headphoned 1.9 for the N900 is now in Extras-Testing

The beloved Headphone Daemon, who usually sleeps in the darker corners of your N900 and makes sure that you do not embarrass yourself in front of other passengers or pedestrians with whatever kind of experimental music you happen to listen to when the headphones are accidentally unplugged (also known as public transport situations) got a small facelift (also known as code change).

A few changes that have accumulated over the last few months have now been packed up into the shiny new 1.9 release:

• Support for libplayback / whitelisting (by Faheem Pervez)
• Support for pausing Martin Grimme's MediaBox
• Detect headphoned disconnect during active calls and send pause command after the hangup

The last one in this list might be of special interest to some of you who have complained about headphoned not working when the headphones are unplugged during a call. This won't happen now, as headphoned now monitors the call status via D-Bus and keeps track of active calls. When the headphones are unplugged while a call is active, the pause signal will not only be sent right away, but also a second time when the call gets disconnected. This work for all types of voice calls, and should work for video calls as well (untested).

During the summer holidays, I have had less time to do more development and releases, but things are starting to move slowly again - expect new releases of packages like gPodder and MaePad in the upcoming weeks. I'd also love to port gPodder to Harmattan and add a fancy new MeeGo Touch UI on top of it (in March I said that Maemo 6/MeeGo is for later this year - which might be very soon now), so you can all enjoy your favourite podcatcher with the usual native UI support. Let's hope that the Harmattan SDK and/or Harmattan developer images get released for the N900 soon (and then the Python bindings soon afterwards - the PyMaemo team was very fast in previous release cycles), so the community developers have enough time preparing their apps for the next big release.

For now, please test and enjoy this new headphoned release, and don't forget to vote for and comment on the package once you have verified the new release from Extras-Testing.

Updated packages for Panucci, RæMote and headphoned

Now that a preview of the PR1.2 SDK has been released, it's time to push the latest updates into the current Extras repository, so users that won't be upgrading to 1.2 as soon as it's out will get recent packages until they decide to upgrade to the new release. Over the last days, I've updated some of my packages with minor updates and long-requested features:

• Panucci: FM transmitter in menu, HTTP streaming (ideal for podcasts). The "rotate to landscape mode when the keyboard is open" fix has been merged from gPodder.
  QA page for Panucci 0.3.9-5
• RæMote: Updated bugtracker URL and fixed the UI glitch where button "highlights" get stuck. It has only been out for two weeks, and therefore it has not entered Extras yet, so your votes are extra important here.
  QA page for RæMote 1.2
• headphoned: Support for pausing FM radio has been added - this is useful when you listen to FM radio using a Bluetooth headset. Please read the info comment about FM radio support on the QA page.
  QA page for headphoned 1.8

If you can spare some minutes, please help test these applications on your device and vote for them afterwards on the QA pages that are linked above.

More updates to other apps are queued for this week, stay tuned.

Maemopad+ 0.36 for Diablo and some Extras-Testing QA requests

I've written enough about MaePad in the last few weeks, so today I'm announcing something for all the Maemo 4 fans out there: Maemopad+ 0.36 has been released, and with it comes a nice search function (the code for which has been written in 2008) and updated translations. We also added a Git repository and the updated website to the mix.

Here's a request for all the Maemo 5 lovers: Please don't forget to give some Extras-Testing QA love to the following packages: gPodder 2.2-2, Panucci 0.3.9-2 and headphoned 1.7. These packages already have passed their 10-day quarantine (or will do so during the coming days), and are just waiting for enough votes to be allowed to go into the Extras repository, so all end users can profit from the updates. Thanks for you help!

Bluetooth support for headphoned and Panucci

The hack week continues with some goodness for your ears (and the undisturbedness of people sharing the subway or bus with you): headphoned 1.6 adds support for Bluetooth headsets, so when you disconnect your Bluetooth headset, playback of music will automatically pause, which seems to be a much-requested feature. Thanks to Alan and Faheem for making this possible. Again, now that the package is ready, it's your turn to test and vote the package into the Extras repository.

Now that headphoned supports Bluetooth headsets, the only problem is that you still need to get your device out of your pocket to start playback. That's why I quickly hacked some automatic playback start goodness into Panucci (which is of course optional). The (due to space constraints irritatingly named) "Auto-play on headset" option will automatically start playback in Panucci when your Bluetooth headset or your wired headset with microphone is connected:

(Yes, I'm a big fan of the Marina Theme...)

I'm not promoting the new Panucci version yet, as I want the previous release (0.3.9-1) to go through Extras-Testing first. The version with headset support (0.3.9-2) is already in Extras-Devel, and I'll promote it to -Testing after the first one got through (thanks to all of you who have reviewed and rated the package in -Testing).

In short, this means that you will be able to keep your N900 in your pocket and simply connect/disconnect your Bluetooth headset to control playback, which I think is quite nice... (no support for BT headset buttons in Panucci so far, as I can't really test this myself - send patches and/or D-Bus logs)

Panucci 0.3.9: Silent mode and landscape mode by default

Now that the winter term has finally ended, and February is in sight, it's time to do some overdue fixes, releases and other random stuff. After headphoned 1.5 has found its way into Maemo Extras (thanks to the testers), it's Panucci's turn. Here is a list of user-visible changes in Panucci 0.3.9:

• Playback in "Silent" profile (thanks to Martin Grimme et al in bug 6694)
• Default is forced-landscape mode, the menu has automatic rotation and forced-portrait mode
• Volume controls removed (Maemo 5 already handles volume control for us)

If you are a Panucci user, please take the time to review and rate it: Maemo.org package page for Panucci

You can expect at least two apps/releases in the next few days: MaePad (Maemopad+ re-born for Maemo 5) and of course a new version of gPodder with my.gpodder.org sync and the re-designed UI.

headphoned, Metalab Talk, App Forum and gPodder updates

Due to popular demand, the Headphone Daemon is now available for Fremantle and the N900, too. A package is in Extras-Devel and should be available for QA testing in Extras-Testing soon. There is also a discussion thread on t.m.o and the packages page for QA.

In other news, I'll be giving a talk about Maemo.org and Maemo development at the Metalab Vienna on the 22nd of January. This is in preparation of the Hackathon that's happening on the weekend after the talk (a good opportunity to hack on CLI Sharing, maybe..).

In general, it seems like the N900 seems to get up to speed here in Austria now: The Nokia App Forum Alps is organizing a competition for mobile applications, so hopefully we see some new apps coming out of this. And if you happen to be around Hagenberg in early March, do join the Mobile Developers Conference.

A new gPodder version will be out "very soon now" - just one bug and one feature (my.gpodder.org API) left to do. I hope I'll be able to do it this weekend, so you can all enjoy the #maebar UI updates and new features such as Flickr support.

Experimental Maemo 5 UI: gPodder Episode Actions

With the Long Weekend just a little more than one week away, I though about doing some experiments with gPodder's UI. Some users want a quicker way to play/download/delete episodes instead of opening the shownotes window and using its application menu. Here's one approach I tried out today (I know the icons are pixellated and ugly - please consider them as placeholders):

The idea is that you click on an episode, and instead of opening the shownotes view, you get this selection screen where you can choose to play/download/delete the episode or view the shownotes. Of course there have to be some fancy animations, because that's what all the cool kids do today. Just watch the video on YouTube and tell me what you think in the comments here (especially in terms of non-standard UI and annying animations - seriously ;).

In unrelated news, headphoned 1.4 for N800/N810 has been released and pushed to Maemo Extras with support for Panucci and MPlayer for all your "public transport situation" avoidance needs.