It Seems that was yesterday when a year ago in the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit, Victor sent a file to me through Bluetooth and kdebluetooth saved it in a hidden folder, the file is still there “~/.kbluetooth4/Vídeo003.3gp”. That fact is what made me decide to use my spare time working on kdebluetooth.

After months of work in kbluetooth (the kdebluetooth fork I did), it started to work, but that spent hours made me realize that the kbluetooth never would be stable, it is a clear example of spaghetti code. Because of that, we started a new project called BlueDevil. If you’re wondering about the name, Edulix came with it while working on the daemon, and it is based on PowerDevil (the name).

After a few fridays working on it, suddenly a Spanish company sent an email to me, asking for help to develop a Qt library to deal with BlueZ. A couple of emails (and beers) later, they hired us (ufocoders) to write the library, the first big step towards a real BlueDevil was done.

It’s known that the best way to fully test a library is by using it a lot, so we started a negotiation to finance the development of BlueDevil, finally we got an agreement, we’ll pay it 50% / 50%.

So, this is the boring history, that in my most humble opinion had to be written, now let’s start with the review.

KDE Config Module (system preferences)
The Bluetooth KCM allows you to configure all the options from a single place, it is divided in 3 pages:

1. Devices, allows you to switch on/off global KDE Platform Bluetooth integration, and manage your remote devices (add, rename, remove…)
2. File Transfer, allows you to switch on/off the reception of files, and configure where (by default) they will be saved once received.
3. Adapters, allows you to configure your adapters, changing the name, the visibility…

Download file

BlueDevil Wizard:
The wizard allows you to pair with other bluetooth devices, and if they have compatible services connect to them. the highlights are:

• Pair with any device
• Connect to input service (mouse, keyboard, Wiimote)
• Connect to audio service (headset, phones)
• Powerfull “auto” PIN Mode, which has a database containing exceptions.

In the following video, you can see the pair+input connection done with a cellphone, which is used at the final to disconnect itself :p

Download file

In this one, you can see the connection of a Nokia Headset, and the integration with the system (kmix/phonon)

Download file

Systray:
The systray is executed only if Bluetooth adapters are found, it allows you to do everything you want to:

• Send files
• Browse devices
• Configure remote devices
• Configure adapters
• Configure file transfer
• Add new remove devices
• Connect to known devices services.

Download file

KDE Input/Output integration (KIO):
The KIO integration allows you to discover and browse your devices from your favorite file browser, the highlights are:

• Discover device
• Show and configure (after clicking on them) the supported services.
• If supported by the device, browse the files (copy, remove, create dir…)

Download file

File reception:
Receive files from other devices is supported and totally integrated with the system (using notifications instead of blocking popups etc).

Download file

Finally, we’ll be releasing one RC each week until we consider BlueDevil stable enough, so the next release will be Friday 4


if you wish to help in the development of BlueDevil, you can contact us in irc.freenode.net #solid and in the kde-hardware-devel mailist.

Description:

BlueDevil is a set of components, which integrates bluetooth within the KDE SC, for example adding a system preference module (KCM), or allowing to browse the files in a cell phone from you favorite file browser.

The list of already implemented components is:

• System preference module (KCM) to configure all the options regarding Bluetooth (also fully activate/deactivate it)
• Integration with the KDE input/output system (KIO), which allows to discover and explore all bluetooth devices around from your favorite file browser
• A wizard to pair your devices, and connect directly to the compatible services, such input (mouse, keybaord, Wiimote) and audio (headsets, phones)
• Systray application integrated with the last KDE SC 4.5, from where all BlueDevil actions can be done (disconnect devices, send files, configure…)
• Daemon to listen incoming petitions, for example to receive files, or to introduce a requested PIN.

Dependencies:

• bluez (to get it working)
• obex-data-server (for receiving files, and KIO’s)
• obexd-client (for sending files)
• KDE SC 4.4 or greater
• PulseAudio, or a proper configured Alsa (with the bluetooth hook)

Errata:

• When using kio_obexftp in dolphin on a KDE SC 4.4, some times it won’t load the content because more than one kio is launched at the same time and it is not supported by the backend (Tip: Disable the previews or use konqueror)
• In KDE 4.5 SC, some times when a device is removed, the systray is not correctly updated (Seems to be a bug in QDBusMenu)
• When trying to open a file from a bluetooth device, the progress gets stucked at 99%

Target Audience:

This release should be stable enough to be used by everybody, but we’re looking specially for advanced users with “compiling skills” so we can get quick feedback and fix as many bugs as possible. if you are Interested send an email to alex (at) ufocoders dot com.

Internationalization:

Currently BlueDevil is not ready to be translated (the strings are not final), and we’re looking for native English speakers who can help us with the strings, interested people send an email to alex {at) ufocoders.com

Special thanks to (in no particular order):

• BlueZ developers and community for their help during the development (and patience)
• David Faure for his help during the development and infinite patience talking about KIO’s
• To ufocoders for sponsor half of the development

Obtaining the code:

To get the tag:

git clone git://gitorious.org/bluedevil/bluedevil.git; git checkout v1.0-rc1

In the next release we’ll provide the proper tarball.

I have been quite busy these days, between Akademy and everything. So thought about writing a small blog entry with the status of the projects where I’m involved:

KBluetooth:

I’m sorry guys to announce it in that way, but KBluetooth is almost dead. I’ll release a new version (0.5) trying to fix all the crashes we’re having, and it will be everything from my part. I hope to release that version withing this week.

Kamoso:

We have ported kamoso to vlc1.1 (you can get the code from the proper branch), and it is working quite well. I’d like to release a new (last) stable version which won’t crash when the application is closed. After it we’ll concentrate our efforts in stabilizing the new code, getting it too work perfect with vlc 1.1.1.

KTuberling:

I did almost nothing for 4.5, but I’m planning to do some maintainer work for 4.6, closing bugs (yees! the pepperoni bug too), and I’ll try to remove the "blinking", but I don’t know how (yet) :p

BlueDevil:

Well, tonight (in 8/10 hours) you’ll have news about this one

NetworkManager:

Yay! I’m planning to join the group of crazy developers that works on NetworkManager+KDE, the first task I’ll try to accomplish is the removal of Solid::Control, for now, I’m reading code code and more code, and I’ll do that until I’m able to paint a "virtual map" of what is currently implemented. I don’t have a date for that.

See you in 8/10 hours with a surprise (a known one :p)

Cyap!

So we’ve develop a new Plugin for KDevelop which will give us direct access to where all the KDE knowlege is stored

This day was marked by the trip to Zermatt but not by the outward journey but by the return one which I did (as the major part of the people) walking. We went through the forest crossing 2 rivers (well, jumping 2 rivers xD) and of course, talking about software, akademy, politics etc. By the night, a mysterious KHTML crash produced by gcc appeared in my laptop sadly I lost all the hacking time figuring out that gcc was the problem

Day 3: Kamoso meets j-b (aka vlc man)

I don’t remember exactly when we introduced Kamoso to j-b, but I do remember that I got stunned because seems that we did it quite well (the usage of libvlc and libvlccore). After a couple of minutes we fixed like 3 kamoso bugs (thanks to j-b).

We can say that since them Kamoso is on the road again

Day 4 and 5: Kamoso hacking and rediscovering vlc

In the following days I concentrated all my efforts in 2 topics: port kamoso to vlc 1.1 and stabilization. The port was rather straight, I got the basic features (display and get pictures) working without many problems. Then once I had the base working with vlc 1.1 I started to fix crashes, I was able to smash all of them but one, anyway that one is fixed now (Thanks to the vlc people).

Additionally, to fix some bugs I needed the help of the vlc community, j-b pointed me to the guy we had to talk with to fix some problems we had with the audio recording, there was where I realized the healthy community that is behind vlc, which is not only a good project but it is also a good community

What is QuickSand?

QuickSand is an alternative interface for KRunner, it is integrated in KRunner (the code is inside KRunner), and since the major part of KDE users seems to like the default interface almost nobody knows his existence :p, but it actually exists and I can prove it!

So what’s up with QuickSand?

QuickSand is one of these software (or in this case a part of a program) which were developed in the early days of KDE4 and for some reason the maintainer(s)/authors are "missing" or are not taking care of that code anymore, this may seem sad but Hey! here is where the beautiful of the free software comes to the rescue, any interested developer can contribute and even adopt it.

What I did to QuickSand?

Basically what I did is some "maintarnership", removing/adding stuff here and there

• Unhardcoded all the colors (Now they are following the respective KDE/Plasma themes)
• Added a button to execute the system activity
• Tunned the interface a little bit
• Fixed some relayouting issues when accessing to the options
• Add "Esc" as a shortcut to close the interface (AAAAH! that was really needed)
• Fix the only known crash (Has been backported to 4.4.4)
• Some other minnors changes.

This is the result

I’ll write an entire post about QuickSand, I think that it is an interesting concept and I may adopt it in the future (KDE 4.7 at least).

Tomorrow the hard work on Kamoso will start, stay tuned!

To reach Randa we had to take 4 trains, that can be painful in some countries (in Spain for example) but in Switzerland the trains have an atomic precision so you don’t even need to know the name of the station where you have to “leave”, when you buy the ticket they’ll give to you a paper with the schedule, so you only have to be careful with the time

So, after that 6/7h of traveling we arrived to Randa, where a bunch of KDE hackers were waiting for us :p

The town is beautiful, it remembers me to the Heidi Manga (which was inspired by that kind of towns), maybe it is the most beautiful town I ever saw.

In the travel between Geneve and Visp we stop in Lausanne, the city where my mother was born :p

In the plane I have been working on QuickSand (the KRunner alternative interface), basically what I’m doing is to remove the hardcoded colors so that it can be used on any kind of colors scheme (I’m using a dark one right now).

When I finish the fine tuning I’ll public a small video about QuickSand, I’m not going to add any new features but I think it is an interesting unknown part of the desktop.

Cheers!

The support is divided in 4 blocks:

1. Pair the device
   The support for pair the devices should be working, not only for HEADSETS but for everything.
2. Connect to the service
   KBluetooth will detect if the paired device has audio service, and connect to it.
3. Support for PulseAudio
   PulseAudio rocks, and since it rocks it will detect and configure the new device automagically
4. Support for Alsa
   Alsa is not automagical like PulseAudio, so we’ve to write a few things in a file to get it working.

Everything is done by KBluetooth but Alsa support, so I’ll explain how to get it working manually.

1-Pair it using kbluetooth-wizard (be sure that you’re using kbluetooth-wizard an not kbluetooth-inputwizard)

2-Launch kbluetooth-devicemanager, click in your headset and write somewhere the Address (XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX)

3-Open with your favorite editor the file ~/.asoundrc (located in your home) and add:

pcm.bluetooth {
type bluetooth
device 00:11:22:33:44:55
profile "auto"
}

4-If you want use it with Phonon, try the following configuration (is not working totally but something is something )

pcm.softvol {
type softvol
slave {
pcm "bluetooth"
}

control {
name "SoftMaster"
card 0
}
hint {
show on
description "BlueTooth Headset"
}
}
pcm.bluetooth {
type bluetooth
device 00:11:22:33:44:55
profile "auto"
}

With this, a Bluetooth device should appear in KDE-Multimedia configuration, but as I said is not full working (If I recall correctly the output was working perfectly but not the input).

As always, the corresponding video:
Download video

Cya!

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And well, this is the result, a freezeeless interface for KBluetooth-wizard.

PS: As a sneak-peak, notice that the wizard is not longer called “inputwizard ”

Saluts!

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Before continuing reading, be aware that I’m not an usability guy, I lack any kind of design or usability sense/knowledgement, In fact, I have been I’m using KDE for years and I never succeed to configure my desktop in a beautiful way (only by copying the others configs), so please keep that in your mind when you read this post.

A few days ago, Celeste wrote an excellent paper about "Tabs in the Taskbar". After reading it I decided to move my panel to the top of my main screen. The result has exceeded my expectations. What I got is more than a better relationship between the panel and the applications, what I got is something I’ve named a "Natural flow", let me try to explain what I mean.

The first thing I noticed after placing the panel at the top of the screen was that I forced less my eyes. Because of my work, I need to be aware of the notifications (kmail), but at the same time I’m usually writing code so I’m never watching the bottom of the screen, in fact if there is a part of the screen that I totally ignore it is the bottom, so move my eyes to that part of the screen every time I got a notification was painful.

The second thing I realize a few hours after, was a harder connection between applications and the taskbar. For example I have always ignored the "request attention" thing of the taskbar items, now I guess that because my eyes are "half watching" the taskbar all the time I’m able to notice the blinking quickly. Also the taskbar is acting now as a "Tab bar", it also works for applications that are in a different screen or not are maximized thanks of KWIN maximize/minimize effects,

The third and final thing, is something that may sound stupid to you (It did to me!), it is that menus/notifications/plasmoids etc show up from the top to the bottom. In earth thanks of gravity objects fall down, and I think that it’s because of this that I feel this behavior more natural than the other one.

That’s all! keep the panel at the top a day and decide where you like it more.

Ps: Please, do not flame in the comments, the objective of this entry is to share my experience with other people not to start an usability flame or something like that. Usability is a complex subject, and I ignore all of it.

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A few days ago, I was in the office with ereslibre showing something to him (I don’t remember what), when he noticed something in my desktop that he didn’t liked, my fonts. I laughed quite a lot because I thought that it was a "Yet Another Small Detail That Ereslibre Cares Of". I let him modify my settings so I could say later to him: you see? this thing has not improved my user experience in any way. But as you probably guessed by now, I was terribly wrong.

What’s more, now I’m pushing everybody I know which uses KDE to setup the same configuration I have. I don’t really know what the hell the parameters I modify means, but what I know is that now I’m happier with my desktop.

The famous settings are:

• Font: Dejavu Sans
• Use anti-aliasing: Enabled
• (Click on configure)
• Use sub-pixel rendering: RGB
• Hinting style: Slight

In screenshots (so you can extrapolate it to your language):

Set the font and enable the anti-aliasing:

Click on configure and set the subpixel rendering:

Set the hinting styke:

The last KDE user I "moved" to these settings has needed 1 day to notice the changes, so just do it and wait

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Happens that month’s ago Apol lent me his Apple Wireless Keyboard so I can give support to it in KBluetooth. After small research I concluded that the keyboard wasn’t standard, so I just pull it over. Then, a few days ago, Ereslibre was playing with a Gnome and I decided to try to pair the Apple keyboard using the Gnome Bluetooth System, and guess what… it worked !

So, today, I decided do not go to sleep until I got it working, and here I am, 03:12 and writting this entry with that keyboard

This feature, should fix the keyboard pairing completely, not matter if your keyboard is the Apple one or not.

This feature will be available in the next version (0.5) together with a new Wizard and maybe a new (or at least improved) device manager.

If you can test your “non-working” keyboard with the trunk version and give me some feedback, I’ll be very appreciated

Cya and Happy Hacking!

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Here comes the (hopefully) last version of KBluetooth stable branch. The change list is not very huge (only fixes) but if there is something I’m glad to have fixed is the speed calculation of the file transfers, it was so annoying for me to see the text blinking ;(

Changelog:

• Fix speed calculation when receiving and sending filesI
• Pairing request are accepted also when clicking on Trust button
• Important dialogs are modal, so they’re not hidden by other applications
• Fix a crash that happens when the sender device disconnects before the file transfer is accepted

A small note, the Modals will be removed in the next version, this is a bug fix release so the less code I change, the better.

Today I’ll start to work on 0.5 more intensively, starting by adding a2dp support.

See you!

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Friday 05/02/2010:

Wake up at 3:00 AM to take a cab to go to Barajas airport, I have to say that Gate 2 is uglier than the Gate 2 of El prat airport (and smaller), but one point in favor is that it was full of power sources :p

Once in Brussels, Kiko, Victor and Oscar were waiting for me, I got some stress because of the airport distribution, is like labyrinth! Then usual route in that kind of travels, Breakfast->Hotel->Launch->FOSDEM beer event. A well, between Launch and FOSDEM we went to Brussels MIDI to met Aleix pol (apol).

About the FOSDEM beer event, I’m not going to say anything new, lot of good beer, a lot of hackers around and good chat. Maybe I was expecting more free beer

Saturday 06/02/2010:

Mueheh perhaps because I was excited for my first FOSDEM, everything look wonderful to me, and one small detail I’m still enjoining was the way the donations were done: they gave us a receipt so it looked more like more official/serious.

Aleix pol has already blogged about kamoso appearing in the opensuse stand, it was a good surprise! (I can not image what the people of opensuse were thinking when apol and I started to laughing and taking pictures xD).

Something I found weird (and disappointed me) was that the Mandriva ppl didn’t have any computer with KDE :/

About the talks, we were in KDE room almost all the day, so there’s not much to say about.

Sunday 07/02/2010:

This day had a proper noun, Andrew_S._Tanenbaum, this is a short summary but it made my day. Another interesting thing was my chat with Will Stephenson about Bluetooth+KDE, I’m sure that what we discussed will have good effects in the KDE Bluetooth world.

Small note for future FOSDEM newbies: wearing a t-shirt of a project in which you are not involved IS NOT A GOOD IDEA! the people will think that you’re a developer of it and will start to ask you a lot of questions xD!

Mental note: Next year bring KDE t-shirts.

Cya!

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With the last release I added a crash when receiving files, I gare say it was not my fault, the KBluetooth code is a mess and I can’t fix it without rewrite it from scratch (thing that I’ll explain hopefully in 2 days).

Small roadmap for 0.4 version:

• Fix file transfer jobs (speed calculation and notifications)
• Check (and re-check again) input

I’ll try to get the above points covered in a couple of days too.

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I have not defined my roadmap (yet), but at least I’ll have a couple of meeting regarding the future of KBluetooth, and sooner than you think I’ll come back with great news about Bluetooth+KDE.

If you’re in the FOSDEM and you have doubts or ideas about Bluetooth+KDE ping to me I’ll be around *KDE* stuff in there.

cya!

These are the highlights:

• The official name is now "KBluetooth".
• A lot of crashes have been fixed, KBluetooth should not crash now.
• File transfer (send/receive) reported to work for everybody with any kind of device.
• Improved the input pairing (Almost all devices working).
• Huge improvements in the UI.

Known problems:

• The speed in notifications is not accurate nor working right

Notes for packagers:

• Since the first RC, I only had fixed BUGS, and almost every commit since then contains an atomic fix, so please upgrade to the 0.4 final or apply the patches yourself, but do not get stuck in the previous RC’s, doing that you’ll waste the time of your bugtracker people, as well of kde bugtracker crew and mine.
• A tag has been created in tags/kbluetooth/0.4

Note for users:

• Ask to your distribution for the final 0.4 version of KBluetooth, the only and original one !

In the next days, I’ll write a series of entries about KBluetooth, the list is not final tough:

• Review of KBluetooth 0.4
• Collaborate with KBluetooth (Developers and users)
• Short term future, KBluetooth 0.5
• KDE+Bluetooth future

Finally:

http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/kbluetooth?content=112110

Is time to resume my adventure in the lands of KDE, I had to stop it because of work, I’m creating a new business together with ereslibre and edulix and we are kind of busy.

Returning to the topic, in this second part of the adventure I’m not going to change my focus, so I’ll continue hacking on kbluetooth, kamoso and ktuberling.

Here comes a small todo list I’ll try to accomplish:

• Finish 0.4 release of KBluetooth (2 crashes to be fixed)
• Release KBluetooth 0.5 (I’ll talk about it in a other blog post).
• Post at least once a week.
• Start to develop the new Bluetooth solution for KDE.
• Finish KTuberling easy switch.
• Kamoso++
• KTuberling++

Something I’d like to hack on is the xrandr support, but I don’t want to open more fronts not until at least I have kio_bluetooth working.

And well, this is all! I hope to blog in a few days announcing KBluetooth 0.4

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So well, as you know, I created a patch some month/weeks ago which adds a small feature to KTuberling (will be available in kde 4.5). Since I like the code, and I’m a “friend? :p” of tsdgeos I proposed myself to Albert to continue with KTuberling at least until he can go back to his *games* duties :p

So, this is my roadmap for KTuberling in KDE SC (KSC?, I don’t like the new branding sorry ._.) 4.5:

1. Support to switch between playgrounds using easier way
2. Possibility to export the playground in some simple web 2.0 service
3. Add Get Hot New Stuff  (in discussion)

If you have any ideas please, drop a bug to bugs.kde.org so we can evaluate it.

Cya!