Re: conduit dev help

["John Stowers" <john stowers gmail com>]

On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 9:33 PM, Matthew Vavrek <matthew vavrek gmail com> wrote:

John,
you aren't the only one who is bad at getting back to people. So far I have only cobbled together a simple interface that uses python-gammu. Although gammu (and especially python-gammu) are definitely incomplete, they seem to be finished to the point where they can extract and write i/vcal and vcard files, which for me is the biggest thing, as I want to be able to use my phone like I was when I was using WinXP, where I had all my contacts and appointments sync'd. I have been trying to figure out how Wammu's automatic detection wizard works, and was thinking about trying to incorporate that into the module, as otherwise most people probably wouldn't be able to actually connect to their phones without hours of online searching for settings.

Right now, the module can fetch vcard and vcal files from either memory or sim, and you can specify where the phone is connected, but I am worried I might have some problems with getting bluetooth to work, as I don't have a bluetooth chip in my computer (although I may buy one). I had been downloading the vcards in the weird format they come in with gammu and wrote some code to translate them, but the developer at gammu seems very accomodating and wrote a function to output vcards as an object in python, which saves me a lot of hassle.

Did you check out the Conduit code from SVN that allready has partial support for autodiscovery (including bluetooth) and calendar/contact?.

It also uses gammu, but was never finished. It is in the PhoneModule dataprovider in SVN.

Perhaps some of your code could be useful with that?

Regards

John
 

I am still relatively new to the whole game of programming, so I can't guarantee my code will be very efficient or pretty, but I am working at it.

In your opinion though, for cell (dumb) phones, does gammu seem to be a good fit or are there any better options out there? SynCE is for Windows Mobile (I thought) and gnome-phone-manager doesn't like my phone, so gammu seemed the best to me.

I will start looking at bugzilla to better understand how to use it, and I'll try to upload the code to there. I'll also try to be better at posting other bugs I find in conduit to the bugzilla as well.

Thanks for your time and starting this project. I think it could be exactly what a lot of people need.

Cheers
Matthew

John Stowers wrote:

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 4:44 AM, Matthew Vavrek <matthew vavrek gmail com <mailto:matthew vavrek gmail com>> wrote:

   John,
   I was wondering about helping out with Conduit. I'll be upfront and
   say that I am still working at my Python (and general coding)
   skills, but as I see it I want to have a program on Linux that will
   sync my cellphone with all my other addressbooks and calendars, and
   seeing as at this point I can't find a good one, I figured I should
   just try helping out to make one. I have already downloaded the
   0.3.15 version, and have been hacking away at it to try and figure
   out the structure of things a bit better. I have managed to get my
   (dumb)phone working with a usb connection through conduit for my
   contacts, but I wanted to ask some questions about proper format,
   calls, etc before I start really putting a lot of time into it.
   Hopefully I can be a bit of help, but let me know if I can ask you
   some more specific questions over email or IRC.
   Thanks
   Matthew Vavrek


Hi Matthew,

Sorry I took so long to respond to your email. Please feel free to ask questions to myself, or to the conduit mailing list.

I would be interested in seeing what you have done so far. Feel free to attach your work to bugzilla, or you can send it to the mailing list. In SVN head there are three prototype ways of talking to phones over USB.

1) Synce (for windows mobile) - Not yet complete, talk to John Carr about the status
2) Gammu/Wammu - Python interface to those phones (mostly nokia) supported by Gammu. Not complete.
3) Gnome-phone-manager - Talks to gpm over dbus to get phone details. Not completed - talk to John Carr about the status

Please reply with any questions

Regards

John Stowers