How to put your apps into the launcher without changing main Config.xml

Hello Guys,

I got my eeeNote two weeks ago and startet some reverse engineering. After a short while the UserApp-Folder caught my attention. I didn't want to fiddle with the main apps config file to integrate new applications into my eeeNote.

After some reverse engineering I found out how to install apps into UserApp. I hope this is usefull for all application developers and porters out there:

Simply create a directory within /UserApp and put the necessary icons and the application into it. Then create a file called config.xml (note the spelling: all lowercase). This file contains the following entries:

Code:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<Config version="1.0">
	<Ap thumbnail="BigIcon.png" note="Description of your app." action="Startup" path="executable" icon="SmallIcon.png" name="Name of your app"/>
</Config>

Save the file as a UTF-8 text file with Unix line endings. The files referenced within this xml-file (icons, executable, etc.) have to be in the same directory as the xml-file.

For the size and format of the icons you can take a look at the preinstalled applications. Just copy their icons sizes. The thumbnail-Icons are the ones with the _b_ within their file name. The icons have an _s_.

After rebooting the eeeNote you'll see the new application appear within the launcher. This makes it possible to install new apps without modifying the main Config.xml.

I hope this helps the application developers to make their apps more modular and reduce the risk of trashing the original eeeNote configuration...

 

Hi SH0DAN

Nice bit of reverse engineering - well done. Any idea yet how user apps interact with the eee server? Is there a user app equivalent of Aconfig? Do user apps still need to send messages to the server to prevent it hanging at the Loading dialogue, etc?

 

Hello BlacKnight,

I used ConsoleQ to try it out. Everything worked without an .Aconfig file. The communication with the eeeServer works flawless. I seems that this file is not necessary if you use the UserApp folder. I'll strace the launcher once more and see if it's looking for the .Aconfig file at all.

I'm currently porting my RSS newspaper app to the eeeNote. As soon as I make some progress (may take some weeks - many other things to do) I'll update this thread if I have new insights on the UserApp mechanism.

Btw.: Is anybody interested in the cross compiled strace utitlity I used for examining the processes on the eeeNote?

 

Thanks for the reply. I haven't used strace before, but it sounds like it would be a useful tool in the armoury. I'm hoping to find time to improve the touch screen/pen driver, so it might help with that. Perhaps you could post it somewhere with any Eee Note-specific instructions?

 

Hallo BlacKnight,

here is the download link for the strace binary for the eeeNote. I've not done any modifications to the source code:
strace_eeeNote.zip

The source can be found here.

 

I did everything as described, without success.

Can you please post a concrete example, including the corresponding config.xml?

M.

 

Hello Muhali,

the attached zip file contains a folder with consoleq that can be copied into the UserApp folder. I removed the consoleq executable to stay within the file size limit. Please fetch it from the appropriate thread within this forum. The executable must be put into the same folder as the other files. After a reboot the consoleq-Application should show up within the menu.

Please let me know if you've still problems.

 

Thanks SH0DAN, but I can't unzip the file in linux (says 'need PK compat. v6.3 (can do v4.6)'). Can you compress the file in a different format, e.g. standard zip, or bzip2?

M.

 

Muhali: Yeah, I had some trouble extracting SHODAN's files at first too You may use 7zip for doing so.

 

Hello Muhali,

I attached the config.xml (mind the case) I used as config.txt. You need the icons and executable from the consoleq thread.

I hope this helps.