Andreas Volz - Weblog

Open Infotainment Navigation Demo

andreasvolz — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:44:14 +0000

After month of work here is again a short insight in my current open infotainment prototype. Many work has happened under the hood and hard to visualize. The GUI statemachine concept has been much improved.

The application theme is based on the default Elementary theme. There is an internal design specification that also fits to a future media player and phone application.

Current navigation features are:

Show live car position on map read from gpsd
Draw map with libosmscout cairo renderer while driving
Move map around with joystick control
Calculate route with libosmscout from current car position to defined targets
Show live GPS position data
Emulate driving with gpsfake

Next navigation development target is to have a target destination input screen (country/city/street).

The prototype has already defined an interface for media and phone control, but not yet a really working implementation. I’ll implement a demo, but offer everyone to take over these applications.

Until now I didn’t publish any source code except the statemachine framework (http://code.google.com/p/stateval/). I plan to release the source code in future if the basic software architecture is more stable. But if you really like the idea and want to participate please write me an E-Mail.

Please note that shown video has some edits regarding route calculation time. The route calculation takes some seconds more, but I cut them away. Just in the spirit of the current iPhone4 advertising. :-)

DBus-C++ 0.9.0 released!

andreasvolz — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:02:54 +0000

DBus-C++ attempts to provide a C++ API for D-BUS. The library has a glib and an Ecore mainloop integration. It also offers an optional own main loop.

Since I took over maintainership of DBus-C++ it was sitting around in a GIT repository on Gitorious.

Now I decided to do a release with number 0.9.0 on SourceForge.

And there is a pretty new logo for DBus-C++!

New E17 module eooorg in E-SVN

andreasvolz — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 08:42:07 +0000

A solution for all people bugged by a long OpenOffice.org startup. This module preloads a OpenOffice.org process and holds in in the memory. So all OpenOffice.org documents are opened really fast. It only comes with the cost of some memory consumation.

It’s only needed to load the module to activate it. Placing it on the shelf is not needed for the feature. But later some options and easy application starters may be available from the icon. So it doesn’t hurt to place it in a shelf.

Available in E-SVN trunk/E-MODULES-EXTRA/eooorg.

Check out as anonymous:

svn co http://svn.enlightenment.org/svn/e/trunk/E-MODULES-EXTRA/eooorg

Kismet plugin for Mapnik

andreasvolz — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:32:23 +0000

Some time ago I wrote a kismet plugin for Mapnik. The OpenSource software Mapnik is a map renderer for e.g. OpenStreetMap data. My Mapnik plugin shows little icons on the map while driving around in a car for each found WLAN spot.

A video says more than thousend words. So view it here:

This is again a little step on my route towards an OpenSource car infotainment system.

EdjePlayer 0.1

andreasvolz — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:41:45 +0000

While working with Edje I found the need to have a little application that is able to load a specific group from a edj file. For that reason I wrote EdjePlayer. It’s a simple command line application this is also perfect to run from within a graphical file manager.

Usage: edje_player [OPTION...]
  -g, --group=STRING      The Edje group to display (default: 'main').
  -e, --engine=STRING     The Evas engine type (use environment variable
                          $ECORE_EVAS_ENGINE if not set).
  -b, --borderless        Display window without border.
  -s, --sticky            Display window sticky.
  -p, --shaped            Display window shaped.
  -a, --alpha             Display window with alpha channel (needs composite
                          support!).
  -t, --title=STRING      Define the window title string.
  -l, --list-engines      List all available engines.
  -r, --list-groups       List all available groups in the Edje file.
  -v, --version           show version

Help options:
  -?, --help              Show this help message
  --usage                 Display brief usage message

If you name a group in your edj file “main” then no other command line switches are needed.

It’s possible to set some values in the Edje file data block to control the behaviour of EdjePlayer. These values are supported until now:

alpha: bool
borderless: bool
shaped: bool
sticky: bool
title: string

bool: “TRUE”, “true”, “FALSE”, “false”, “0″, “1″

You’ll find some usefull examples here.

I’ve the vision to move EdjePlayer to something like a FlashPlayer. It seems Edgar has a nice API for accessing the outer world. In the next version I’ll see if a shared work is possible.

EdjePlayer is available from E SVN.

  svn co http://svn.enlightenment.org/svn/e/trunk/PROTO/edje_player

E17 composite managers

andreasvolz — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:38:12 +0000

First I created a wiki entry about E17 compatible composite managers. But people told me it doesn’t belong into the official wiki as it has no support at the moment. So I insert it into my Blog to save the links.

There’re several X composite managers that work with E17. This article explains some composite manager that work with E17. See the article Compositing window manager on wikipedia for a formal description.

Xcompmgr
Xcompmgr is a simple composite window manager, capable of rendering drop shadows and, with the use of the transset utility, primitive window transparency. Designed solely as a proof-of-concept, xcompmgr is a lightweight alternative to Compiz Fusion and similar composite managers.

Because it does not replace any existing window manager, it is an ideal solution for E17 users seeking a more elegant desktop. It’s packaged for the most distributions and easy to install. It runs out of the box with E17, but had some problems. For example the gnome-terminal had no window border.

Bling
This composite manager is implemented as module for E17. It’s available in CVS (e_modules/bling). The easy_e17.sh script installs this module by default. So it’s easy to install. Bling looks not bad, but compared to other composite manager it feels really slow. The source code looks not really extensible.

Bang
The Bang composite manager is available here.

Ecomorph
The Ecomorph composite manager is available here.

Egloo
The Egloo composite manager is available here. Update: Egloo host seems to be down. If someone knows what happened to it, please leave a note.

dbus-c++ and Ecore integration

andreasvolz — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:25:58 +0000

I think Dbus is a great way to communicate between desktop applications. Currently I need it in my OISP (Open Infotainment Service Provider) prototype. This needs a Dbus binding that integrates with Ecore. There’s the e_dbus in the Enlightenment CVS, but it doesn’t fit into my C++ design with eflpp.

Because of that reason I started to enhance the existing, dbus-c++ library with a Ecore integration. I would like to give back my modifications into the GIT repo on freedesktop.org, but the maintainer didn’t apply my patches until now. I think it’s because he’s busy with other activities.

So I started a new GIT repo on gitorious.org.

Don’t forget to add –enable-ecore as configure parameter to enable the Ecore integration. There’s a new ecore example application beside the source.

I would be happy to get some feedback or help with dbus-c++.

First release libooc-0.0.1

andreasvolz — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 12:05:41 +0000

This is the first public release of libooc. So far it’s only a experiment and not used in any practical application. In reallity it’s even not yet a library. It’s simply a test application which could later be changed to a library.

The idea of libooc is taken from a book that I bought some years ago:

Objektorientierte Programmierung mit ANSI C
Axel-Tobias Schreiner
ISBN 3-446-17426-5
Carl Hanser Verlag

This shows how to implement a object oriented framework in ANSI C. I liked to idea and now had some time to create some code. So far only parts of the String class is implemented. The idea is to reimplement the C++ STL in ANSI C.

But see here for an easy test application (also included in the package below):

#include "OOC_Class.h"
#include "OOC_String.h"

int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
  OOC_String_t *a = OOC_Class_new (OOC_String, "Class A");
  OOC_String_t *aa = OOC_Class_clone(a);
  OOC_String_t *b = OOC_Class_new (OOC_String, "Class B");

  printf("ooc_sizeof(a) == %u\n", OOC_Class_sizeof(a));

  if (OOC_Class_differ(a, b))
    printf ("ok");

  if (OOC_Class_differ(a, aa))
    printf ("differ?");

  if (a == aa)
    printf ("clone?");

  OOC_String_append (a, " is the best!");

  printf ("a: %s\n", OOC_String_c_str (a));

  OOC_String_assign (a, "This is a assigned string!\n");

  printf ("a: %s\n", OOC_String_c_str (a));

  OOC_String_erase (a);

  printf ("a: %x\n", OOC_String_c_str (a)[0]);

  printf ("OOC_String_empty (a): %s\n", OOC_String_empty (a) ? "true" : "false");

  OOC_String_assign (a, "This is a new assigned string!");

  printf ("OOC_String_length (a): %d\n", OOC_String_length (a));

  printf ("at (a): %c\n", *OOC_String_at (a, 3));

  OOC_String_append_ooc (a, b);

  printf ("OOC_String_append_ooc (a): %s\n", OOC_String_c_str (a));

  OOC_Class_delete(a), OOC_Class_delete(aa), OOC_Class_delete(b);

  return 0;
}

Not sure if this is usable in any real applications. But I think the pain of the C string handling is hidden very well behind the OOC principle. What do you think? Do you think this is usable in any real world application? Does it worth to go forward with reimplementing the STL classes in ANSI C? Give me a feedback if you like.

Get it here:
libooc-0.0.1.tar.gz

Open Infotainment Service Provider (Prototype)

andreasvolz — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:05:15 +0000

Since OpenStreetMap arrived I had the idea to start a complete In-Car Infotainment system. It took me several month but now a first prototype is done. The software works very well. I use it in my car with great success. But see yourself what I talk about.

Let me explain what you see on the video. In the beginning you see a window with a Mapnik powered map and some example GUI elements above. Then you see a change to a media player and the map still in the background.

But, what is the technical design of OISP? At first it works with a number of independent applications and service providers. The service providers communicate with the GUI application by the dbus deamon. The GUI application itself consists of several transparent window layers. The benefit is a more flexible and pluggable design. For sure you’ll need a X composite manager to run it. But a version without composite manager is planned. It’s not really a desktop application. It’s indeed planned to boot the computer and direct log into a session with only OISP started.

I decided not to release the source code at this time. The reason is that the codebase is currently completly rewritten. I takes me currently more time to synchronize my ideas with other people than to write it myself. This is also the reason for the rewrite. I like to have a more module and pluggable design. Then more developers could work on the software.

Please write a comment and tell me what you think. I’ll provide more videos and screenshots as there’s something to show.

Midnight Commander Theme (Red)

andreasvolz — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 16:58:52 +0000

I’ve created a theme for Midnight Commander that fits perfect for the root user.

To change your theme edit the field [Colors] in /home/$user/.mc/ini.

[Colors]
color_terminals=linux,xterm,Eterm
base_color=normal=white,red:selected=black,yellow:marked=yellow,red:markselect=black,yellow:menu=black,yellow:menuhot=red,yellow:menusel=white,red:menuhotsel=white,red:dnormal=black,yellow:dfocus=white,red:dhotnormal=red,yellow:dhotfocus=yellow,red:input=black,white:reverse=black,white:executable=red,white:directory=white,red:link=magenta,white:device=red,:special=yellow,:core=green,:helpnormal=,yellow:helplink=red,white:helpslink=white,red