I'd like to introduce IDE Integration project

At first years of maemo platform, there were no options for IDEs to help developers on maemo programming. The development environment consisted of a command-line interface and a virtual X server, which prints out the output of maemo graphical applications developed with such environment.

There's also another important point: the developer had to constantly switch between different tools (shell-based text editor, compilers, linkers, debuggers, launchers and so on) and this tasks demmands extra time and effort. However, you can argue that you're used to such environment... I agree with you, but what about begginers on maemo development? Are they really used with command-line interface? Are they familiar with editors such as vi or vim?

Therefore, it was verified that an IDE for maemo programming was extremely necessary in order to make maemo applications easier to develop. This fact positively impacts on maemo platform adoption, so more and more developers start programming interesting applications to it a lot quicker. Considering the points described above, maemo.org launched IDE Integration project, which aims to provide a full feature environment that makes maemo development easier and an amazing activity

IDE Integration project consists of 5 components:

• Mica: the Maemo Integration Common Architecture has a lot of features that can used by plug-ins for Eclipse framework for maemo development. Mica has support for C/C++ and Python programming and it already implements a set of connection methods (SBRSH, SSH and RSE) that can be used to launch/debug your applications on Internet Tablets. Since Maemo platform is based on Debian distribution, the solution for application deployment is based on Debian package. Therefore, Mica also provides features to create Debian package from your project and also make it possible to install your package into Internet Tablet.

• ESbox: an Eclipse product for developing applications and libraries on the Maemo software platform. ESbox is strongly integrated with Scratchbox, reducing time and effort for configuration and increasing the productivity for Linux-based embedded systems development. It supports C/C++ and Python programming languages. Maemo 4.x and future SDKs will be supported. ESbox also supports deploying, running, and debugging applications and libraries on the Nokia Internet Tablet. 

• PluThon: an Eclipse product that provides support for developing Python applications for maemo. PluThon does NOT require Scratchbox. Developers run and debug applications directly on a maemo device, speeding up the development time. PluThon offers useful utilities to test and deploy applications directly into Internet Tablet. Therefore, it saves a lot of programmer effort and time and also eliminates the use of command line and archaic text editors.

• maemo SDK virtual images: Maemo SDK Virtual Image project provides a programming environment for maemo platform. This project is an important contribution since it offers the developer a complete maemo programming environment with no need to spend time to download and configure correctly all tools. As main advantage, it offers a VMWare appliance (but also works with QEMU and VirtualBox) with Ubuntu and the main tools used to develop maemo applications, including Scratchbox toolchain, maemo rootstraps with Python for maemo properly installed, documentation, and much more.

• PC-Connectivity: Maemo PC-Connectivity provides tools to simplify setting up of communication between the Tablet and the PC at two parts:

• Connection setup: to configure a TCP/IP connection based on different mechanisms (USB, Bluetooth, WLAN) and different operating systems (Linux, Mac OS and Windows)
• Communication tools: remote shell (SSH, SBRSH), secure remote copy (SCP), mounting file systems (SSHFS, NFS, SMB)

If you haven't explored maemo platform yet, give it a try! In addition, why don't use IDE Integration project to make this experience much interesting ? You can send any report to eclipse-integration at maemo dot org.

--Raul