WebOS Internals - User contributions [en]

Development & Tweak Ideas

2009-08-12T14:16:34Z

Carback1: /* Patch Ideas */

Here are some ideas for tweaks which have not been implemented yet (to my knowledge):

If you decide to start working one of these, '''please leave a note''' under the item as a second-level bullet. If you don't have wiki access, find someone in the IRC channel who does. This will help encourage collaborative discovery, and reduce duplicate effort. We also recommend starting a new wiki page where you '''take notes about any discoveries''' you've made related to the tweak idea.

Once you've figured it out, it would be appreciated if you make a write-up for the Stock App Mods page. If you don't want to do a write up, at least try to share your findings with someone who can subsequently document them for you. At the very least, jot a few notes onto a wiki page, and tag it with "cleanup".

=Patch Ideas=
* Create a patch for showing day events in month view on calendar
* Restore "Ignoring calendar alarm repeats the alarm in 5 minutes" to WebOS 1.10, the way it was in WebOS 1.04 and Palm
* Enable simultaneous Voice and Data access.

=Tweak Ideas=
Make bootup faster (parallel?)
* See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=727224
Fix the horrendous white balance issues with the camera (especially with the flash on)
* See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/25/cameraphone_faceoff/ for a post showing the problems.
Make the Pre vibrate differently based on caller ID
* See http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/know-whos-calling-tactile-design/
Enable image saving/save to wallpaper from the browse.
Enable opening PDF/doc whatever from Web browser.
* //Done a slight bit of testing with this. It's very easy to get the browser to pass along a link to the application (tested with PDF). /usr/palm/command-resource-handlers.json contains all of the MIME types and you just have to change streamable to true. Of course, the application itself has an issue with this and errors out.//
Enable uploads in a browser (dialog box with browse, etc.).
Enable track skipping without turning the device on.
* [[Hardware Key Track Skip]]
* [[track-skipping-using-volume-up-down-buttons|Skip tracks using volume up/down buttons]] ~ FXDemolisher
Quick copy of locked calendar events to the local calendar so that they can be edited.
Make the Pre vibrate longer.
* tictac is working on this [[make-pre-vibrate-longer | here]].
Allow other messaging protocols using libpurple plugins (Facebook, Jabber, etc.).
Trigger camera remotely.
* Wonder420 is working on this [[camera-remote-view | here]].
Back up contact link information. (This is currently not stored in the Palm Profile, so it will be lost on a device wipe.)
* [[Contact Link Backup]]
Landscape virtual keyboard in the Web app.
Find better touch scroll threshold numbers so the action is not as jerky/fuzzy while moving. 1.0.3 update seems to have improved that a bit.. //~ Robi//
Look into [http://www.lesswatts.org/projects/powertop/ PowerTop] to potentially save even more power and extend batt life. //~ Robi//
Allow universal search to search through email text as well
Multiple card rows in the small card view
Add a "scrubber" to the music app to control song position
Remove Amazon section from music app to see if it loads faster without (Music app loads instantly but then you have to wait 30 seconds or so before you can do anything until the Amazon section shows up).
* Unfortunately it seems that it's the thumbnail creation for the few albums shown in shuffle all that causes the delay- removing the Amazon entry doesn't seem to change the speed at all.
Change the sorting of the music app so that A, An, The in band names and album names are ignored and it sorts alphabetically using the next word [[Patch MediaPlayer Ignore 'A', 'An', and 'The' In Artist and Album names]] ~ Keegan99
In the camera app, use the volume up/down buttons to snap a picture.
* [[Patch Camera Using Volume Buttons to Take a Picture|Take a picture using volume buttons]] ~ FXDemolisher
When camera app loads, also load photos app (for quicker review). Even better, let user choose to "keep" or "delete" a picture, and keep the photo on the screen until a choice is made.
Stop the alert noise from obnoxiously playing every single time you put the Pre back on the Touchstone.
* [[remove-charging-event-alerts]]
Set up the center button to wake the Pre up, like an iPhone's home button wakes up the iPhone.
allow copy to work from google maps, so you can get a url of your current location to paste in chats/sms/mms //~ hemna//
Light up Navi lights when a notification is received
Setting to disable ring for Unknown Number
When the clock's alarm goes off, it only turns on the screen for the customary ~2 seconds before shutting the screen off. Change this to keep the screen on as long as the alarm is playing, then go to sleep when the "snooze" button is pressed.
Make "all-day" appointments show up in calendar month view (currently invisible)
* [[Patch Calendar Show All-Day Events in Month View]] //~ Sloloem//
Allow the phone app to run in the background, without a visible card, (to speed up ringtone playing on incoming phone calls).
Disable the end call sound and the low battery sound.
Add the ability to snooze a calendar reminder for a certain amount of time that user can choose.
* [[Patch Clock Changing Alarm Button Order and Snooze Duration]] //~ HebrewzHammer//
Add additional gstreamer plugins into the gstreamer plugin directory; should allow adding support for additional media formats pretty easily.

=Development Ideas=
Get [[vnc | VNC]] input working with a mouse and keyboard driver. //~ ultraBlack//

Get [http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ Synergy] working with a mouse and keyboard driver. :O Why not? :P //~ ultraBlack//

Develop a power calculator app for the Pre, with DIGIT-GROUPING, more functions, and possibly even a graphing mode. //~ ultraBlack//

Put [http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.0.11&os=linux&lang=en-US Firefox] on it. Definitely not practical. Maybe [http://portableapps.com/node/9364 Portable Firefox?] //~ ultraBlack//
* Consider [http://www.opera.com/mobile/ Opera Mobile] or [http://www.opera.com/mini/ Opera Mini] as more worthwhile alternatives. //~ ultraBlack//
* Opera Mobile can successfully upload files to web servers. (re: idea to upload via browser) //~ oc80z//

Work out a good backup solution, perhaps mrb or netapp like .snapshots, so updates/upgrades are easier. //~ Robi//

Look into setting up [[ad-hoc networking | ad-hoc networking]] for file sharing over WiFi and BitTorrent. //~ Robi//

Put [http://www.apache.org/ Apache] on it. //~ ultraBlack// Done. http://predev.wikidot.com/apache //~nebula//
* Consider [http://www.lighttpd.net/ Lighttpd] or [http://www.cherokee-project.com/ Cherokee] as more worthwhile alternatives. //~ Robi//
* For limited needs thttpd + php as shown in [[ajaxphpterm]] seems to work fine with minimal resource usage. //~ djbclark//
* Sprint blocks connections to the Pre on port 80, but port 2222 and 8080 has been tested and work //~ smashman// 8000 also works //~nebula//

Make LunaSysMgr run without exclusive access to I/O, so it can be run alongside [[DirectFB]] applications (and since directfb can run GTK, QT, and X11 applications directly, also those). Some ideas on how to do this are on the [[DFBTerm DirectFB Terminal Emulator]] page's "Virtual Keyboard-Video-Monitor (KVM) Switch" section, however if LunaSysMgr source code becomes available the best method would probably be to just change it to run against directfb instead of using /dev/fb* and /dev/input/* directly. //~ djbclark//

Confirm that the device is free of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) by installing Linux compiled from source. There is a /proc/config.gz, and palm has released the patches they used at http://opensource.palm.com/packages.html (search for "linux kernel"). This may also be useful as linux patches may be needed for some of the other ideas on this page. //~ djbclark//
* Done by //~ rwhitby// and //~ tonycpsu// at [[Custom Kernels]]

Possibly easier accessing linux procedure - create an .ipk (ipkg) file that does the accessed linux setup; have user execute either by emailing them the file (it has been confirmed that you can install ipkg files via the email client), and/or by having them temporarily manually set their DNS to a DNS server that would direct the app store somewhere else. //~ djbclark//

Make directfb (via tslib - http://tslib.berlios.de/ - or gpm - http://unix.schottelius.org/gpm/ ) work with the palm pre's /dev/touchscreen (new driver CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_CY8MRLN=y (cypress touchscreen) included in http://palm.cdnetworks.net/opensource/1.0.1/linux-2.6.24-patch.gz) - see [[vala-terminal]] for more details. //~ djbclark//

Add more Bluetooth profiles/support such as HID so that BT keyboards can be used.

Enable printing - my testing of CUPS install failed on the 'insmod' file missing, could not installed printer driver, CUPS-DOC worked and the web interface was functioning well on localhost from the Pre browser. //~ dld121//

Implementing a learning autocorrect system. Perhaps just a process that monitors keyboard input and removes //word// from the dictionary when //word//<space><backspace>//nextword// is found.

Create or port a Usenet news reader under WebOS

Figure out how to add custom gestures to the screen/gesture area. (I'd really like to tap around the center button to emulate a 5-way pad.)

RSS Reader (Importable Feeds, Subscription to podcasts) //~ oc80z//

Get [http://www.freesmartphone.org/ (FSO) ]working on the Palm Pre as an alternative platform to the nonfree [http://www.freesmartphone.org/index.php/HardwareInteresting_Targets LunaSysMgr GUI] - http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2009/06/20/20090620-palm_pre_wanted //~ djbclark// [http://www.freesmartphone.org/index.php/Palm_Pre Links and community organizing.]

TASK application - add categories column A-B-C like, and priority column 1-2-3-4-5, like the Treo755p Task application. Make them sortable by clicking on column header. Additional development: maybe some way to sync the Tasks with desktop or web based interface

Next steps

2009-08-08T04:06:30Z

Carback1: Posted a fix for people who changes their shell and lost ssh access (I think this is a bug in dropbear, I am going to try their mailing list later).

''The old, manual setup of Optware and users can be found [[Setting_up_optware_feed | here]].''

=Automated Setup of Optware, Users and Access=
The webOS community asks that users who have obtained access to the Linux subsystem install a standard set of software to ensure everyone has the necessary tools in place to use the resources the community is providing.

In particular, this includes the Optware package manager. Palm's webOS uses the ''ipkg'' package manager internally. The community has a version of ''ipkg'' called ''ipkg-opt'' which accesses the Optware library of over 1300 Linux programs available for installation on the Pre.

Palm has indicated that they have no intention of using the /opt directory, so we direct our installs to /opt/bin rather than /bin to avoid being overwritten by future Palm software upgrades.

In addition, the standard package creates a non-root user, installs ''sudo'', and includes an SSH program (''dropbear'') and an sftp program.

For your convenience, we've packaged all this up into a simple script.

==Optware Setup==

'''If you're attempting to install these packages to your emulator, you must first add sufficient space by [[Adding_Disks_to_the_Emulator|enabling a virtual disk]].'''

After completing the process of obtaining access to your Pre, do the following:

'''Type each line exactly as it appears. Copying and pasting is probably a good idea.'''

''Note to Windows Putty users: To paste in putty, simply right-click and the program pastes into the terminal whatever you have copied to the clipboard.''

<div style="font-size:100%;">
<source lang=bash>
cd /tmp
wget http://gitorious.org/webos-internals/bootstrap/blobs/raw/master/optware-bootstrap.sh
sh optware-bootstrap.sh
</source></div>

Follow the on-screen instructions.

If you want to review the script before you run it, you can look here:

[http://gitorious.org/webos-internals/bootstrap/blobs/master/optware-bootstrap.sh http://gitorious.org/webos-internals/bootstrap/blobs/master/optware-bootstrap.sh]

==Quilt setup==

Optionally, you can then install the ''quilt'' patch manager which allows multiple-file patches. (Yes, the pun was intentional. Quilt manages multiple patches.) This installation process has also been packaged into a simple script. It will install quilt, and all of its dependencies, and create a local clone of the WebOS-Internals patch repository. [[Applying_Patches | Applying Patches]] provides a more thorough guide on the use of quilt.

'''Again, type each line exactly as it appears. Copying and pasting is probably a good idea.'''

<div style="font-size:100%;">
<source lang=bash>
cd /tmp
wget http://gitorious.org/webos-internals/bootstrap/blobs/raw/master/quilt-bootstrap.sh
sh quilt-bootstrap.sh
</source></div>

If you want to review the script before you run it, you can look here:

[http://gitorious.org/webos-internals/bootstrap/blobs/master/quilt-bootstrap.sh http://gitorious.org/webos-internals/bootstrap/blobs/master/quilt-bootstrap.sh]

==Finishing==

To finish off, turn Developer Mode back to "Off" (which will reboot your Pre).

Once you are finished, you may SSH into your Pre with an SSH client like [http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ Putty]:
*Find your IP address with [http://checkmyip.com/ CheckMyIP.com]
*SSH to that IP address on port 222
**If you're doing this over EVDO, there may be a lot of latency. Be patient.
**You can optionally install [[Avahi]] and SSH to <tt>castle.local.</tt>
*Log in with the username and password you created during the Optware installation
**Many operations cannot be carried out with the permissions of that username. You'll need to [[Basic_Linux_Use#sudo|sudo]] those operations with the new username's password

Only the default shell (/bin/ash) will work for ssh. To change your shell to bash (located in /opt/bin/bash after the install), you will have to create an /etc/shells file, and add the following lines:

/bin/ash
/bin/sh
/opt/bin/bash

Then you will be able to edit /etc/passwd and change the shell parameter for the user you created. Note that if you try to change your shell without adding an /etc/shells the SSH server (dropbear) will look like it is rejecting your password on subsequent connections.

Avahi

2009-08-08T01:49:01Z

Carback1: Added an upstart script alternative (which I think is a little cleaner). Also included disclaimer about modifying anything in /opt.

=Avahi=
[http://avahi.org Avahi] is a Linux service for providing multicast-DNS/DNS-SD (also known as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_%28software%29 Bonjour] or mDNS/DNS-SD). Avahi allows for simple service discovery and advertisement on a local network and provides name resolution for all hosts running a mDNS/DNS-SD service.

Using Avahi allows for easy SSH access over a local wireless network. Once installed and started, users can ssh to their device using their mDNS assigned hostname.

==Avahi Installation==

First, mount the root filesystem as writable and install the Avahi ipkg.

$> sudo mount -o remount,rw /
$> sudo /opt/bin/ipkg-opt install avahi

Avahi currently attempts to access a different dbus system socket than the one provided by the Pre's dbus, so we need to turn off dbus access for the time being. Edit <tt>/opt/etc/avahi/avahi-daemon.conf</tt> and make the following change:

Replace this line:
#enable-dbus=yes

With this line:
enable-dbus=no

At this point, the Avahi daemon can be started with the following command:

$> sudo /opt/sbin/avahi-daemon -D

If you would like Avahi to start up at boot, create the following two files:

'''/opt/etc/init.d/S60avahi''':
!/bin/sh

[ -e /opt/etc/default/avahi ] && . /opt/etc/default/avahi

if [ "$AVAHI_ENABLE" = "no" ]; then
exit
fi

if [ -n "`pidof /opt/sbin/avahi`" ]; then
killall /opt/sbin/avahi 2>/dev/null
fi

/opt/sbin/avahi-daemon -D

'''/opt/etc/default/avahi''':
AVAHI_ENABLE=yes

Make sure you set the startup script to executable:

$> sudo chmod 755 /opt/etc/init.d/S60avahi

Alternatively, you can create an upstart script at '''/etc/event.d/avahi''':

start on started PmConnectionManager

console output

exec /opt/sbin/avahi-daemon -D
respawn

NOTE: This script is not being stored in the /opt directory. You may have to replace it after an update, and it may cause problems with your Pre.

==Connecting via SSH using mDNS==

mDNS uses the system's hostname and appends it to the <tt>local.</tt> domain. Using the Pre's default <tt>castle</tt> hostname, the following command would be used to SSH to your Pre on port 222:

$> ssh -P 222 castle.local.

'''Note: The system that you are connecting from MUST have a mDNS service also running, else the hostname will not resolve'''

==Current Issues==

* The ipkg binary of Avahi attempts to find the dbus socket at <tt>/opt/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket</tt>, but the Pre's dbus socket is at <tt>/var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket</tt>. I haven't investigated tying these two together too much, but the expanded functionality of accessing mDNS via dbus is preferred.
* The avahi-daemon seems to have issues keeping the mDNS name resolution running for more than a few minutes. I don't know if this is a power management issue or something else at this point.