross-PDA APIs - Pascal JIL

[felipemdc]

Hello,

Lazarus is being extended to support cross-PDA GUI application development, but besides GUIs there are lot's of other things which are accessible in PDAs, like calendar, vibration, accellerometer, etc. I have a long term project of bringing cross-PDA APIs support to Free Pascal / Lazarus. The API will very much likely be a pascalized version of the JIL standard for cross-PDA Javascript APIs which can be found here:

http://www.jil.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=03eb4771-e9a2-42fc-9874-0bb402e0244c&groupId=10158

Thinking about this, I would like to know which kinds of APIs would be the most important ones to start this project, for people which use FPC / Lazarus for PDA development. Possible options are:

* Contacts (specify if Reading and/or Writing)
* Photo Camera
* Film Camera
* Vibration
* Accelerometer
* Telephone calls (receive or send?)
* SMS (read or write?)
* Radio info (network type, network signal, etc)
* Network info (network type, network signal, etc, for various networks: wifi, bluetooth, etc)
* Phone data (manufacturer, available memory)
* Power info (battery status data)
* Position info (GPS)
* List of applications, OpenURL, OpenDocument

The long term PDAs which we might support would be:

* Windows Mobile native
* Maemo
* iPhone (internal bussiness apps and apps for jail broken iPhones)
* Android (much longer term then the others)

Also would be interresting to know which PDAs people are most interrested at. My favorite ones are Windows Mobile native and Android. Maemo and iPhone are too expensive for me.

[fredycc]

Very interesting support felipemdc, My favorites ones are windows mobile, maybe windows phone and Android too. 

[BlueIcaro]

Very interesting support felipemdc, My favorites ones are windows mobile, maybe windows phone and Android too.  

For me, Windows Mobil and Android too

/BlueIcaro

[JohnvdWaeter]

Here WM (both PocketPC and Keypaddevice) and Android :-)

Kind regards,
John

[felipemdc]

Everyone is forgetting about choosing which APIs should be priorized =) That's the most important part.

From the forum questions I remember some people asking about:

* Contacts
* Photo Camera
* Vibration
* SMS
* Serial Port communication

just for reference

[horacio_ar]

I vote for:
Windows Mobile, and then Android
and the features:
1) GPS
2) Power Info
3) SMS (send)
4) Camera (take photo)
5) Telephone (make calls)
6) Contacts and calendar (reading and writing)
Asking is free!
Horacio

[BlueIcaro]

My order of preferences:

* Network info (network type, network signal, etc, for various networks: wifi, bluetooth, etc)
* Phone data (manufacturer, available memory) (this is very interesting, because you can know where your are running your aplication)
* Photo Camera
* Film Camera
* Vibration
* Accelerometer
* Position info (GPS)
* Telephone calls (receive or send?)
* Contacts (specify if Reading and/or Writing)
* SMS (read or write?)
* Radio info (network type, network signal, etc)
* Power info (battery status data)
* List of applications, OpenURL, OpenDocument

/BlueIcaro

[JohnvdWaeter]

Ok, here goes:

* Basic widgets (!)
* GPS
* Camera (get picture into app)
* Accelerometer
* Voicecommands
* Start a phonecall

John

[felipemdc]

* Basic widgets (!)

What do you mean by widget?

[JohnvdWaeter]

Should not be in this API-list, but I think if the basic widgets like menus, editboxes etc do not work properly, this very nice to have API is useless. 

Since Yuri no longer maintains KOL-CE I had to convert my WMobile apps to use default lazarus LCL and ever since I'm fighting with the behaviour of the most basic elements instead of concentrating on the functionality of my app.

So couldn't resist to put in on top ;-)

John

[felipemdc]

Should not be in this API-list, but I think if the basic widgets like menus, editboxes etc do not work properly, this very nice to have API is useless. 

Since Yuri no longer maintains KOL-CE I had to convert my WMobile apps to use default lazarus LCL and ever since I'm fighting with the behaviour of the most basic elements instead of concentrating on the functionality of my app.

Well, the menus should be almost perfect now and I already have something in mind to fix the last bug, setting the caption of subitems in atKeyPadDevice.

With which other components did you have trouble? I am aware only of major issues with TGroupBox, TPageControl and TScrollBox.

[JohnvdWaeter]

Hi Felipe,

Well, the menus should be almost perfect now and I already have something in mind to fix the last bug, setting the caption of subitems in atKeyPadDevice.

Ehm... I hope so... it's a real pita... just reported back to bugs...

Further: Newer WM devices have higher resolutions then 240x320. My htc has 640x800. The resource-setting to make apps hiresaware works, but not all visible objects respond the way they should. E.g. editbox.height must be set manually to fit the font. Autosize of changed captions of Tcheckbox doesn't work properly.

Working around these things, if within knowledge and skills, consumes a lot of time and distracts attention from the real purpose of the application.

So Yes, I'd love to see the suggested crossplatform API that addresses common mobile features. But before that I think the basics, like mentioned, are even more important.

John

[felipemdc]

Now the menus and hi-res aware should be fully working

[JimBeam]

Hi,

I'd vote for (yes, I made up some other suggestions  ):
* Contacts (Reading and Writing)
* Calendar (Reading and Writing)
* SyncML/Funambol/Syncevolution code or bindings to synchronize Contacts/Calendar
* Position info (GPS)
* SMS (read & write)
* Telephone calls (receive)
* Radio info (network type, network signal, etc)
* Network info (network type, network signal, etc, for various networks: wifi, bluetooth, etc)
* Vibration
* Accelerometer
* Photo Camera
* Film Camera
* List of applications, OpenURL, OpenDocument
* Phone data (manufacturer, available memory)
* Power info (battery status data)

on this platform:
* Maemo first
* Meego (Moblin/Maemo successor by Intel/Nokia/... also to be used in cars)
* Windows Mobile
* Android
* anything else

[IndianaJones]

Hi all,

I think that Android market grows faster than the other 3 or may be 2, so I'd vote for the basic elements than vote for the others.

- Position info (GPS)
- SMS (read&write)
- Accelerometer
- Telephone calls

if I turn out the platforms, it would be like that.
- Android
- Meego
- iPhone
- Windows Mobile

Thanks.