Conduit on John Stowers

Misc Hacking

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:22:39 +0000

I had two days off while I moved offices, so I got a chance to catch up on my backlog of random hacking.

osm-gps-map

I released osm-gps-map v0.5.0 which adds a few new features (such as keyboard navigation) but also contains many bugfixes and performance improvements. Check the release notes for more information. The next item on the TODO is merging the OSD/layers branch.

Conduit

I released Conduit 0.3.17 which was long overdue. Mostly a bugfix release and updating to new API. The Conduit homepage has also moved to live.gnome.org. Progress on Conduit is a bit slow at the moment, it does everything I want it to (I have a budget cellphone so phone synce does not interest me), and is pretty stable. I have some SOC work I would like to merge, but basically I am looking for developers and inspiration…

Map Widget Release

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:05:31 +0000

I made a new April resolution to start blogging reguarly again. The first step of that long journey begins now.

OpenStreetMap GPS Mapping Widget - 0.3

I just released v0.3 of osm-gps-map, the easy to use Gtk+ mapping widget . Highlights for this release include;

A new major contributor, Alberto Mardegan , who worked on many of the new features of this release. Thanks a lot Alberto!
Draw map tracks with Cairo by default.

Some More Software

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:10:36 +0000

As was the theme of yesterdays post, here comes some more software that I have hacked on recently and can now be found on Github .

**osm-gps-map **osm-gps-map is a Gtk+ widget (and Python bindings) that when given GPS co-ordinates, draws a GPS track, and points of interest on a moving map display. It Currently supports a number of different mapping sources;

openstreetmap (default)
openaerialmap
maps-for-free
satellite maps from a number of proprietary providers

iPhone Synchronization on Linux

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:28:57 +0000

Now that Matt has gone ahead and announced this , I think I should send some more traffic his way. If you are interested in using Conduit to synchronize your iPhone contacts, calendar and notes then go and check out his work .

I hear people like this “iPhone” thingee

Also, I am still looking for volunteers to help me maintain the Google contacts/calendar Conduit dataproviders. They need some love, and I am just one developer.

One Month In France

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 11:29:04 +0000

ENAC

Hi Everyone, Its been a long time between blogging but I have an excuse. I have moved from Christchurch New Zealand , to ENAC , Toulouse, France . I have now been here for a month, working with the UAV team here.

Screen Envy?

The work has been really challenging, and I have settled into my routine, working towards some things I would like to demonstrate before I leave. I have spent a few weeks doing a lot of electronics design, updating the paparazzi autopilot board, the IMU, and the GPS boards. Nothing revolutionary, just some evolutionary improvements over the previous hardware.

A Frustrating Week

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:05:43 +0000

It all started so well. While Conduit was not accepted into GNOME 2.24, it was blessed as an external dependency for this cycle. That is great news for online service integration, and synchronization on the GNOME desktop. Congratulations to everyone who has helped me work on Conduit over these years, and well done to those who made it into the release set.

I was also able to make a 0.3.13 release incorporating those fixes and UI improvements I discussed last time around. After that things started to get worse.

Conduit UI Experiments - Some Conclusions

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:49:03 +0000

Thanks once again to the many people who commented on my last two blog posts . All the feedback has been gratefully received. I just released Conduit 0.3.13 which, amongst other things, features some UI improvements based upon this feedback.

Improvements to the Conduit user interface.

Technically speaking, the release adds a knowledge framework to the application. This makes it easy to assist the user as they work through the interface. New features, utilizing this framework are;

Conduit UI Experiments - Part Two

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:57:03 +0000

Thank you everyone for their constructive comments on my previous post . A number of posters suggested the rounded boxes that conduit uses to group dataproviders were too bold, unnecessary, or both. I would like your opinion on which of the following four choices is the most suitable as a replacement.

Which is the best; 1,2,3 or 4?

Number four is the current implementation. I am leaning towards the first option as a replacement. From testing it seems to look the most consistent on different themes, and I believe it is the most suitable background to place (future) drag and drop hints on.

Conduit UI Experiments

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:55:47 +0000

The discussions regarding my proposal for inclusion of Conduit into GNOME 2.24 seem to be going OK. The inevitable issue of Conduit’s user interface has been raised, and it is good to see some constructive comments being posted.

It is a bit of a simplification, but I see basically three schools of thought with regard to the user interface for synchronizing things. What follows is a brief discussion of the pros and cons of each approach.

GUADEC Report: Late As Usual

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:34:40 +0000

GUADEC was effing awesome. I have successfully repayed my sleep debt, and can reflect on all that I observed and learned for the week. In bullet point form;

_Insurance for the last night (WAKE ME UP, English and Turkish) _

My Conduit talk went really well. I thought I was able to reach a good balance between ’this is cool for users’, ’this is cool for developers’, and ’this is a flagrantly useless technical demo because I can’. Following the talk, and over the rest of the week I had a number of chats with people regarding

More Conduit GSOC Ideas

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:33:21 +0000

I see that Google has extended the SOC application deadline. Here are some Conduit related SOC ideas for GNOME.

Port Tomboy sync to use Conduit (and get free support for $WEBSERVICES) Use Conduits DBus interface and our C# bindings to said interface to be able to configure and initiate synchronization from Tomboy. This means that peer-to-peer Tomboy sync will get easier (no more ssh fuse), and that support for additional websites/mobile devices will become available.

New Conduit Features

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:35:15 +0000

Last week (or so..) I released Conduit 0.3.9 , the notable features of this release were the addition of documentation, and dramatically improved support for removable devices, like USB keys and portable hard drives.

Conduit has always supported removable disks, but the UI for working with them has been dramatically improved. In the screenshot below you will see Conduit automatically suggesting pre-configured dataproviders to sync with folders on the removable device. The use case for this is

Summer of Code

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:22:29 +0000

Work on Conduit is progressing nicely, squashing bugs that have appeared when interacting with the new versions of GNOME applications. I have kind of been tracking the GNOME release schedule (congratulations on the latest release BTW), so I expect to put out another Conduit release this week.

I intend to keep making stable bug fix releases until there are Python GIO bindings. At that time it would probably make sense to branch so that I can begin targeting 2.24, and have the opportunity to land some more invasive changes.

Coming Soon to an Internet Tablet Near You

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:14:19 +0000

Multiple site photo upload
PIM sync to your desktop (including over the air sync using our network sync support)
File/Folder sync to your desktop and to online services such as box.net
The same codebase as Conduit for the desktop
The awesome work of Thomas Van Machelen
Did I say shiny?

They come in pairs

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:28:42 +0000

Following the tradition of the last Conduit release, I realized that I shipped Conduit 0.3.7 with a stupid build issue that broke all the Gmail/Google/Picasa support for people. Following in that tradition here is Conduit 0.3.8 which fixes that, and also features updated icons contributed by mejogid.

For more information:

Conduit developer John Carr has also setup a Ubuntu PPA for Conduit . Check it out if you are interested in running the Latest and Greatest for Ubuntu Gutsy and Hardy.

Conduit 0.3.7: Many Small Updates

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:04:39 +0000

I just released Conduit 0.3.7 . This was another regular release which contains the usual array of bug fixes and a few small new features and tidy ups. This was also the first release made automatically using maintainer . Aside from a few quirks, the tool worked amazingly well.

The next release will feature rewritten user documentation, more conflict UI improvements, and fix whatever bugs crop up in testing its compatibility with new GNOME. Highlights of this release are;

Linux.conf.au Talk

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:36:42 +0000

Just a quick note to say that I’m giving a talk on Conduit at 9:20am Tuesday 29th of January at GNOME.conf.au . Come along if you are interested. I will be going through some demos showing the many ways you can use Conduit including;

As a multiple site photo uploader
To keep your Tomboy notes in sync
As a file/folder sync tool
Keep your GConf preferences in sync over multiple computers

Shape of things to come

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:23:53 +0000

I just committed the first version of a working GObject binding to the Conduit DBus API. You can check out an example test program here .

Contrived Example-like Code

 /* The running conduit app/daemon */
 ConduitGApplication *application = conduit_g_application_new ();

 /* Get two dataproviders, a datasource and datasink */
 ConduitGDataprovider *source = conduit_g_application_get_dataprovider(application, "TestSource");
 ConduitGDataprovider *sink = conduit_g_application_get_dataprovider(application, "TestSink");

 /* Put them in a conduit so we can sync them */
 ConduitGConduit *conduit = conduit_g_application_build_conduit(application,source,sink);
 g_signal_connect (conduit, "sync-progress", (GCallback) _sync_progress_cb, NULL);
 g_signal_connect (conduit, "sync-completed", (GCallback) _sync_completed_cb, NULL);
 g_signal_connect (conduit, "sync-conflict", (GCallback) _sync_conflict_cb, NULL);

 /* Add it to the GUI so the user can see it (optional) */
 ConduitGSyncset *gui_syncset = conduit_g_syncset_new(application, "/syncset/gui");
 conduit_g_syncset_add_conduit(gui_syncset, conduit);

 /* Perform the sync (boom!) */
 conduit_g_conduit_sync(conduit);
 g_main_loop_run (mainloop);

Conclusion

A GObject binding to the Conduit DBus API means you can synchronize your application data, from within your application, in very few lines of code;

Conduit 0.3.6: I can has sleep please?

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:56:07 +0000

Quote courtesy of John Carr , who I had cook me up a patch at 1:30AM UK time. Ahhh the wonder of a 12h time difference.

I just released Conduit 0.3.6, a quick follow up to the last release . It fixes a number of bugs which were preventing some common sync scenarios.

Download
Release Notes
Report Bugs
Mailing List
Test Results
Bugs Fixed
- Fix two-way Tomboy <–> folder sync
- Fix two-way GConf <–> folder sync

Back To Reality

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:48:45 +0000

Conduit 0.3.5: Enough Excuses

I am a terrible project maintainer. It has been a full 3 months since the last Conduit release, and I have run out of excuses. First I got distracted by online desktop shenanigans, then by Opensync and Ubuntu things . I got caught up in moving Conduit to GNOME SVN . Then I got distracted by JHBuild on windows . Finally I lost my nerve and went on holiday, not touching a computer for 3 weeks. Enough is enough!

Jhbuild Adventures on Windows

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:20:18 +0000

Background: I’m going home to my parents house for Christmas, and because I don’t have a laptop, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to use their computer to get Conduit working on windows. However I could not find windows builds of (py )goocanvas anywhere. Never minding a challenge I thought it would be a good experiment to see if I could build pygoocanvas for windows via cross-compilation or natively - both using jhbuild .

The Big Move

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:37:03 +0000

The short news is that Conduit now lives in GNOME SVN . The move took a little longer than I would have hoped, but thats largely my fault. I would like to express my thanks to Olav Vitters for importing the SVN repository, his excellent response time to my emails, and the awesome mango system he created.

Whats Good

Conduit trunk is now pretty much feature frozen. It feels really good to finally cross off the TODO list and fix some of the bugs that I created (due to some poor choices when I started the project). While I will blog again soon about the shiny new features for the moment I will talk about one useful piece of code that I am proud of, and that may be useful to others.

Another n810 Post...

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 12:58:49 +0000

Thanks to the awesome work of Thomas Van Machelen, Conduit has the beginnings of a port to the hildon ui. Whats more impressive, is that unlike me (who owns a n800), Thomas has been doing all this in an emulator. So anyone who reads this, consider this an endorsement of Thomas request for a developer discount code!

Conduit on the n8xx is something I have been looking forward to for a while. The first and most tangible benefits will be giving n8xx users the ability to use Conduits photo sync facilities to upload pictures to all the webservices we support. Beyond this however, there is much more to offer;

One Thousand

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:06:55 +0000

Conduit recently reached 1000 commits, and with it came together some functionality that has been brewing for a while.

Far far far improved nokia n800 support
- You can now sync files, photos, music, and videos to your nokia n800 in an intelligent way (i.e. its not just a dumb file/folder sync).
- The ability to transcode said data to the most appropriate format for the device. FFmpeg/Mencoder is used to transcode audio/video , and gtk.Pixbuf is used to convert photos . The converters use conduits built in dynamic modular plugin system, so if someone wants to write a audio video converter using GStreamer then please contact me.

Unintended Uses

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:11:04 +0000

I just returned to my computer to find that nautilus crashed somewhere in the midst of copying my 50GB (1000 odd holiday videos) from my external hard disk to my NAS via FTP. Not wanting to work out where exactly the crash happened and what files were incomplete or still needing to be copied I thought ‘hey, I could use Conduit to do a one way sync’. So I did, and it worked.