Write a freeware alternative, can we do it?

[Morpheus]

Hello folks,
I'm just thinking aloud here but assuming TD+ is dead at the end of this month then how hard would it really be to write a freeware alternative which could use the existing skins (a TD+ compatible plugin) etc.

Now I have never programmed any PPC software and have only dabbled at Windows programming in general. However I am a software engineer by trade working mainly in C++/X-Motif on Unix platforms. Now I am assuming that PPC programming is probably similar to or easier than programming Windows apps using VC++.

The PPC APIs are publicly available at MSDN so in terms of extracting items such as POOM data its just a case of finding out how. The areas which I suspect would prove the most difficult would be extracting the weather information from the web and parsing the RSS feeds and I expect there is code out there which could help with doing both of these.

The main  obstacle would probably therefore be time. When I wrote a small windows utility to help customise one of my favourite games, the basic research into areas which I knew nothing about at the time took about a week of evenings after work and writing the program took about three working weeks of evenings to complete. However by the time I finished a couple of months or so had passed due to other obligations and my general inclination to come home and write a program after doing it all day at work.  Of course because I decided to release it I then had to provide documentation and tidy up certain aspects of the interface which I wouldn't have bothered with if I was the only user which added and extra few days.

The other factor is support, after I released my utility a bug was soon found which meant that I now had to fix it, which took more time and at this point it was no longer fun and soon after that was released someone requested expanding its scope which I declined to do. Therefore if a freeware version were released it would probably best to go down the GNU route so that the developers were not suddenly being barraged for demands for features etc. and fixes to a point where they decided they had had enough.

So I assume that I am not the only programmer on this site,  so do people think this is feasible, would one person want to do it or perhaps a group could get together, once a basic structure and interfaces were decided it should be possible in theory to develop various aspects of the program relatively independently and then just intregrate the various classes at certain points.

As I said I am just thinking aloud, and am not volunteering to undertake such a task. However I started using TD+ a couple of weeks after buying my PDA and so have not spent that much time using my previous plugins
and would miss some features such as the weather and RSS feeds  now whilst I may have found  possible replacements for the functionality I will miss the flexibility of TD+ even though there are some features I never use which started me considering the possibilities.

Morpheus

[fishboy]

I may have an interest in collaborating on a TodayPlus freeware replacement.  I have C/C++ skills but very limited exporsure to VC++ and PPC programming (all myWindows programming experience has been with Visual Basic, but I do have experience with accessing/using the Windows API).  I, like Morpheus have limited free time to devote to the project, and can sometimes find it difficult to write code in my free time when I do it all day at work, but I am willing to try.

I think if we can get enough people together (LordTwisted might be interested), then we can create a list of tasks and divy up the work, and possibly get an application out in a timely manner.  You would not  necessarily have to write any code to contribute; just providing snippets of code or providing information to complete a task would be helpful.  One other advantage of having multiple people involved in writing the source code is that if one person is no longer available, the development does not necessarly cease, or the application die, as unfortunately may have happened here.  I have never worked on a GNU project before so I do not know the best way to go about setting this up.  

I see the goal for this project would be to provide most if not all of the existing features of TodayPlus, including the scripting/skinning feature.  The one design change I would like to see involves the skinning language.  I think where possible, values should be accessible via a calcvar like command, with general text and image commands used for displaying all output.  I think most of the work will involve:

1.  Creating a library of functions to get and return the necessary information (i.e. battary status, weather info, rss feed info, poom, etc.) that could be used by the calcvar command (which I believe some of this information is freely available).  

2.  Creating the display functions (i.e. image, text etc)

3.  Creating the logic to process the skin file and underlying code to support each skin command.

Anyone interested in possibly undertaking some of these programming and designs tasks might want to post a message here.  I will probably pursue writing a replacement program on my own if need be, but without a dedicated group to work with, don't expect anything anytime soon.

[TransFXB]

I am in, but no programing skills.

TransFXB

[Abram]

No programming experience but like I'd said b4 if it continues to be freeware count me in.

[Scotty]

We seem to have two converging threads

http://www.dark-mojo.com/todayplus/viewtopic.php?p=8441#8441

I would be delighted to see this happen, and will beta test anything that emerges. Also, I'd be happy to help write a reference guide (fishboy did this for TP, but if he's busy coding a new freeware app, I'd be pleased to help write the guide.....)

Scotty

[Blazingwolf]

I'd help in a hot second. Not much of a programmer but I want to learn and I can't think of a better way to start.

[SacredCow]

while i'm not a programmer, i do run a web development co. and my role, aside from exec, is limited scripting and lots of idea generation. i also often offer solutions to jams my programmers get into - perhaps this would be helpful.

i could also offer hosting services if needed assuming it's reasonable... in short, i'll help any way i can.

-SC

[LightMan]

I was a programmer some 10 years ago during 2 years, but have been "away" since. I could try to help in development, but if it's hard for me to find time to skin for TP, it would be even harder to find time to "return" to coding, investigate/learn and stuff like that.

However, I'm available to help in testing/skinning with the referred limitations.

[Broesel]

Sorry, can't follow this thread, is this a project between LTW and the others here, or is this going another direction and does not have to do anything with
TodayAdv (in a freeware way)?

Greetings Broesel

[Dav]

I'm a developer, with VS .Net 2003, but no PPC experience.  I've been kicking around the idea of doing a Today plug-in for weather, and do intend to get going on it eventually.  Life gets in the way.

Anyway, if anybody does pursue this I would recommend making it an open source project at the GotDotNet workspaces or else Sourceforge.  This enables a method to distribute the work and let the thing endure if people like it and you go MIA.

A great place to start researching is DevBuzz, tons of articles, tutorials, and code samples.  There's even a link on the front page right now about creating Today plug-ins - but the link doesn't seem to go anywhere.

[Xt]

I've posted a reply in a different place but it covers this as well...

http://www.dark-mojo.com/todayplus/viewtopic.php?p=8511#8511

....let me know if I can help...

[Morpheus]

Well it looks like there is definitely some interest in this idea. I have given this a bit of thought over the weekend and had a look at the MSDN site.

I was thinking that it may be best to use an XML format for skins rather than try and maintain compatibility simply because their is already and XML parser in the OS and so it may be quicker to create an XML skin format than try and write a parser for the current format. The good point from this is that it should also make it easier to decode RSS feeds.

As for the weather it looks like we may just have to parse the page and scrape the info we need.

As far as a plan goes I would suggest that if we do start this, we start off with the basic framework and then implement something simple first which we can release (such as just the weather functionality - I was considering this also Dav) to keep those waiting happy and continue to implement bits of functionality culmatively (e.g. agenda etc) until we reach full functionality.

I have never done an open source project either but reading some of the posts above apart from sourceforge and yahoo  groups their are other places which we can host it and I am used to working on multi-site projects and have used a lot of CVS (admittedly only on a single site) and setup a few repositories at work.  

Ideally we need more programmers if we want to get a relatively quick release. I suggest we leave this thread until the end of the week and see where things stand in terms of numbers etc. and then if enough people are willing to give it a go start making some plans.

In terms of software I have Visual Studio 6.0 SP5, which isn't much use for PPC development but I have already downloaded eVC++ 4 SP2 and the  WM2003 SDK from MS which is usable.

Any thoughts on this,

Morpheus

[Xt]

Morpheus,
I'm with you... I posted part of this message earlier and can match you software.  I'm hoping to get .NET soon.   I let my website die but will reactivate it and start to load a BB if you want to go with it.  Looks like there is a Strike thread started out there, so I may just go with it anyway.  I also agree on the "xml"  Looking over a couple of .net books indicate that's the choice for .net compact framework.  Let me know...

I have a website I'm not using at the moment and can offer it for development if this board dies. I haven't used phpbb, but have used yabb. I don't know much about anything but usually can learn enough to do the job. I've obtained enough software to learn to develop for ppc and have been cramming. I've already started to add sample things to the today screen and will hopefully soon have the weather and rss feeds show up as an item, the other items are pretty much built in (poom=pocket outlook) and just have to be manipulated.

I'm having trouble with my .dll, but just learning. I've been comparing code from tp+ and journal bar and calandar to get a clue. It looks like tp+ was importing functions from 7 or 8 modules and had 6 objects so I'll have to check on what they do. It would be easier to crack this program if it had error messages when it tried to load expired. I saw this in the code but seems to be a dead end and just formats time, so much for cracking and time to build...

Import Module 007: OLEAUT32.dll

Addr:00037F00 hint(0025) Name: SysFreeString
Addr:00037ECC hint(00DE) Name: VariantTimeToSystemTime
Addr:00037EE6 hint(002A) Name: SystemTimeToVariantTime


I got this from a PPC development guide and started from it......

Writing a Custom Today Screen Item
A custom Today screen item is simply a DLL that implements a specific interface and is registered in such a way that the Today screen can find it.
Each DLL must export one required and one optional function at specific ordinals. InitializeCustomItem (ordinal 240) is required for all Today screen items. The InitializeCustomItem function creates the child window to display the data.......

[Timmy]

Creating the display functions (i.e. image, text etc).

Fishboy,

I haven't any experience with/in  programming. But I'm be willing to do the things I can: making images en testing. It's not much. I know. Sorry!

Timmy

[fishboy]

In terms of software I have Visual Studio 6.0 SP5, which isn't much use for PPC development but I have already downloaded eVC++ 4 SP2 and the WM2003 SDK from MS which is usable.

I have Visual Studio 6.0 SP5 and download eVC++3 and PPC2002 SDK because it says that Visual Studio .NET is required to use the WM2003 SDK (and I don't think eVC++ 4.0 works with the PPC2002 SDK).  If you do find that eVC++ 4.0 works with VS 6.0, let me know.