Cobra "Chumby project"

si1 · August 5, 2010, 9:06pm

Well, it works! Very well, I might add

I’m going to play with it more tonight, but for now…

Gus_Issa · August 5, 2010, 9:22pm

You really need the standard black enclosure Chris

si1 · August 5, 2010, 9:29pm

Yeah, I know… I’ll get one sooner or later.

si1 · August 5, 2010, 9:39pm

So I looked through the rest of that project, and I really like what I see

I think what I’ll have you do is this: Get to the point in your POC where you think we can actually start development on the real thing. Parts of the POC will be reused, but organized into a nice structure. The driver code will go in, and all of the system drivers will be coded (WebUI, etc).

What do you think?

In the mean time, Gus, can we maybe have another Chumby meeting?

Gus_Issa · August 5, 2010, 9:40pm

You do not have to. We shipped you one for free. Congratulations on becoming a FEZ Mster

Gus_Issa · August 5, 2010, 9:43pm

We can have a meeting after he receives the FEZ Cobra and loves it

si1 · August 5, 2010, 9:47pm

Good idea

Just proves how far a little effort and know-how go in this group :o

Skewworks · August 5, 2010, 11:04pm

@ Chris,

Hey look at that, looks good running on an actual device! I’ve already taken the time to use TFConvert to turn Tahoma 13pt & 11pt into usable formats

The plan is to stay up all night so I can pass out on my 4PM flight and not have jetlag when I arrive at 11PM my time, 5AM their time; so maybe I’ll do some more development tonight.

If I get the menus set in their own library, render up the recent/most used apps and show you how to load do you think that’ll be enough to get you started? Or do you want to wait until I get back and add all the code for loading off a real device? Either way I’ll upload as I go.

Oh! And by the way, how did sub-menus & changing color on pendown turn out on the actual device?

si1 · August 6, 2010, 12:09am

@ fonts: Have you tried using Tinyfonttool? It works really well, I love it! .NET Micro Framework - Utilities

Just get it to whatever point you think is workable and tell me what to do.

And yes, the menus did change color on penover. I’m pretty sure they work just like you intended them to.

bstag · August 6, 2010, 12:27am

And now in black hand cut case

Skewworks · August 6, 2010, 12:37am

@ Chris, great I’ll let you know.

@ Everyone,

And for your viewing pleasure I’ve updated the ZIP file with the following:

Desktop & Menus have been moved into libraries, POC is now 2 projects in 1 solution just open NetbyPOC.sln like before.
I’ve removed smallfnt and added 4 new ones, 2 sizes of Tahoma in bold & regular
I’ve added the TrayIcons (bottom 4 icons in the concept art), they are clickable!

Anyone have any ideas on how to make the PenDown stand out on those icons like I do for the menus? Think a simple color change on the font is enough?

More will come.

Same URL: http://www.skewworks.com/downloads/netmf/NetbyPOC.zip

si1 · August 6, 2010, 12:48am

It works!

Skewworks · August 6, 2010, 1:00am

Wow, you’re really keeping up tonight Chris!

Give me another hour or so and I’ll have something fun for you: The rest of the desktop icons and alert boxes! No more Debug.Print 8)

si1 · August 6, 2010, 1:42am

Ok, great! I’ll be here!

Skewworks · August 6, 2010, 2:42am

Whew, OK taking a bit longer than I thought but I have got an update out. ([url]http://www.skewworks.com/downloads/netmf/NetbyPOC.zip[/url] just like always).

Update includes:

Working alerts! They don’t do returns yet (like OK, Yes, No, Cancel) but they are good for simple OKOnly alerts. I’ll get the rest done when I have time.
Buttons. Yup, you got it. Still need to do .enabled & update rendering for down event but they work.
Auto-sizing & auto-centering of alerts

Just go ahead and click menu items and tray icons again, this time you’ll see the alerts demonstrated instead of debug prints.

I think that’s it for tonight, still not ready to leave yet so I need to go get on that stuff.

Sorry I wasn’t able to finish the desktop. I highly recommend clicking the “Lock” icon though, really shows off that alert.

si1 · August 6, 2010, 3:14am

I’m beat for the day. I’ll load up the new POC first thing tomorrow. Great work though!

si1 · August 6, 2010, 3:24am

One more thing before I hit the sack: How far off do you think loading programs from the SD card will be? I think you will need a Cobra to test that, but I have found ways of debugging when it does eventually come up. For example, you can attach the debugger with MFDeploy.

I think I’ll have you do all of the graphics stuff and I’ll do more of the nitty gritty stuff with the OS. I’m not really a very good graphic designer, so that takes a load off my back and lets me focus on the deep internals of the system.

We also need someone to work on the WebUI. I might code the webserver if nobody else wants to.

In the mean time, I’ll get our source control setup with Google Code tomorrow.

Skewworks · August 6, 2010, 3:39am

I actually tested loading programs from the SD using the Domino the first day I got it. Works perfectly. I uploaded the code I used to test it here: [url]http://www.skewworks.com/downloads/netmf/sdsample.zip[/url]

Make sure you look at the code before you run it, it’s hard coded to expect the PE file to be in a certain place, if it’s not there it will fail.

The entry will be changed obviously to work specifically with Netby.

UPDATE: I had some nasty test code in there, I removed it and re-uploaded the ZIP.

si1 · August 6, 2010, 9:11am

Well, we already proved that loading apps from the SD is possible, it’s just a matter of figuring out the best way to do it. Plus, the apps need to be controlled by the OS, which is also going to be tricky. We don’t want a situation where one bad app takes control of the OS completely.

Gus_Issa · August 6, 2010, 9:18am

Plus it has to be easy for developers to create applications fro the OS