Comments on: UI building blocks

Question: UI building blocks

mphuie — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:29:32 -0800

I want to build my own UI on a portable/embedded device. Where do I start?

I want to build my own simple interface from scratch, preferably on a an device w/ touchscreen and internet. The less programming, the better.

I can live with very basic functionality, something like Samurize, where I can display text files/script out on a certain X,Y coordinate on the screen, or even images (possibly buttons?), or a dumbed down version of Kofab/Dashboard.

I know my options are pretty much linux only, and I am a linux noob. I've heard of GTK and QT, and thats the extent of my knowledge of those. I'm fairly proficient in Perl and Python, and wouldn't mind learning/doing a bit of programming to get something up and running.

I'm thinking one of the Nokia tablets, but I have no idea how to implement this idea.

As a side note, a small embedded linux PC with a VGA touchscreen and wifi would work. I just have no idea where to start- what distro and software combo and/or programming framework I should use.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:16:59 -0800

The Apple Touch and iPhone are both touchscreen and have Wifi support. The iPhone SDK offers a framework for writing your own iPhone/Touch apps. You can create your own widgets or use prebuilt.

It's ObjectiveC, but if PyObjC support works, you could use Python to make ObjectiveC calls, so as to build a GUI in Python.

By: rokusan

rokusan — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:34:53 -0800

Seconding iPod Touch (you don't need a phone or phone plan). Sexy, commodity hardware + nice development tools that you can use in shallow or deep ways as needed.

By: teraflop

teraflop — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:39:49 -0800

Last time I checked, you couldn't develop applications for the iPhone/iPod touch without (a) a Mac running OS X 10.5, (b) agreeing to an Apple NDA, and (c) buying a $99 digital certificate. You might be able to get away with a web application, depending on your requirements.

If you want to go Linux-based, check out PyQt, PyGTK or wxPython. It looks like the Python bindings for GTK are pretty well supported on the Nokia tablets.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:32:01 -0800

Last time I checked, you couldn't develop applications for the iPhone/iPod touch without (a) a Mac running OS X 10.5, (b) agreeing to an Apple NDA, and (c) buying a $99 digital certificate.

You don't need (c) (I certainly didn't), and after the final SDK is released at the developer's conference in July, it's likely you won't need to agree to the non-disclosure terms (just like any other final Apple SDK).

By: teraflop

teraflop — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:57:02 -0800

Cool, really? Everything I've been reading says that the SDK is free, but only people who've been accepted into the "iPhone Developer Program" can actually run code on anything besides a simulator. I'll be pleasantly surprised if that's not the case.

By: bottlebrushtree

bottlebrushtree — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:40:18 -0800

A Nokia n810 with Python is programmable even on the device itself.

Here is an older article that might give you a taste.

By: PenDevil

PenDevil — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:45:50 -0800

Chumby