Debian is the Universal Operating System and we want to run it on our mobile devices. What are the apps a mobile user needs, and what is the state of readiness in Debian of these apps?
Things to look for:
- Works well on small screen (main window, but also dialogs such as preferences)
- Works well on low-resolution screen (such as 480x272 pocketCHIP)
- Works well with only left clicks (single touch screens)
- Works well with no keyboard (some devices need to use precious screen space for onscreen keyboard)
- Supports gestures where appropriate (scrolling or dragging/swiping)
- Supports multitouch gestures where appropriate (pinch zoom, etc)
- Resource efficient (low-RAM devices)
Things to document:
- Configurations that make the mobile experience better
- Work still to be done
Apps
- EBook Reader: fbreader -- works well on small screen, even with low resolution
- ~/.FBReader/ui.xml for pocketCHIP: attachment:fbreader-ui.xml
- Maemo platform config: https://github.com/geometer/FBReader/blob/7abc80d12fab06b05ea1fe68a0e73ea5e9486463/zlibrary/core/data/default/config.maemo.xml
- XMPP: gajim -- works decently on small screen. Low resolution all windows fit except for the "account settings" window
- ~/.config/gajim/config for pocketCHIP: attachment:gajim-config
- ~/.config/gajim/pluginsconfig/roster_tweaks for pocketCHIP (for use with roster tweaks plugin): attachment:gajim-roster_tweaks
- Snags: without a keyboard, there is no way to show/hide the roster in single-window mode, or to show/hide the menu bar. The menu bar is quite small on a low-res screen, so it is best used with a keyboard. Tabbed conversations can become hard to navigate if you have many open. Need to double-click, click+enter, or right-click to open a chat -- usable on single-touch, but not ideal.
- Auto-join MUCs you have left are re-joined on connection blip: https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/issues/8361
- No way to show/hide the participants panel in a MUC: https://dev.gajim.org/gajim/gajim/issues/8352
- Bible: Xiphos is probably our best bet, if you hide all optional panels it seems fine for small-screen use. Currently all windows will not fit on a low-resolution screen, though at least the main window can (https://github.com/crosswire/xiphos/issues/812) with a very small patch
- Web browser -- pocketCHIP uses surf and you keyboard heavily. Works ok. Maybe firefox? They had a Maemo build back in the day, but it's been abandoned. I see reports online that at least basic touch gestures can be set up with it.
- Update: I am using both surf and firefox on PinePhone now. Both work great with touch, since I guess GTK can tell when it's a real touchscreen vs just a mouse and change gesture support accordingly.
- Midori? https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/another-way-to-browse-the-web-from-your-pocket-c-h-i-p/17550
- UBPorts browser?
- Email: https://dekkoproject.org/
Check out: https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/