3 "zavai" is a word of the Bolognese language which means "useless thing of no
4 value". The idea that I'm trying to do what I can with what I have.
6 It is written with the purpose of working for me; everything else is optional.
7 Feature requests for things that I don't need will likely be ignored unless
8 of course they come with patches.
12 * Install dependencies
15 apt-get install valac libglib2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libgee-dev libgtk2.0-dev \
16 libwnck-dev libdevkit-power-gobject-dev \
17 libomhacks-dev liblua5.1-dev
20 apt-get install devicekit-power
23 apt-get install polygen polygen-data
29 * Install dbus.d configuration file
31 cp conf/zavai.conf /etc/dbus-1/system.d/
33 * Copy the .desktop files of the applications you use more often in ~/.zavai
38 cp /usr/share/applications/tangogps.desktop ~/.zavai
39 cp /usr/share/applications/navit.desktop ~/.zavai
40 cp /usr/share/applications/vala-terminal.desktop ~/.zavai
41 cp /usr/share/applications/midori.desktop ~/.zavai
42 cp /usr/share/applications/zhone.desktop ~/.zavai
43 cp /usr/share/applications/FBReader.desktop ~/.zavai
44 cp conf/satmon.desktop ~/.zavai
46 * Copy accessory scripts in ~/.zavai
48 cp hooks/display ~/.zavai
49 cp hooks/keyboard ~/.zavai
51 * Update the information about the polygen grammars installed in the system
54 src/update-polygen-info
60 This will run zavai and restart it if it quits/crashes. If you want to
61 restart zavai (for example after you build a new version) just choose
68 Push the power button to get the power menu, with options to
69 suspend/shutdown/reboot, lock the screen and keep the backlight always on
70 (useful if you are using the openmoko as a satellite navigator in the car)
74 Hold the power button longer to lock / unlock the screen. If the screen is
75 locked you see a lock icon in the traybar.
77 A short push of the power button while locked will turn on the backlight for a
78 bit, which is useful if you want to check the map for a moment. Another short
79 push will show the main zavai window, which is useful if you want to see the
80 time. Another short push will hide the main zavai window.
84 In the main window you see the time. If your GPS has a fix, the time comes
87 In the top left there is a gps icon. Push it to toggle the GPS to be always on
88 (useful to restart tangogps or navit without needing to reacquire a fix).
90 In the bottom there is a button to access the main menu.
94 Zavai shows several tray bar buttons. One kills the current application (or
95 goes back in the menu if the current application is zavai).
97 One hides and shows zavai.
99 One hides and shows the keyboard.
101 One shows the status of the battery.
105 The menu should be self-explanatory. It has options for simple GPS management
106 tasks, setting an alarm, running applications, a task switcher, and a polygen
111 It is possible to set an alarm, which will be shown in the alarm window. When
112 the alarm expires, the phone wakes up if it is suspended, and zavai vibrates,
113 turns on baclight, shows a big ACK button and flashes the AUX led for 30
114 seconds. It also plays some music.
116 You can use the big button on screen or the AUX button to acknowledge the
117 alarm and stop all the attention-seeking activities.
119 If you want to change the alarm ringtone, you can set:
120 ringtone_alarm = "file:///some/where/file.ext"
121 in ~/.zavai/config; gstreamer is used, so mostly any audio file format will
122 work. I'm not sure what will happen if you choose a video format: that might
125 Alarms (acknowledged or not) are logged in "~/.zavai/log-alarm/". Still
126 missing, howerver, is a way to show that an alarm rang and noone noticed.
130 Details: the alarms are scheduled with at(1): they stay scheduled even if
131 zavai is restarted, and you can see them with "atq". Please see omhacks for
132 simple suspend hooks that will wake up the phone to run scheduled at jobs.
136 You can reach the calendar from the menu or by clicking on the date in the
139 The calendar shows notes on every day. You can add notes just by typing on the
140 white space below the calendar.
142 The notes are saved in ~/.zavai/cal/YEAR/MONTH/DAY.txt, feel free to:
143 - sync it with your main computer;
144 - create a tool that populates it using the information from your
145 favourite calendar system;
146 - interface zavai with a proper calendar system, without making the interface
147 harder to use (if you can).
151 If you have a pin, add 'sim_pin = "1234"' to ~/.zavai/config
153 Don't start frameworkd at boot. Get rid of fso-usaged from your system (it
154 will be started by dbus when frameworkd starts, if it's there).
156 Now you can use zavai to turn on GSM, including powering up the antenna and
157 providing the PIN if required by the SIM.
159 It does not currently do anything else beside turning things on. It is useful,
160 however, to make GSM services available to simple scripts like SMS or contact
166 Zavai currently focuses on the interface side, trying to make it easy for me
167 to reach the functions that I need. I try not to focus on hardware details
168 (yet) (when I can), so I build it on the freesmartphone framework, which is
169 unstable, underdocumented and sometimes untested, whose developers so far have
170 never answered my questions and whose API tends to change every now and again.
172 This said, I'm surprised it works for me so far.
174 TODO list / wish list
176 * FSO API "documentation":
177 http://git.freesmartphone.org/?p=specs.git;a=blob_plain;f=html/index.html;hb=HEAD
179 using vala-dbus-binding-tool:
180 mdbus -s org.freesmartphone.ogsmd /org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable.Introspect > /tmp/api.xml
183 remove quotes at begin and end
186 vala-dbus-binding-tool --directory=/tmp/foo --api-path=/tmp/api.xml
189 http://git.gnome.org/browse/vala/tree/tests/dbus/async.test
192 - if GPS time is more than 1 minute and less than 1 hour different than the
193 system time, automatically sync it
194 if GPS time is more than 1 hour different than the system time, show a
195 "SYNC" button that will sync it if pressed
196 + stacked notifier, with stacked modal dialogs
197 (notify sms received during phone ringing during alarm)
198 + aux acks the topmost dialog
199 + custom ringtone per every notifier (stops ringtone of modifier below,
200 saving the time offset of playing so it can be reloaded and resumed)
202 - notify incoming call
204 - flash aux when there are unacknowledged log entries
205 - write data to disk as log happens (to have at least partial logs if power
207 - more detailed GPX data (dop, elev..)
208 - message (structured) (json?)
210 - play ringtone when someone calls (not useful to pick up, but just to
211 notify a call is there)
212 (but stop ringtone if aux pressed in the meantime, to avoid annoying
215 - phone call applet (pushed when picking up)
219 - icon in main screen (to go back to applet if going around zavai during
221 to "move" the GSM device to my laptop:
222 socat FILE:/dev/ttySAC0 TCP-LISTEN:12345,bind=192.168.0.202
223 socat TCP:192.168.0.202:12345 PTY,link=/tmp/gps,raw,echo=0
225 - remember alarm names (on request, maybe with an add feature) and how
226 often they are triggered, and show them most frequent first
227 - show active alarms and allow to delete them
228 - fisheye list music player
229 (-> learn/test gstreamer libs)
230 - player page with seek/skip controls
232 - chosen song start playing if nothing is being played
233 - chosen song moves to playlist editor: play, add to playlist, add dir to playlist
234 (show a standard list multiselectable with all the songs in the dir and
235 only the selected song selected; allow to select others, select all, add
236 selected to playlist)
237 - playlist as reorderable standard list, allow to delete tracks, reorder tracks
238 - save playlist to file to reload later
239 - pause with headset button
241 - record audio notes, logging start and stop so it gets an associated GPX
242 - shortcut icon in main screen
243 - zavai does not look good in landscape mode
244 - replace menus with a widget taking a list of actions, which then lays
245 them out according to the screen size
246 - set backlight with Randr (xrandr --prop shows "Backlight: 4 (0x00000004) range: (0,15)")
247 and xbacklight uses it
248 (note: the property is not available on the freerunner atm, it would be only
249 for desktop systems, to avoid chowning the device under /sys/something)
250 - volume control in power menu "Amp Spk"
251 (-> learn/test libalsamixer something)
252 /usr/share/vala/vapi/alsa.vapi
253 - space buttons from sliders, to avoid shutting down instead of lowering the volume
254 - battery without devkit: do the parsing via lua
255 - contacts: show as a fancy focus+context list (see prefuse)
256 - vcard on e-vcard.{h,c}
257 - ical on libical-dev
259 - lua functions to read things
260 - zavai-contacts as a separate app
262 - next30: don't update if not shown currently on the notebook
263 - gtk_calendar_set_detail_func
264 - GPS FixNow mode for sleeping
265 - GSM power and network
266 - link to open SHR-dialer
267 - icon to show if there are new messages
268 - link to open SHR-messages
269 - switch backlight keep mode when on power/recharging
270 - the button changes the default for the current power mode
271 - unlock screen when receiving phone calls
272 - GPX status icon (off, waiting for fix, recording)
273 - GPX waypoint using AUX button
275 - track EPV (and similar) in gpx and kill trackpoints with bad accuracy
276 - Simple wireless scanner (code from guessnet, or minimal wicd client)
277 - Suspend phone if not calling and gps is not on and backlight is not on
278 (maybe with idle notifier?)
279 - Phone from kapula (or just running kapula)
281 - Location aware (show timezones in order of distance from current
283 - Show timezone in clock
286 + Why sometimes the phone will stop acting normal and will completely ignore
287 the screen for the purpose of screen dimming, that is, it will dim the
288 screen even if I'm using the touchscreen? (it was old ousaged brokenness)
289 - Is there a way to lock the screen completely turning off the touchscreen, so
290 that interrupts are not even generated?
292 * Not quite needed yet:
293 - GPX log with more features (quality, course, speed, ...)
294 - Take a waypoint then show a menu with a timeout
295 - Add a scribbled note
297 - Add a text note (tickling the text input method thing)
298 If timeout expires, leave the waypoint with the automatic name
299 - get fix events without requesting the GPX resource (and then? gpx log all the time? what for?)