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 \
17 libomhacks-dev liblua5.1-dev
20 apt-get install polygen polygen-data
26 * Install dbus.d configuration file
28 cp conf/zavai.conf /etc/dbus-1/system.d/
30 * Copy the .desktop files of the applications you use more often in ~/.zavai
35 cp /usr/share/applications/tangogps.desktop ~/.zavai
36 cp /usr/share/applications/navit.desktop ~/.zavai
37 cp /usr/share/applications/vala-terminal.desktop ~/.zavai
38 cp /usr/share/applications/midori.desktop ~/.zavai
39 cp /usr/share/applications/zhone.desktop ~/.zavai
40 cp /usr/share/applications/FBReader.desktop ~/.zavai
41 cp conf/satmon.desktop ~/.zavai
43 * Copy accessory scripts in ~/.zavai
45 cp hooks/display ~/.zavai
46 cp hooks/keyboard ~/.zavai
48 * Update the information about the polygen grammars installed in the system
51 src/update-polygen-info
57 This will run zavai and restart it if it quits/crashes. If you want to
58 restart zavai (for example after you build a new version) just choose
65 Push the power button to get the power menu, with options to
66 suspend/shutdown/reboot, lock the screen and keep the backlight always on
67 (useful if you are using the openmoko as a satellite navigator in the car)
71 Hold the power button longer to lock / unlock the screen. If the screen is
72 locked you see a lock icon in the traybar.
74 A short push of the power button while locked will turn on the backlight for a
75 bit, which is useful if you want to check the map for a moment. Another short
76 push will show the main zavai window, which is useful if you want to see the
77 time. Another short push will hide the main zavai window.
81 In the main window you see the time. If your GPS has a fix, the time comes
84 In the top left there is a gps icon. Push it to toggle the GPS to be always on
85 (useful to restart tangogps or navit without needing to reacquire a fix).
87 In the bottom there is a button to access the main menu.
91 Zavai shows several tray bar buttons. One kills the current application (or
92 goes back in the menu if the current application is zavai).
94 One hides and shows zavai.
96 One hides and shows the keyboard.
98 One shows the status of the battery.
102 The menu should be self-explanatory. It has options for simple GPS management
103 tasks, setting an alarm, running applications, a task switcher, and a polygen
108 It is possible to set an alarm, which will be shown in the alarm window. When
109 the alarm expires, the phone wakes up if it is suspended, and zavai vibrates,
110 turns on baclight, shows a big ACK button and flashes the AUX led for 30
111 seconds. It also plays some music.
113 You can use the big button on screen or the AUX button to acknowledge the
114 alarm and stop all the attention-seeking activities.
116 If you want to change the alarm ringtone, you can set:
117 ringtone_alarm = "file:///some/where/file.ext"
118 in ~/.zavai/config; gstreamer is used, so mostly any audio file format will
119 work. I'm not sure what will happen if you choose a video format: that might
122 Alarms (acknowledged or not) are logged in "~/.zavai/log-alarm/". Still
123 missing, howerver, is a way to show that an alarm rang and noone noticed.
127 Details: the alarms are scheduled with at(1): they stay scheduled even if
128 zavai is restarted, and you can see them with "atq". Please see omhacks for
129 simple suspend hooks that will wake up the phone to run scheduled at jobs.
133 You can reach the calendar from the menu or by clicking on the date in the
136 The calendar shows notes on every day. You can add notes just by typing on the
137 white space below the calendar.
139 The notes are saved in ~/.zavai/cal/YEAR/MONTH/DAY.txt, feel free to:
140 - sync it with your main computer;
141 - create a tool that populates it using the information from your
142 favourite calendar system;
143 - interface zavai with a proper calendar system, without making the interface
144 harder to use (if you can).
148 If you have a pin, add 'sim_pin = "1234"' to ~/.zavai/config
150 Don't start frameworkd at boot. Get rid of fso-usaged from your system (it
151 will be started by dbus when frameworkd starts, if it's there).
153 Now you can use zavai to turn on GSM, including powering up the antenna and
154 providing the PIN if required by the SIM.
156 It does not currently do anything else beside turning things on. It is useful,
157 however, to make GSM services available to simple scripts like SMS or contact
163 Zavai currently focuses on the interface side, trying to make it easy for me
164 to reach the functions that I need. I try not to focus on hardware details
165 (yet) (when I can), so I build it on the freesmartphone framework, which is
166 unstable, underdocumented and sometimes untested, whose developers so far have
167 never answered my questions and whose API tends to change every now and again.
169 This said, I'm surprised it works for me so far.
171 TODO list / wish list
173 * FSO API "documentation":
174 http://git.freesmartphone.org/?p=specs.git;a=blob_plain;f=html/index.html;hb=HEAD
176 using vala-dbus-binding-tool:
177 mdbus -s org.freesmartphone.ogsmd /org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable.Introspect > /tmp/api.xml
180 remove quotes at begin and end
183 vala-dbus-binding-tool --directory=/tmp/foo --api-path=/tmp/api.xml
186 http://git.gnome.org/browse/vala/tree/tests/dbus/async.test
189 - if GPS time is more than 1 minute and less than 1 hour different than the
190 system time, automatically sync it
191 if GPS time is more than 1 hour different than the system time, show a
192 "SYNC" button that will sync it if pressed
194 - flash aux when there are unacknowledged log entries
195 - write data to disk as log happens (to have at least partial logs if power
197 - more detailed GPX data (dop, elev..)
198 - message (structured) (json?)
201 - phone call applet (pushed when picking up)
205 - icon in main screen (to go back to applet if going around zavai during
207 to "move" the GSM device to my laptop:
208 socat FILE:/dev/ttySAC0 TCP-LISTEN:12345,bind=192.168.0.202
209 socat TCP:192.168.0.202:12345 PTY,link=/tmp/gps,raw,echo=0
211 - remember alarm names (on request, maybe with an add feature) and how
212 often they are triggered, and show them most frequent first
213 - show active alarms and allow to delete them
214 - fisheye list music player
215 (-> learn/test gstreamer libs)
216 - player page with seek/skip controls
218 - chosen song start playing if nothing is being played
219 - chosen song moves to playlist editor: play, add to playlist, add dir to playlist
220 (show a standard list multiselectable with all the songs in the dir and
221 only the selected song selected; allow to select others, select all, add
222 selected to playlist)
223 - playlist as reorderable standard list, allow to delete tracks, reorder tracks
224 - save playlist to file to reload later
225 - pause with headset button
227 - record audio notes, logging start and stop so it gets an associated GPX
228 - shortcut icon in main screen
229 - zavai does not look good in landscape mode
230 - replace menus with a widget taking a list of actions, which then lays
231 them out according to the screen size
232 - set backlight with Randr (xrandr --prop shows "Backlight: 4 (0x00000004) range: (0,15)")
233 and xbacklight uses it
234 (note: the property is not available on the freerunner atm, it would be only
235 for desktop systems, to avoid chowning the device under /sys/something)
236 - volume control in power menu "Amp Spk"
237 (-> learn/test libalsamixer something)
238 /usr/share/vala/vapi/alsa.vapi
239 - space buttons from sliders, to avoid shutting down instead of lowering the volume
240 - battery: do the parsing via lua
241 - contacts: show as a fancy focus+context list (see prefuse)
242 - vcard on e-vcard.{h,c}
243 - ical on libical-dev
245 - lua functions to read things
246 - zavai-contacts as a separate app
248 - next30: don't update if not shown currently on the notebook
249 - gtk_calendar_set_detail_func
250 - GPS FixNow mode for sleeping
251 - GSM power and network
252 - link to open SHR-dialer
253 - icon to show if there are new messages
254 - link to open SHR-messages
255 - switch backlight keep mode when on power/recharging
256 - the button changes the default for the current power mode
257 - unlock screen when receiving phone calls
258 - GPX status icon (off, waiting for fix, recording)
259 - GPX waypoint using AUX button
261 - track EPV (and similar) in gpx and kill trackpoints with bad accuracy
262 - Simple wireless scanner (code from guessnet, or minimal wicd client)
263 - Suspend phone if not calling and gps is not on and backlight is not on
264 (maybe with idle notifier?)
265 - Phone from kapula (or just running kapula)
267 - Location aware (show timezones in order of distance from current
269 - Show timezone in clock
272 + Why sometimes the phone will stop acting normal and will completely ignore
273 the screen for the purpose of screen dimming, that is, it will dim the
274 screen even if I'm using the touchscreen? (it was old ousaged brokenness)
275 - Is there a way to lock the screen completely turning off the touchscreen, so
276 that interrupts are not even generated?
278 * Not quite needed yet:
279 - GPX log with more features (quality, course, speed, ...)
280 - Take a waypoint then show a menu with a timeout
281 - Add a scribbled note
283 - Add a text note (tickling the text input method thing)
284 If timeout expires, leave the waypoint with the automatic name
285 - get fix events without requesting the GPX resource (and then? gpx log all the time? what for?)