Twitter client for Maemo in Qt + Python: call for developers and UI designers
Linux, Maemo (EN), MeeGo, Programmazione, Python, Qt Add commentsIntroduction
My name's Andrea Grandi, I'm italian and I'm a Maemo user/lover/contributor since the Nokia 770. I love Python as development language and few months ago I also gave some contributions to the PyMaemo project.
In these days I had the idea to start writing a Twitter client for Maemo with a precise direction in my mind. I'll try to explain all my reasons here. First of all I've to thank the author of Mauku client. I use it since its first version and I'm quite happy with it. Then, why do I want to write another one?
- Maemo (MeeGo) is moving to Qt and for this reason I'm going to use Qt, while Mauku uses Gtk.
- I'm learning Qt and what is better than writing a complete (but not too complex) application to learn better?
- Mauku is not free as lot of people could think. Reading the source codeyou find this "You are NOT allowed to modify or redistribute the source code.", while I want to write a client and release it under GPL2 or GPL3 license.
- Mauku is not updated since some months and we have no news about it.
- I love Python and I like to write free software in this language.
- I want to give to Maemo a stronger contribute.
My request for help
Before lot of people start writing their own client resulting in 4-5 twitter clients for Maemo, why don't we join our strength and work to a common project? I'm not a Python expert nor a Qt one, but I've some experience as project/team leader and since this is not a complex project, I would be glad to lead it. So, I'm looking for Python developers, Qt developers, UI designers and whoever want to contribute to this project. I still have to find a good name and logo for this application.
Who want to help me?
February 22nd, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Will it support identi.ca?
Are you planning to use the microfeed library?
February 22nd, 2010 at 6:03 pm
The idea would be tu support multiple and similar feeds too (identi.ca, Qaiku, ecc…). I don’t know how microfeed works… is it written in Python? Where can I find more informations?
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:17 pm
My programing skills aren’t very good but I could contribute with UI screencasts made in Qt developper and I can test applications and report bugs.
Let me know it you need my help!
PS: have you checked “witter”? Its a twitter app for Maemo written fully in python! Its in the devel repo.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I don’t have an N900 yet but I hope to get its successor which will be using Qt by default so an open source Twitter client would be great. Good luck to you.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
How about extending the QML twitter client? Could embed the .qml into a native app using qrc.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Does a QML Twitter client for Maemo exist? I didn’t know about it… could you give me a link where I can read more informations? Thanks.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Microfeed website is: http://microfeed.org/ (that’s Henrik Hedberg’s open source backend that he uses for Mauku)
The library is LGPL 2.1, the providers and utilities are GPL 2: http://gitorious.org/microfeed/
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
oh, that Microfeed?! Than the reply is: no, I’m not going to use it
It’s a C library and I’m going to write it in Python and don’t want to mix C code or create boring C-Python bindings
By the way… I think I’m going to join the Twcan project driven by Openbossa guys
It’s Python+Qt(pyside)
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:47 pm
About the naming, what about Twippy? A twitter client written in python..
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:06 pm
I think the Microfeed is meant to meant to be used from dbus(IPC) which has gtk qt and plain python bindings. I don’t think you are supposed to use the library directly. I’m not sure how hard this is as I’ve never used dbus.
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Looks like there’s similar efforts; http://www.johanpaul.com/blog/2010/01/a-proper-twitter-client-for-the-nokia-n900/
@Andrea; the Qt master-branch (which now has QML integrated) contains a twitter demo in $QTDIR/demos/declarative/
February 25th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
I’m not a developer but I’m an experienced tester, I’d be happy to test as required.
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:57 am
I’d like to help out with the logo and UI design.
March 6th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
I don’t code, but would be happy to help with translations: Dutch, English and Spanish.
Look forward to seeing a proper twitter client for the N900!