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Månad: juli 2013

Music App update – July 15th.

Publicerat av Daniel Holm den 15 juli, 2013

It’s been a while since the last update, but there haven’t been any real news or updates – until now(!).

Today there where a lot that got merged into trunk, and therefore is coming to a PPA near you.

 

Changelog

  • Removed the ability to chose your own music directory. Instead using default: ~/Music (Victor Thompson)

  • For Ubuntu Hackfest, make Music scan ~/Music on each start up. (Victor Thompson)

  • Placeholder for cover art in Now Playing toolbar. (Victor Thompson)

  • Initial playlist support. (Daniel Holm)

    • Create/edit/remove playlist.

    • Add track to playlist.

    • Show playlists in Playlist tab.

  • Popover. (Daniel Holm)

    • Press and hold playlist to either edit or remove it.

    • Press and hold track to add to playlist or queue it.

  • Debug (Daniel Holm)

    • New function that’s makes it easy to shut debugging of for later.

  • Library. (Andrew Hayzen)

    • A limit has been introduced into the buffer to stop large memory allocations.

    • Performance tweaks so database is written in a single transaction.

  • Ability to seek on the Now Playing view. (Andrew Hayzen)

  • New icons. (Lucas Romero Di Benedetto)

    • Default album/cover art missing.

    • Last.fm

    • Playlist

    • Music Directory

 

Bugs resolved

  • Buttons in queue dialog being too far down.

  • Playlist dialog not showing up.

 

Hackfest

Last week Ubuntu Hackfest started off and day two treated the Music app.

I (Daniel) worked on the playlist support, which landed in trunk today. Although you aren’t yet able to actually play, or show any of the tracks in them, they work.

Andrew Hayzen helped a lot with the scanning of the music dir. He first proposed a branch that shortened the scanning process a LOT! Then he helped trying to resolve the UI lockup during scanning by introducing limit to the buffer.

 

Design meetings

During one of the past design meetings we decided to pretty much put the UI on hold, since we haven’t yet decided how the app will look like, exactly. However, we still do some change, like icons and annoying bugs, but there will be no large changes and I hope you all can bare with us until the UI is decided – and Lisette Slegers and Lucas have some really good ideas coming our way: It will be gorgeous!

 

Whats next?

Well, quite much.

  • Victor and I will take a look on how to switch from the current tracklist playing, to the chosen playlist.

  • I will move the remove the queue dialog and move the queue list to the Playlist tab.

  • I will continue to work on scrobble support, which is not yet done – and together with that, we will get a new way of downloading and using missing cover art.

  • Some nice new icons will land by Lucas.

  • Micah Losli is working on the bug that when shuffling is activated, wrong track info is showing for the currently playing track.

  • Probably much more, which I don’t yet know of.

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How to create a simple web app for Ubuntu Touch.

Publicerat av Daniel Holm den 9 juli, 2013

DEPRECATED – It is now far easier to create a web app using the Ubuntu SDK.

So I’ve started to create some really simple applications for Ubuntu Touch by using already existing web pages that are optimized for touch devices and smart phones, and then open them in the default web browser, but as separate windows.

This guide will go through creating a simple launcher and package it for your device.

What you need before we start is a working development and package environment, so read this:

  • Some knowledge of the terminal.

  • If you later want to upload to Launchpad for a PPA, read and follow this:

    • http://developer.ubuntu.com/packaging/html/getting-set-up.html

  • You then also need a PPA, of course. I’m using ppa:danielholm/touch-apps for this.

We are going to use a simple desktop file that launches and points a URL that Ubuntu Touch’s

browser opens as it’s own application. You get one of your favorite web sites as an app and you get HUD support for free.

Then we add the package stuff, and download an icon to use; build and then done!

And if you also upload your app to a PPA, others will enjoy it as well.

Later, I will stop using Debian packages for these kind of apps, since I figure that the new Click packages is being developed just to be used for applications like these.

Alright, so let’s get going. I’m going to use Wikipedia as an example for this.

If you already know the URL of the mobile adapted web site, use that.

For example, Wikipedia has: http://m.wikipedia.com

1. Download the archive, which contains a template and packaging files: http://ubuntuone.com/4cP0vdGTMd8LsWjru4cTya
If you already know that you don’t want to create a package and upload to an PPA, use the .desktop template: http://ubuntuone.com/2EeECluBvimv1KkcDCDoQv

2. Edit wikipedia.desktop and change the values of ”Name”, ”Icon”, and the URL in ”Command”.
Name: The one that will show in Unity. I’ll use “Wikipedia”
Icon: Path of the icon you want to use.
Command: Replace only the URL. The browser handles the rest.

3. Save it, and change the filename to your new app’s name. I’ll use wikipedia.desktop
(be sure that this file is executable! (chmod +x))

4. Open the Debian directory and open postinst. This file will be run after initial install of the package files, and will here be used to download the icon that will be used. I’m using it this way so that I can redistribute the launcher without any copyright infringement. You simple take the URL of an icon/image you want to use, and replace the one in the file. Then change the filename that the downloaded file is saved as, as well as the app directory. I’ll use the Wikipedia icon from Play Store: https://lh6.ggpht.com/-Eq7SGa8CVtZCQPXmnux59sebPPU04j1gak4ppkMVboUMQ_ucceGCHrC1wtqfqyByg=w78-h78

5. Each of these files has to be edited (in debian/). Replace all Wikipedia stuff with your own app name and info.

  • changelog

  • control

  • copyright

  • install

6. When all the files [that needs to] has been edited, it’s time to imitate some version control in your working dir, using bzr:

$ bzr init

7. Then add the files in the dir:

$ bzr add

8. Lastly create a commit with a appropriate message:

$ bzr commit -m ”Initial commit.”

9. Time to get building! In your working dir, run:

$ bzr builddeb -S

This creates the needed files to upload and create packages in the PPA, which we’ll upload:
(this is to my PPA. You have to use your own)

dput ppa:danielholm/touch-apps wikipedia_0.1_source.changes

10. After a while you package will be ready to apt-get (after you’ve added your PPA, of course).

Enjoy your app, and to please share it.

I set up a recipe to build my packages automagically (yes, magic) every night – if there is a change – in launchpad. If you use this, you don’t have to upload your own packages, and you just need to upload your code to Launchpad.

Since my apps aren’t from anywhere else, I removed the upstream version in my recipe, and replaced it with my own version number, in this case “0.1”. There’s probably a better way of doing that, but I leave that for others to resolve.

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