PyKake version 0.7 is out!

Finally it is  here, it toke me more time than I assumed, but now it is ready! The hart of new version is the new and better Qt based UI (and most of the functionality is also rewritten with Qt too). The new GUI is a final for version 1.0, so it will stay pretty much same as it is now in the future releases. And as I already write, the most of the functionality is also rewritten with help of Qt (and that was one of the main reasons for the delay).

In version 0.7 is more code that there was previously, but less dependencies which can get broken in third party updates (so possibility for dependency error is smaller than it was previously). But in other hand, this also means so called "fresh install", even if you update, the app will act as in first start (reason is changes in configure system), so in updates or re-installs, you will lose your settings and the app will act like it is the first run (but reboot is not needed, hopefully).

You can see screenshots about new gui from this optimistic post I wrote last month. The final GUI is almost same as you see there, except the Timed mode (and in settings, Camera selection includes radiobutton with text "Pentax and Samsung" instead of "Pentax"). The final Timed mode looks like this:

For the sake of simplicity, I changed the ui a bit and added all buttons down and info labels at top. Now the Timed is "available" in portrait mode (not so messy it was previously). But because portrait mode is not yet an offically supported, nothing more about it at the moment.

Feel free to test application and report all bugs to me, at the offical bugtarcker in talk.maemo.org, my email or here (if you don't have account in there, and wont want to create). The app will be in the extras-devel (read the disclaimer at that entry + I don't give you any warrant if you activate the -devel!) today (24.10.10), I may or may not promote it to the extras-testing tomorrow (25.10.10), but probably not, because this is not the "release ready" like the 0.6 was. SO, if you want to play safe, play with 0.6*, if you want to play in edge, try 0.7, but I don't give any guarantee (even it should work perfectly), it is still on development, now towards the 0.7.x.

*) Except, that same rule with extras-testing as with extras-development: No guarantee and you do all by your own risk ;)

Anyway, that's all for it now :) Feel free to test it if you dare and report me about the results (here, to the thread or to my email). The "testers" version will be 0.7.4 or 0.7.5 (and then I start to work with 0.8). At the end of this post is small how to (will be the core of new help file in next release (0.7.1) and the Changelog of 0.7.

PyKake How to:

• Movement: Modes are in tabs, select the tab you need. 
• Basic: For basic photo shooting, just press Shutter button to take a photo (to use 2 seconds delay, in Canon, "Activate mode 2 seconds", others, select it from your camera).
• Bulb: To take photos in bulb mode, 
• Set the time from add time button, set the device so, that it is not in image (if you don't want it to in it). Press Bulb on -button and wait till the device plays a sound (session is ready, device will automatically send a end command).
•  If you don't set the time, timer will count up and when you decide it is ready, press the Bulb off -button. (Timer will play sound at selected time, time can be selected in settings)
• Note for Pentax or Samsung users, device sends continuously IR signal, don't move the device!
• Timed: Mode to take time-lapsed photos. At the default, this will take a photo in 10 seconds perioid, from the moment you press the start button to moment you press the stop button.  You can change settings:
• Add photos: add the maximum number of photos for session (1 to 1000).
• Add time: add the time limit to the session (maximum is 25 hours*).
• Add time interval for photos: add the time between the photos (from 1 second to 24 hours*).
• Set bulb: you can set the bulb time like in bulb mode (from 1 secs to 61 minutes*).
• Viewer: Mode available only for Olympus, use this to control photoviewer.
• System tab / Application menu: System tab is only visible when application is in Fullscreen mode, meaning of it is to offer menu entrys in this mode. System tab includes also a Exit button to exit the application in fullscreen. In application Menu /System tab entrys:
• Settings: settings dialog to change settings:
• camera.
• beeb interval in bulb (sound played when counting up).
• showing hiding restart notify at the start up.
• enable/disable fullscreenmode (reestart needed).
• About: about dialog.
• Help: helpfiles for using pyKake, currently these are little bit out of date (written for GTK version of pyKake, new will be updated as soon as possible).
• Bugtracker: launch the webbrowser to the talk.maemo.org thread.
• Exit: only in System tab in fullscreen mode, close the application.

*) Minus 1 second.

Changelog:

• GTK+ is history, new UI framework is Qt (with PyQt).
• GUI is rebuild from stacked windows to one with Tabs.
• Application is now on Fullscreen as a default, but this can be changed in settings (restart needed at the moment).
• New Timed mode to take timelapse photos.
• Offically support for Samsung (which is compliant with Pentax).
• Bugtracker button to get directly to talk.maemo.org thread.
• Old code dependences for gtk, threading, time, gconf, gobject, pango and hildon have been replaced with QtGui and QtCore from PyQt4 (dependencies with gst and subprocess stays).
• New code dependencies with sys and osso.
• About 600 new lines of code + other 600 rewritten.
• Kind of eastern egg: to use Portrait mode, click Ctrl+Shift+R, this already works with most of the app, but there is still some parts of ui (mostly in Timed) needs to fixing before offical support for portrait (And I need to add it in code too).

PS. Be patient while waiting, while I post this message, version 0.7. is still in autobuilder, so it may take some time, but today it should be there to install.