HP webOS Developer Blog

We have just released webOS 3.0.5 as an over-the-air update for TouchPads, and the 3.0.5 SDK is now out of Early Access. Get the latest and greatest here.

Highlights include a new Sensor API, the ability to have plug-ins use both processor cores, and improvements to audio and video playback, plus various updates to Enyo we think you’ll like. We’ve also incorporated a homebrew patch to the Bluetooth SPP service to support binary data, so we expect to see some hardware hacks soon. (Hmm—new App Hack theme?)

Enjoy!

Once again, a big thanks to everybody who submitted apps for the Weekly App Hack. This week’s theme was “Accelerometer”, and we received some very interesting entries. It’s amazing how many different ways you can use such a seemingly simple feature.

Without further ado, we are pleased to announce that this week’s winner of the contest and an HP TouchPad is…

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One benefit of developing for a JavaScript framework like Enyo is being able to take advantage of existing 3rd party JavaScript libraries. Using these add-on libraries allows us to quickly implement tools, controls, and animations to our applications with minimal effort.

If you’ve been wondering how to start using other libraries with Enyo, webOS Developer Relations Engineer Jeremy Thomas has a new tutorial on the Developer Portal just for you. Check it out here.

Do you have questions about best practices for using buttons in your app? Maybe you’d like advice on the best way to use buttons in a dialog box. Well, our own Tomomi Imura, webOS Developer Relations’ in-house UI wizard is here to help with her new tutorial, “Creating Usable UI—Buttons and Interactive Dialogs”, available now on the webOS Developer Portal. She’ll walk you through button setup, the proper use of color and text, and how best to use buttons in intuitive, consistent user dialogs.

Consistent user interaction is one of the keys to happy users. So, check out Tomomi’s tutorial and get coding!

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.

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Have you been wanting to add maps, complete with pushpins and infoboxes to your Enyo-based app? We’ve added a tutorial from our own Markus Leutwyler (@twtomcat for those following him on Twitter) that shows you all the details.

You’ll find the article on the HP webOS Developer Center here.

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!

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Looking for an opportunity to flex your webOS skills on a new app, but need a bit of inspiration to get your creative juices flowing? We’ve got the answer for you. For the next few weeks, we’re going to hold weekly, virtual, mini-hackathons around some cool aspects of webOS development you may not be familiar with yet.

Interested? Here’s how it works:

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In this article, I want to share how you can help ensure that your custom kind’s components are contained where you want them to be.

Let’s start with the following example: Here is a kind that is simply a VFlexBox with a Header (for a header), a Scroller (for holding whatever gets added later), and a Toolbar (for a footer):
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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.

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