Sailfish OS update from Jolla
We have had busy weeks since last fortnight. Last Friday we published free beta versions of Xperia 10 IV and 10 V. There are known issues but they are usable for the brave ones. We have now dedicated feedback topics for them both. Please utilize them.
We are on course to start Jolla C2 mass production next week on 1st October 
. We’ll provide updates regarding the final payment links on the delivery update topic as usual. Similarly, we update on the delivery progress.
Branching of 5.0 happened last week and here-and-there you start seeing upgrade-5.0.0 git branches. The translation round of 5.0 hopefully starts during this week. The image that we’ll be using in the mass production is called RC0 – release candidate zero. We’re targeting the first 5.0 over-the-air update to be in your hands when you receive your Jolla C2.
Finally, we updated Marketplaces to the Jolla Store. We removed Aptoide from the offering, added Aurora Store and updated F-Droid. Next, we’ll update the Sailfish docs regarding the offering.
Energy from the Community
End of this week, you are hacking @ Prague. Doing things together and you all rock!
Please share some feelings from the events as well 
Repository roundup
Besides some usual library updates and some interesting minor changes like a prefix-based phone number filtering capability or the device not re-notifying unread SMS on device restart, branches named upgrade-5.0.0 appeared in some repositories. This means that the version 5.0.0 is considered stable enough by the team to get tested internally as a whole distribution and already got fixes for regressions or bugs during these internal tests.
Network and telephony stack
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sofia-sip, a SIP library, direc85 updated it to 1.13.17. -
openvpn, a VPN solution, direc85 updated it to 2.6.12. -
connman, the connection manager, in order to avoid blockingvpndwhen network is not properly connected, Laakkonenjussi proposed to resolve the DNS with GResolve first and fallback togetaddrinfo()later. Laakkonenjussi also fixed the shutdown process in case of WireGuard VPN. -
voicecall, the open source part of the calling application, dcaliste completed the incoming call filter plugin by extending it with prefix matching. pvuorela labelled ongoing call records with a.tmpextension since wave files got their metadata on completion and are not readable without them.
Native browser
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embedlite-components, QML components for the browser, b100dian added a workaround for invalid certificates by allowing them temporarily.
Main interface
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nemo-qml-plugin-filemanager, QML bindings for file management, pvuorela fixed an issue in the file manager triggered when opening a directory that does not exist. It will never be observed for changes after it has been created. -
commhistory-daemon, the daemon handling call and message history, pvuorela avoided notifications (of SMS of missed calls) to be notified again on service (or device) restart. -
libcommhistory, the library to access SMS / phone history, pvuorela removed unused functions from being publicly visible fromcommonutils.hheader file. dcaliste added a metjod to create Recipient object from simple phone numbers. He also updated the code to use logging categories, allowing to get debugging informations by exportingQT_LOGGING_RULES="com.nokia.commhistory.debug=true".
Multimedia framework
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libwebp, a library for encoding and decoding image in WebP format, pvuorela updated it to 1.4.0. -
libtiff, a library to read TIFF image files, pvuorela updated it to 4.7.0.
Low level libraries
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polkit, an authorisation framework, pvuorela updated it to 125. This update drop the dependency tomozjsis favour ofduktape. It allows to drop several patches and to follow upstream versions more closely. -
duktape, an embeddable Javascript engine, pvuorela added the repository and initialised it with version 2.7.0. -
libarchive, a library to handle compressed formats, direc85 updated it to 3.7.4. -
shadow-utils, used to manage the the shadow password files, direc85 updated it to 4.16. -
libshadowutils, a library to used shadow tools, direc85 worked on an update to 4.16.0. -
libcontentaction, a library for associating content with actions, the dependency to QDBus was dropped sometimes ago and pvuorela now cleaned up the RPM spec file to build the package accordingly. -
crash-reporter, a tool to report application crashes, pvuorela replaced calls toqdbusbydbus-sendwhich allow not to installqt5-qtwidgetsandqt5-qttools-qdbuspackages. -
pam, an extensible library which provides authentication for applications, pvuorela reworked the packaging and upgraded it to 1.6.1. -
bluez5, the Bluetooth stack, pvuorela spotted thathwdatawas not needed anymore to build the project and drop the dependency. -
hwdata, hardware identification and configuration data, pvuorela updated it to 0.387 and separately packaged the development files. -
mlite, the configuration storage library, pvuorela cleaned up the packaging and some parts of the code. -
timed, time and alarm handling daemon, pvuorela also cleaned up the packaging and some parts of the code. -
xdg-dbus-proxy, filtering proxy for D-Bus connections, pvuorela proposed to update it to 0.1.6.
Developer’s corner
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vim, the text editor, mal updated it to 9.1.0727. -
busybox, a single binary which includes versions of a large number of system commands, Thaodan diasbled the builtinsleepmethod since it may exit a shell before it is intented to, breaking the recovery mode for instance.
App roundup
Digging through the list of recently released apps is one of the joys of writing the app roundup section. There are always far more releases than it’s possible to include and the breadth of ideas can be breathtaking. Often you’ll see a developer has gone through their catalogue and updated all of their apps, leaving a trail of releases all by the same author in the new apps list on the Jolla Store or the recently updated in Storeman. Most exciting of all is when a pattern emerges: a gaggle of games; a multitude of music players; a troupe of travel apps.
This fortnight we nearly got a pattern… but not quite. The first two apps today are both built around clocks. I was hoping more time-related apps would appear in the new app feeds, but it wasn’t to be. But not to worry, there are plenty of others besides and so we have four apps and half a pattern. Two apps that are time-related accompanied by a couple of apps that, frankly, I just liked the look of.
First up is CPR Metronome from KeeperoftheKeys. This is our first time based app and you should recognise the author from their work on gPodder which we featured back in May this year. CPR Metronome is a very different app. In an ideal world it’s an app everyone should have installed but nobody should ever have to use.
The app provides a potential life line as a metronome that clicks, 110 times per minute, to indicate when to give CPR compression in the event of an emergency. While the app itself doesn’t provide instructions, there are very clear instructions in the app description which I won’t repeat here. I admit, with some embarrassment, that I’m not a first-aider, so had to get the help of someone with a background in first aid. Their first reaction when hearing the clicks was surprise that they’re not exactly evenly spaced, although we concluded this wasn’t an issue. They were, however, pleasantly surprised that the app has a timer to record how long the CPR has been ongoing, along with buttons to record when the emergency services were called and when someone was set to find a defibrillator. Apparently, these timings are some of the things the emergency services are likely to ask about.
It’s a simple app to use, but of course no substitute for good training. It’s definitely made me contemplate my own inadequacies when it comes to first aid. As the app description explains: “consider taking a CPR course near you so that if you ever end up in this situation you will know what to do and not need to learn on the fly”.
CPR Metronome is a new app, still at version 0.1 but nevertheless worth the download and available from OpenRepos.
A task I’m much more comfortable with is cooking. I’m a terrible cook, but not in a way that’s likely to put anyone’s life at risk (at least, I hope not…). Our next app, Cooktimer from Arno Dekker (ade) is a simple but effective way to improve your culinary effectiveness. Up until now I’ve been a big fan of using Jolla’s Clock app for my timing needs when rustling up something to eat. Cooktimer wraps up similar functionality in an app that’s tailored for cooking. It provides multiple timers that can be given appropriate names and all controlled neatly from a single screen. Timers can be started, paused and reset. The length of time can be adjusted from the main screen in steps of a minute by tapping the plus and minus buttons. I was a little disappointed not to be able to bump up and down the timer while it’s running though. I often decide I need to add an extra couple of minutes on but without losing the original timing information.
There are some other restrictions: only three timers can be used at once for example. The flip side to this is that it means all three timers can be controlled directly from the cover page. That’s a nice touch. Perhaps the biggest advantage of the app over using the inbuilt Clock app is that you can build up a long list of timers for different cooking requirements without it cluttering up the timer screen. Selecting the three timers needed for a particular dish is then super-swift and easy: just press on the name and select the ingredient to be cooked from a list. Great stuff!
The latest version of Cooktimer fixes some bugs related to the timer banner and the cover page. This version 0.4.3 is available from OpenRepos.
Next up we have an app that’s been around for many years, but which has only had the briefest of mentions in previous newsletters. Foil Notes from Slava Monich (slava) is a companion to his Foil Pics and Foil Auth apps. Foil Notes provides very similar capabilities to Jolla’s own Notes app. The key difference is that, alongside the standard note functionality, Foil Notes also provides the ability to store a set of encrypted notes that require the user to enter a password to gain access to.
The app makes good use of the Sailfish swipe gesture to switch between the unencrypted and encrypted notes. Crucially, the unencrypted notes are literally the same as those in the standard Notes app. That means you can switch out to using Foil Notes without having to re-enter all of your notes again. Part of the intention is also to provide plausible deniability: put your non-confidential notes in the unencrypted side and any casual observer never even has to know that you have encrypted notes stored separately.
Foil Notes adheres to the design of Jolla’s Notes app pretty closely, so if you’re familiar with Jolla’s app you’ll immediately feel at home with Foil Notes. There are some small differences though: the ability to rearrange notes using drag and drop, rather than just being able to push individual notes to the top of the stack makes organisation a lot easier. The search bar appears automatically when you open the pulldown menu, although I found this a little disconcerting. Plus there’s also the rather unusual ragged design of the note header bars. Although I’m not a complete fan of the original Note app design, I very much approve of the way Foil Notes mimics it. As an end user, it makes me much more comfortable with the idea of switching over to Foil Notes wholesale.
Foil Notes is now at version 1.1.5 available from the Jolla Store, OpenRepos and Chum. The latest version introduces the nice feature of configurable font sizes.
Finally we have a new app from veteran Jolla developer Tomi Leppänen (Tomin), who you may recognise from his amazing work on Patience Deck. Country Quiz is another puzzle-style game, but very different in nature, being both fun and educational. Like Patience Deck it combines multiple games, but not quite to the same order of magnitude. Country Quiz offers to test your general knowledge in one of three different ways: country flag recognition, country location identification and capital city knowledge.
Even with my appalling skills in geography I was able to get a decent enough score in Easy mode. This offers three options and an entire minute of thinking time. That’s enough time to rule out some options and greatly increase your chances of a correct answer. Bump the difficulty up to Veteran and you’ll have only fifteen seconds to choose between five different options. It may sound like a relatively small difference, but the impact on my success rate was significant.
It’s also one of those rare games you can play with more than one person. It was fun to play in a pair, especially with that slight tension when there’s disagreement over the answer.
But what I really love about the game is that, while at first I felt out of my depth, over time I could feel myself getting more confident in my answers. My scores increased correspondingly and, after a couple of hours of play, I had to admit that I’d probably learnt something. That’s a high bar for any game to surpass.
If you love geography then you’ll no doubt enjoy your success with this game. If, like me, you’re at the other end of the scale, then you might be surprised how much you enjoy playing Country Quiz and accidentally learning in the process.
Although Country Quiz is a brand new release it’s already managed to make it up to version 0.4, which is available from OpenRepos.
That’s it for the app roundup this fortnight. While I may not have been able to stick to the pattern of time-oriented apps for all four this newsletter, I hope you’ll agree there was nevertheless a pattern. All four app are high quality, thoughtfully designed and nicely implemented apps, worth having on your phone.
Please feed us your news
As always, please do not hesitate to share your ideas, thoughts, or suggestion for future newsletter topics.
Hope you enjoyed reading this one!
Welcome to join us at our community meetings on IRC, Matrix and Telegram. Next community meeting will be on the 3rd October. Let’s keep on working together!
