First Chapter of "Palm® webOS™: Developing Applications in JavaScript Manual Released

Kage_ · 02/16/2009, 01:16 AM

Quote:

The fist chapter of the official resource for programming the new webOS platform, "Palm webOS: Developing Applications in JavaScript Using the Palm Mojo Framework" is now available. The book is written by Palm Vice President and Software Chief Technology Officer Mitch Allen along with members of the webOS development team and is being edited and distributed by O'Reilly Media.

O'Reilly is also hosting a webinar with Mitch Allen on February 25 at 10 a.m. PT to offer developers a preview of the webOS operating system and development environment, followed by a Q&A session. A link to register for the webinar will be available here on Monday February 16th.

Palm.com : Palm Developer Network

I had to shift-refresh to see the updated page. This came hot off of the Palm_inc twitter...

Leet Mongoose · 02/16/2009, 01:20 AM

very intresting...now we get more information

gibsonhtp · 02/16/2009, 01:28 AM

Awesome, gives me some light bathroom reading, lol...

Kage_ · 02/16/2009, 01:29 AM

Only 9 pages, but you can d/l it as a PDF. I noticed this at the bottom of the page.

Quote:

Material on this page is excerpted from the O'Reilly Media book " Palm® webOS: Developing Applications in JavaScript Using the Palm MojoT Framework", ISBN 9780596155254, ©2009, by permisison of the publisher.

I searched the ISB number, but can't find the book yet.

jhoff80 · 02/16/2009, 01:48 AM

I wonder if this points to the SDK coming soon? (Maybe during MWC?)

johncc · 02/16/2009, 01:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kage_

Only 9 pages, but you can d/l it as a PDF. I noticed this at the bottom of the page.

26 pages on my download. Interesting overview.

jhoff80 · 02/16/2009, 01:50 AM

I changed my mind, I don't think that the SDK is coming soon, because of the following:

Quote:

O'Reilly is also hosting a webinar with Mitch Allen on February 25 at 10 a.m. PT to offer developers a preview of the webOS operating system and development environment, followed by a Q&A session.

Sounds like it won't be out before the end of the month at least, otherwise why would they have to preview the development environment.

nlowhor · 02/16/2009, 02:08 AM

Palm Developer Network Blog » Oâ€™Reilly and Palm announce the first book for building apps for webOS - first chapter now available for free

According to this, there will be a link on Monday to sign up to get the book chapter by chapter as it's written using the O'Reilly Rough Cuts service.

Bring it on! I can't wait to see what all we learn this week!

Mahootzki · 02/16/2009, 12:40 PM

Any developer downloaded this, and is able to give us some insight of your findings?

jhoff80 · 02/16/2009, 01:19 PM

I'm not a developer but I downloaded it, and there's not really too much to report on. I mean all the first chapter is is an overview of the OS really.

PalmKing · 02/16/2009, 01:28 PM

I found this interesting (haven't finished reading yet):
"Palm webOS is designed to run on a variety of hardware with different screen sizes, resolutions and orientations, with or without keyboards and works best with a touchpanel though doesn’t require one."

So we may possibly see a device on webOS without a keyboard, maybe a horizontal screen (with a horizontal keyboard slider), smaller or larger screen, without a touchpanel?

Gerorne · 02/16/2009, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treoKing

I found this interesting (haven't finished reading yet):
"Palm webOS is designed to run on a variety of hardware with different screen sizes, resolutions and orientations, with or without keyboards and works best with a touchpanel though doesn’t require one."

So we may possibly see a device on webOS without a keyboard, maybe a horizontal screen (with a horizontal keyboard slider), smaller or larger screen, without a touchpanel?

Like a Foleo. =P Just had to say that.

PalmKing · 02/16/2009, 02:57 PM

Registration link is now active.

ShinAli · 02/16/2009, 03:01 PM

I just skimmed through it in the morning but I'll read it fully tonight. I'll let you guys know what I think.

I'm a software engineer for a military contractor and I've worked on embedded systems, Java and JavaScript extensively.

opacityzero · 02/16/2009, 03:07 PM

Some interesting notes from my reading below:

Printing History: August 2009: First Edition.

Although not formally part of the framework, the Prototype JavaScript framework is bundled with Mojo to assist with registering for events and DOM handling among many other great features.

The media server is based upon gstreamer and includes support for numerous audio and video codecs, all mainstream image formats, and supports image capture through the built-in camera. Video and audio capture is not supported in the initial webOS products, but is inherently supported by the architecture. Video and audio playback supports both file and stream-based playback.

The core OS is based on a version of the Linux 2.6 kernel with the standard driver architecture managed by udev, with a proprietary boot loader. It supports an ext3 filesystem for the internal (private) file partitions and fat32 for the media file partition, which can be externally mounted via USB for transferring media files to and from the device.

Within the Palm Developer Tools (PDT) will include a Tool that "Package & Sign App," however "downloading an application to the device initiates installation of the app provided that it has been validly signed."

jhoff80 · 02/16/2009, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by treoKing

Registration link is now active.

As is the link to buy the book in 'rough cuts' form.

pilot1000 · 02/17/2009, 10:51 AM

Quick developer perspective ...

After reading this, I was greatly encouraged for a few reasons:

1. Although the development is HTML/JavaScript/CSS based, Palm has extended JavaScript to supply an API to the underlying services, such as location awareness, the accelerometer, etc. This is great news. It gives more power than typical web development, but keeps the app development easy for most developers. And keep in mind ... even though it's web-type development, the apps run locally! So, that means they can access the cloud if necessary, but they don't have to access the cloud if they just need local data/services. AND HTML5 provides for local data storage.

2. The SDK will be available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. That's a great way to get widespread if not universal exposure for developers. The iPhone SDK only runs on Mac OS X.

3. The underlying Linux OS is not exposed/accessible other than through the designated service API's. Probably not a big deal, but that means that any emulator may need to "hack" it somehow. I'm not a low-level emulator-type developer, so that's just a guess.

Well that's my 2 cents for now. If I think of anything else, I'll add it.

DaveInFL · 02/17/2009, 07:15 PM

Anyone already shell out the $$ for the book to get the rough cuts ?

GreenHex · 02/17/2009, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by opacityzero

Within the Palm Developer Tools (PDT) will include a Tool that "Package & Sign App," however "downloading an application to the device initiates installation of the app provided that it has been validly signed."

Oh...no... I hope this is not as crappy as the Symbian stuff. I hope independent developers don't have to purchase certificates... Palm! don't do that!

jbg7474 · 02/18/2009, 09:04 AM

There's a fairly nice article posted on PalmInfocenter that has some analysis as well. It mentions some of the same things that have already been captured here, but also includes a nice diagram. Here's a link (mobile):
Digging Through the Latest webOS Developer Details