[SailfishDevel] When does Jolla give us an API?

Luciano Montanaro mikelima at gmail.com
Mon Feb 3 17:10:59 UTC 2014


Hi everybody,

I too find documentation a bit missing...
But it is not much about APIs, but system level documentation.
Qt documentation is good, at least for the parts that are still
actively maintained.

But SailfishOS uses Qt, on top of wayland, systemd, pulse,gstreamer
and telepathy, and a bunch of other services.

Open source package documentation can be very good, or completely missing.

Moreover, to achjeve the same thing I may use a Qt based API, or, say,
DBUS messages.

So I think that more than the APIs, it is the list of "allowed" or
preferred services that is needed.

SailfishOS as a Linux distribution is quite modern, and it would help
to know more about its plumbing.

Just my 2 cents.

Best regards,

Luciano

On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 5:59 PM,  <christopher.lamb at thurweb.ch> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> my experience is that are a vast amount of apis out there: There is all the
> Qt stuff, the Qt add-ons, Nemo packages, and lower-level stuff like
> telepathy and GST. The problem is not the lack of APIs, but the choice of
> APIs. Which is the best one to use?.
>
> Then if you hit on a likely API, and find some good examples on the
> interweb, then it is not sure that that API will fully work on the Jolla
> (although this is likely to improve with every update as the Jolla matures).
>
> And if the chosen API works from a technical point of view, then that does
> not mean that harbour will permit it ... although this too should improve
> with time.
>
> On the whole I have found the Qt documentation to be very good. Where things
> get a bit shaky is using esoteric things like gaining device resource
> permissions (e.g permission to use the LED, or to access the phones
> contacts). For this sort of thing I often have to resort to the source code
> ....(which at work we call the ultimate documentation .8-) )
>
> mfg
>
> Chris
>
> Zitat von "David Greaves" <david.greaves at jolla.com>:
>
>
>> On 03/02/14 15:29, Putze Sven wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi there,
>>>
>>> during Fosdem I spoke to some people about this, even to Carsten Munk
>>> from
>>> Jolla itself (not in the depth and detail of this mail, I must admit) and
>>> he
>>> suggested to write this in the mailing list, so those of Jolla who should
>>> be
>>> concerned have a chance to answer this question and I really would like
>>> to
>>> hear some official statements here.
>>
>>
>> Did you manage to get to the round-table event? - we spent a fair bit of
>> time
>> talking about APIs there; we also openly discussed the issues we face.
>>
>> I know that the community people there wanted to continue the discussion.
>>
>>> What does a developer need to write quality apps? An API and a
>>> documentation
>>> of such.
>>>
>>> So far there is a quite limited API available and therefore we don't see
>>> too
>>> many apps out there. How will you write a sophisticated app, if the API
>>> is
>>> not available or it is not allowed to use or is only known to those with
>>> Maemo/Meego history?
>>
>>
>> A quick response: we support the Qt API and rather than developing our own
>> proprietary one we're working hard to support the open one as it grows.
>>
>> The Qt documentation is extensive and superb :)
>> Using it in Sailfish Silica apps is less well documented but is improving
>> (and
>> honestly is mainly a tutorial issue for new developers - not an API docs
>> issue).
>>
>> Yes there are some APIs in the mobile space that are not part of the Qt
>> release
>> yet - Qt 5.2 will introduce more.
>>
>> David
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SailfishOS.org Devel mailing list
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SailfishOS.org Devel mailing list



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Luciano Montanaro

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