HP webOS Developer Blog

In each previous week we’ve used a particular API or technique as the central theme of the hack.  This week I thought it would be fun to do something more open ended.  This means you can use any technology or APIs you want.  It’s entirely up to you how you want to interpret it, so I expect we will have some very creative entries.

The theme this week is “Three”.  That could mean the number three, a book named Three, a trilogy of things, or a game with three legged aliens.  It’s entirely up to you.  Use your imagination to it’s fullest.

Read more ‣

Thanks once again to the people who submitted apps for the weekly App Hack! We continue to be amazed by the creative ways that webOS developers find to turn webOS technologies into fantastic apps in only a week’s time!

This week’s winner goes to a great new app that is sure to find a home on many a TouchPad: Read more ‣

Thanks for your interest in the TouchPad Developer Device Purchase Program. We currently have more requests for coupons than we have devices and will not be accepting any further requests.

If you have already submitted a request for a coupon, we are currently processing requests and will be issuing coupons while supplies last.  We thank you for your patience and look forward to seeing your applications in the webOS App Catalog.

For this week’s app hack we are going to focus on a feature that has always been a passion of mine: multi-touch.  Having the ability to get multiple touch points from the hardware lets you do many interesting things. The most common use is to let the user do an action with multiple fingers, such as a pinch to zoom gesture or a two fingered swipe.  However, there is another use: letting the user do multiple actions at the same time!  Consider a multi-player air hockey game. Each user has a finger on the screen at the same time. While their actions are independent, they are also simultaneous, so we need multi-touch events to make it work.

Read more ‣

Editor’s note: This week we are featuring a guest challenge from rockstar webOS developer Doug Reeder. He has pioneered an app interface that he calls Desk Accessories. Your challenge this week is to create an app that uses this kind of interface. Take it away, Doug!

webOS “Desk Accessories” Using Dashboards and System Popups

Background

Psychological research shows that humans cannot efficiently concentrate on more than one activity at a time. However, there are single activities that require two apps on the screen at once. For example, one might want to compose an e-mail while reading figures from a spreadsheet, or calculate price comparisons while shopping on-line.

Read more ‣

This week’s App Hack will take a look at an API common across all webOS devices: the accelerometer. Generally, it is used to flip the screen around when the user rotates their device, but it can be used for so much more than that.

Accelerometer

The accelerometer can be accessed by listening for two different events: orientation and acceleration. Orientation does the hard work of determining when the user has flipped their device to one of the standard orientations. It also gives you the pitch and roll relative to the current orientation. You can also set the orientation using the setWindowOrientation function. This takes a named orientation of ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘landscape’, ‘portrait’, and ‘free’. The directions like ‘up’ disable rotation and fix the device to one orientation. The ‘landscape’ mode will let the screen flip 180 degrees but always be in wide screen. The portrait mode is similar. And finally ‘free’ will let the user rotate however they choose.

Read more ‣

The apps are in and judging has begun. We will have the winners of the Text to Speech challenge up in a few days. Thanks to everybody who submitted apps!

This week’s challenge is to do something with Exhibition Mode, one of the most under-appreciated features of webOS.

Exhibition mode is a way to turn your TouchPad into an ambient display. When the user puts their TouchPad onto the TouchStone dock, the device will go into a special mode where a single app is shown and the screen will never turn off.  Exhibition mode apps are used for things the user wants to see in the background rather than something they will focus their attention on.

Read more ‣

As explained in yesterday’s post, we are starting a weekly App Hack Challenge. Each week we will post a code sample or explain how to use a particular API.  You will have just seven days to use that code or API to build a cool app.  The app doesn’t have to be huge or complex, just something fun and interesting.  We will be accepting both new apps as well as incorporation of the theme into your existing apps as an improvement.

You have to submit it to the app catalog by October 11th at 11:59pm Pacific Daylight Time to enter. (Submitting to the Beta catalog is fine.) You must then notify us of your entry by email us a link to the app at apphack@palm.com.

The developer of the best app will earn a glory and adulation and the right to call themselves an App Hack Ninja. And to kick off the series, this week’s winner will receive a 32GB TouchPad!

Read more ‣

Developers building applications with webOS 3.0 are enjoying the benefits of the Enyo framework. Enyo is HP’s JavaScript-based framework for building mobile web applications which abstracts the complexities of building features like web service access, localization and complex user interfaces into mobile applications away from the developer. At the same time, mobile developers are increasingly using HTML5 specific features like video, audio, canvas, to name a few, in their applications.

Fortunately, webOS is built on a WebKit engine with strong HTML5 support. HTML5 development for webOS is thus supported by default. Furthermore, the Enyo framework allows developers to take advantage of these HTML5 features in their webOS applications. However, not all supported HTML5 elements are wrapped with convenient Enyo kinds “out of the box.” But it is relatively easy for developers to extend Enyo’s HTML5 support. In this article we explore how to extend Enyo to integrate HTML5 features that are not part of the Enyo framework.

Read more ‣

We’re continuing to provide developers with more opportunities to distribute their apps. Here are some updates we’d like to share:

Paid apps for Australia and New Zealand App Catalogs
Building on the recent addition of HP webOS App Catalogs for Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong, we’re excited to announce that developers will be able to offer paid apps in the App Catalogs for Australia and New Zealand as well.

To make your paid app available in these countries, you will need to select the Australia and New Zealand App Catalogs and designate the price of your app in the My Apps tab. Read our help article for more details.

Submit TouchPad and smartphone apps in a single package
We have also implemented an update to our developer portal that lets you submit a smartphone app and TouchPad app as a single package to the App Catalog. Now developers can offer their apps across multiple webOS devices in a more seamless way. For more information, check out our help article.