Monday, 12 April 2010

FaceBrick - a Facebook client for Maemo

Another great example of how open source is all about 'scratch your own itch'. I started writing code for a Facebook client on Maemo (although once MeeGo is in a more usable state with regards to UI and application development, I'll be porting it to work there as well) a week or two ago now. I finally got tired of using the Nokia Facebook widget which is totally and utterly useless (if I wanted a link to facebook on my desktop, I'd make one. Ok, it's nice being able to see status updates - but come *on*. Let me click them at least.)

So, I started writing code after having found libqfacebookconnect, using Qt. Within a day or two I had something that could read newsfeeds, and post status updates. I found a Qt on Maemo bug along the way, and spent some time digging into that, but it's progressing nicely, and seems to have been quite popular with the folks in the Maemo community.
(facebrick, pre-v0.1)



A few weeks later, and it's growing really well. I'm happy with the progress (although I have a really long list of stuff I still want to do, including replacing that useless desktop widget).

It's going to keep me busy for a fair while to get it up to scratch, but I'm having fun, and the feedback and mini-community I'm forming around this are awesome.
(facebrick, first release)



I'd also like to take a moment to thank m165 (from talk.maemo.org) amongst others for their many ideas and feedback, lcuk (for his interesting discussion), and MohammadAG (from #maemo and TMO) for his help with packaging (though I still have *a lot* to learn in that department)
(facebrick, latest release)










As (I hope) is visible, it's evolving fairly rapidly, mostly through suggestions from the die-hard early adopters I've found, but it's got a long way to go yet.

Thankfully, most of the fun of software development comes from the ride. ;)
Posted by at 17:53
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30 comments:

  1. Hi Robin
    Just a quick note of thanks and hopefully, encouragement from a humble 'end consumer' who appreciates your hard work and enthusiam. I know my sentiments are shared by many like me and I genuinely wish you loads of luck with your code fiddling and wizardry! :-)
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  2. this is the kind of app that makes me love my n900 and coming from iphone its 1 app i did miss. you have done a fantastic job so far. thank you. se23
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  4. could the status update bar be above, like in the first version? or maybe it could be managed over settings?
    I like the app, but I don´t like that tapping on a status opens the webbrowser to the facebook site.
    Thank you
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  5. Completely off topic, just wanted to say I love the app name! My N900 is affectionately known as "The Brick" both in bluetooth setup and in /etc/hostname...
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  6. I wish Gwibber was available for N900, it really is a great multiplatform client for FB, Identi.ca, Twitter and others, and would be great with a widget. I know i know, it might not be so much fun for the developer (you in this case) to jump on some existing bandwagon than make your own design and implementation from scratch, but i think Gwibber for Maemo would be the /bomb/.
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  7. This rather cool and can't wait to see a desk top version. Keep up the good work and Nokia should pay you for your hard work
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  8. call me stupid, but where do I download it?
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  9. @Martin: thanks! it wasn't inspired by the form factor, but I certainly had a laugh just now :)
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  10. @xmacex: the purpose of facebrick and gwibber are quite different, but I have discussed porting gwibber a few times, yes.

    I don't have time at present though :P
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  11. @Rudeboi70: technically it already runs on a desktop though it's far from ideal for use there for various reasons. thanks for your feedback!
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  12. @crackdatrobocop: take a look in extras-devel
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  13. Hi, the app is very good. The thing I miss the most is to see how many comments an item has got. Is it possible to add that info, maybe on the right just below or next to the time info?
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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.
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  16. I realy love this appl :) I hope that one day I could see msges in it or chat option :)
    Great work man! :)
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  18. Unfortunately I can't install it on my Vodafone N900, I get a libraries missing message. Is it because my Vodafone firmware is not the latest for this device (Vodafone always seem to be behind when it comes to releasing firmware updates for their devices)?
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  19. @worrierprincess: hi! yes, that is likely the problem. FaceBrick now requires the latest Maemo update, PR1.2.

    You should be able to get the firmware from http://tablets-dev.nokia.com and update it yourself, see the instructions on http://wiki.maemo.org/Updating_the_firmware

    Best of luck!
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  20. hi , thanks for the application and i love it so much!

    do hope next version can view the video in facebrick
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  21. any idea when this would be promoted to the testing repos??? I am scared of using devel repos due to obvious reasons.
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  22. Have been watching and waiting for this to get promoted. Finally decided I just need to get it. Loving it so far. Very smooth UI and much potential. Great work!
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  23. Hi. First I want to say thank you for this app. Its great.
    Then I wonder if its available in source code? :)
    Or ts not opensource perhaps?

    I tried adding deb-src repos but could not find the source package. Reason why Im interested is I wanted to look at/play with the encoding, as it seems some posts get all messed up encoding, for me atleast. Mostly people typing in chars not between the standard a-z range.
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  24. hi Robin... the app was great but I've I cannot login to it anymore lately. it says "Error loading newsfeeds: 5 Unauthorized source IP Address". what does this mean please?
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  25. Hi Robin,

    I am having the exact same issue as Noel Embradura. Could you let us know how to address it? I looked around and saw something about libqfacebook, but I have the latest version.
    ReplyDelete
  26. Im having the same problem and i can't seem to get it working can you fix this a.s.a.p awesome app but really could do with it working
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  27. I got the same problem .....
    "Error loading newsfeeds: 5 Unauthorized source IP Address"
    what does this mean ????????
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  28. "Error loading newsfeeds: 5 Unauthorized source IP Address
    I'm having the same problem, how do I fix this?
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  29. I am also gettin this error. I guess like everything else Maemo the development on facebrick is stunted because of Nokia abandoning the OS? What a shame. Guess it is best to simply buy an Android phone since buying a Nokia seems to be like playing russian roulette with your money.
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  30. @silingual (and others): no, not related to Nokia.

    Please see: http://blog.rburchell.com/2010/09/facebrick-end-of-line-for-me.html
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