Documentation wishlist

=DocumentationWanted=

This page is for collecting documentation most wanted list. If you feel documentation is missing for some things, please add them here and include a rough list of ideas what that document should contain.

=UI Guidelines= How to design the user interface so that it fits in the maemo platform and provides a consistent look and feel to the user?


 * What are the common application layouts and when and how to use them?
 * What kind of phrasing to use in menu items, buttons, dialogs, etc. ?
 * How to develop themes, icons and graphics for maemo
 * Differences between packages in maemo.org repository and upstream development.
 * =* See: Hildon UI documents=
 * =* See: Hildon UI documents=

=More?= How to make installation packages for application installer - how to do packages end users can install to Nokia 770. See: HOWTO: Making a package for the Application Installer information about how to custom more deeply stuff in Nokia 770, like updating kernel or filesystem, and if it is possible in end user devices Step by step tutorial how to develop application using python, python bindings for hildon and preferably with database for data store i.e. pysqlite2 Source for pysqlite2 arm" class="wiki_missing" title="Click to create Wiki page">Source for pysqlite2 arm- This is might be a tall order :-). How about this below, Writing maemo GUI applications in Python, direct translation of C codes from "Writing maemo GUI applications"

How to use the 770's GStreamer *dspsinks! This is clearly missing and would be really helpful for many developers.

A definitive list of all processes found running under maemo, what they do, how they can be configured, which package (inc ver) they belong within, which programs call them, and their command-line arguments.

High level library docs The current documents are mostly API-oriented. It would be useful to have an overview of all the basic libraries one can (and should) link against (gtk, hildon, osso, gstreamer etc). The doc should explain every library in a few paragraphs:

what the library is, what it does, why do you need it what Autoconf/Automake magic is needed to use it possibly manual compiler switches for compiling and linking various gotchas, initialization order, other funky stuff

Audio support What is the preferred way of doing audio on the device? (if ALSA will not get into the device). Think about games with background tracks and audio effects but without sucking all the battery.

Porting Howto It would be useful to have some documentation on compiling and porting this to another device. For example the Nokia 9500, which is a device that is crying out for a Nokia supported linux port... and a spell checker. This could also aid porting to palms and other PDA devices.

Comment: If you want other devices ported in linux, should register these devices in handhelds.org wiki. Post specs of the device, open it, take photos of its guts, identify the main chip, secondary chips and e.g. graphics, touchscreen. Ask the manufacturer about the specs. Porting linux into undocumented device will take forever. Hence, getting a maemo device is the way to go.

Debugging aid Running GDB seems to be pretty easy in x86 environment but is there any kind of documentation about running debugger in arm processor-emulated environment? How is debugging going to be arranged in hw environment? With gdb-stub?

Using IPv6 The default kernel does not have IPv6 enabled. Some documentation is available at IST-ANEMONE web site.

Other languages em Português"

en Français"

Useful stuff in /proc I noticed /proc/bootreason - if you say "cat /proc/bootreason" at an xterm shell prompt, you can find out about the circumstances of the last reboot. It seems that if the power adapter was plugged in at boot time, you get "charger". Other options are "pwr_key" (boot via power key) and "sw_rst" (when I ran "/sbin/reboot" from the command line).

Style guidelines When explaining source code and/or techniques experience has shown that specifying the OS version and hardware can be very useful for users. Something like: "This procedure has been tested on a Nokia 770 with ITOS 3.2006.49-2" saves users time and energy.