Ubuntu Precise Open for Translation

I am pleased to announce that our current development release, Ubuntu Precise, is now open for translation:

Some additional information that will be useful for translators:

• Translation schedule. Remember that according to the release schedule translatable messages might be subject to change until the User Interface Freeze on the week of the 23rd of February.
• Language packs. During the development cycle, language packs containing translations will be released twice per week except for the freeze periods. This will allow users and translators to quickly see and test the results of translations.
• Test and report bugs. If you notice any issues (e.g. untranslated strings or applications), do check with the translation team for your language first. If you think it is a genuine bug, please report it.
• Learn more. Learn how to start translating Ubuntu and enable millions to use it in their language.

Ubuntu 12.04 will be a Long Term Support release, so let’s rally around translations to provide the best translated OS around and go over the mark of nearly 40 languages in which Ubuntu is fully translated!

open image by loop_oh – License: CC by-nd 2.0

Building the Ubuntu App Development community (I): communication channels

One of the main objectives for the Ubuntu 12.04 cycle is to build upon the foundations set by the Ubuntu App Developer site, My Apps and the Ubuntu Software Centre and start building an Ubuntu App Developer community to realize the vision of a rich ecosystem of apps around Ubuntu. This is the first of a series of posts that will discuss several aspects of this goal, how to get involved, and the benefits of Ubuntu as a target platform for both developers and users.

An important aspect of each community is to ensure that there are easily accessible resources that can act as a venue for communication for anyone wanting to get involved. For the Ubuntu App Developer community, but also in general, the degree of involvement will then vary according to what the individuals connecting to our app developer story are looking for. Some will be seeking help, some will be able to provide help, some will want to contribute to build the developer story, some will want to stay up to date with the news, some will write applications… The first step is to ensure that we cover the main venues, or connecting points to our story for them.

We already started out creating some of these resources ready for the launch of the Ubuntu App Developer last cycle, but we’ve been adding some more recently and I thought at this point it would be a good opportunity to provide an overview of the variety of ways to get involved and stay up to date with App Development in Ubuntu. So without further ado…

Stay up to date

This is a set of channels to follow and share the news and announcements related to Ubuntu App Development.

The Ubuntu App Developer Blog – the official source for news, updates, new tutorials and other application development content in Ubuntu. You can read it and subscribe to it

Ubuntu App Developers on G+ – the Google+ page to for anyone interested in app development in Ubuntu to read and share updates. You can add it to your circles or +1 it

Ubuntu App Developers on Facebook – the Facebook page, also for enthusiasts of app development in Ubuntu to follow and comment on the latest news. You can like it.

Ubuntu App Developers on LinkedIn – the LinkedIn group for professionals wanting to know more about publishing their apps in the Software Centre. You can join it.

Ubuntu App Developers on Twitter – you prefer 140 character updates? @ubuntuappdev is also tweeting away in the microblogs world, spreading the news on Ubuntu App Development. You can follow it.

Ubuntu App Developers on Identi.ca – if your microblogging choice is the open source alternative to Twitter, Ubuntu app developers are also on identi.ca. You can follow it.

Get (or give) support

This is a set of channels to either get help, give help, or actively contribute to discussions related to Ubuntu App Development.

Ubuntu App Development on Askubuntu – the central place to get and provide support for all your app development questions. You can ask questions, answer questions, read the FAQ and subscribe to the questions feed.

Ubuntu App Development Mailing list – the list is also the place for support, but also for discussion of new topics, coordination of work and announcements related to building the Ubuntu App Developer story. You can subscribe to it or send e-mail.

Ubuntu App Development on IRC – for those seeking real-time support on text or simply a friendly chat amongst app developers. You can enter the IRC channel.

Contribute

This is an overview of some of the ways in which to contribute to the Ubuntu App Developer story.

Create an app – the most obvious way to make an impact is to actually create an app to be distributed to millions in the Software Centre. You can learn how to get started, how to publish, and actually publish your application. Also check out the video tutorial in how to get started in app development on Ubuntu in a matter of minutes.

Submit a tutorial – knowledge sharing is a key contribution to app development in Ubuntu. If you know about  an app development topic you’d like to see featured and shared in the Ubuntu App developer site, you can submit a tutorial.

Join the ARB – our vision is that both open source and commercial applications are the key to a successful app ecosystem in Ubuntu. The Application Review Board are a group of individuals committed to reviewing and helping open source apps thrive in this environment. If you have technical skills and want to contribute to this goal, they need your help.

All in all, this now gives no excuse not to know what’s going on in the app development world and to get involved. Now let’s get to work to have a stunning App Developer story!

 Social Media Icons by Paul Robert Lloyd

Translations sessions at the 12.04 Ubuntu Developer Summit

So now it’s the turn for the translations post!

For all of you interested in helping and being part of the effort of making Ubuntu available in any language, here’s a quick list with an overview of the Ubuntu Developer Summit sessions we’ve got in store this week.

Remember you can register your interest in sessions you want to attend or keep up to date with by using the Subscribe link on each session’s blueprint. The links in the list below will take you to the blueprints used to define the specifications for each feature or goal. You can also check out the full UDS schedule.

So, without further ado, here’s the list of translations sessions:

• Translations roundtable – a roundtable discussion for all topics related to Ubuntu Translations. Add yours to the whiteboard!
• Localized ISO community growth – an initiative to raise awareness and increase usage of the localized ISO tools created last cycle
• Translations portal relaunch – relaunching and growing the Ubuntu translations portal
• Complete desktop Simplified Chinese translation – an effort to reach 100% translation coverage for the Simplified Chinese ISO in 12.04

See you all there!

App developer sessions at the 12.04 Ubuntu Developer Summit

UDS is here again. Tomorrow another week packed with content that will define the plans for a new Ubuntu LTS release will start, and this time around application development will be a prominent topic.

So for all of you interested in helping and being part of the effort of making Ubuntu a platform of choice for application developers, here’s a quick list with an overview of the sessions we’ve got in store this week.

Remember you can register your interest in sessions you want to attend or keep up to date with by using the Subscribe link on each session’s blueprint. The links in the list below will take you to the blueprints used to define the specifications for each feature or goal. You can also check out the full UDS schedule.

So, without further ado, here’s the list of app development sessions:

• Software Center roadmap – the feature planning for Software Center in the upcoming release
• App developer community growth – laying out the foundations to build and grow the Ubuntu app developer community
• App developer resources section update – the plans to update the Information Architecture on the resources section of the app developer site
• App developer support community growth – defining the roadmap for a community to share knowledge and provide support between app developers
• App developer tutorial growth – an initiative to create a rich set of development tutorials on the app developer site
• App Review Board update and planning – the App Review Board roadmap for 12.04
• Quickly 12.04 Enhancements – the plans to make Quickly better and keep pace with the platform
• Qt panel – a Q+A and all-round discussion session about the Qt roadmap and other topics
• Qt integration – a session on how to integrate Qt to Ubuntu development tools and APIs
• QtQuick workshop for designers – a showcase of the tools QtQuick makes available to designers to integrate their output in the development workflow

Oh, and don’t miss the Application development and the Qt keynotes on Tuesday

See you all there!

Translations and App development sessions today at the Ubuntu Open Week

Just a heads up that this week is Ubuntu Open Week!

Ubuntu Open Week is a series of online workshops where you can:

• Learn about the Ubuntu landscape
• Talk to some of the key developers from the Ubuntu project
• Find out about the Community and its relationship with Canonical
• Participate in an open Q&A with Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu. (*)

I’ll be running two sessions for everyone wanting to learn more about either translating Ubuntu or writing apps for Ubuntu (or both!):

• WHERE: #ubuntu-classroom IRC channel on the Freenode network
• WHAT, WHEN:
• 14:00 UTC How to contribute translating Ubuntu – learn how to translate Ubuntu in your language
• 16:00 UTC Writing your first Ubuntu app – a very gentle introduction to writing a simple “Ubuntu rocks!” app, and explaining its lifecycle from creation to publication, with tips along the way.

(*) Mark is on vacation this week, but we’ll schedule a separate IRC session with him, stay tuned!

Making Ubuntu available in 50 languages

Quoting the Ubuntu philosophy, one of our  core values is to provide the ability for every computer user to use Ubuntu in their language of choice. This in turn is made possible by an army of volunteer translators, who throughout the development cycle and beyond, tirelessly put their translation skills to work in an outstanding feat to make a full operating system accessible to millions.

As we’re ramping up to the Ubuntu 11.10 release in a few day’s time, there’s another important milestone for ensuring Ubuntu is available in as many languages as possible: the translations deadline on the 6th of October.

Up until now, and considering the 80% coverage cut-off, Ubuntu 11.10, the Oneiric Ocelot, is translated in 38 languages, lead by the Slovenian team’s heroic effort of becoming the #1 team in the ranking.

Making Oneiric the best translated Ubuntu release ever

Last cycle Ubuntu was fully translated in 43 languages. I think this cycle we should be able to aim for more, and I’m confident that with everyone’s help we could reach the 50 fully translated languages mark.

There are a few languages that are very close to reaching the 80% translation level:

Basque, Latvian, Hebrew, Uyghur, Albanian, Estonian, Bengali, Punjabi

And others which might need an extra push to climb up the 60% to 70% mark to reach 80%:

Serbian Latin, Hindi, Indonesian, Tamil, Thai, Telugu, Slovak, Arabic, Belarusian, Gujarati

So if you speak any of these or other languages, here’s what you can do to help yours reach the 80% level and make it to the list of supported languages:

1. Go to the Ubuntu 11.10 translation statistics page
2. Click on your language to find out which packages need attention
3. Find those packages in the list of Ubuntu translations
4. Translate them!
• You’ll want to contact the translation team for your language or check out their documentation to ensure you’re using a consistent terminology
• They’ll also help you get started with translations and answer your questions

Note: the translations statistics are updated daily at 12:00 UTC.

More on translations

• If you want to learn more about translating Ubuntu check out our Translations quickstart guide
• If you want to get in you can follow us on e-mail, on Facebook, identi.ca, twitter and in other ways

And now for something different

If there is any web guru out there who’d like to lend a hand, help with the CSS and the JS code for the stats page would be greatly appreciated.

One cool thing I’d like to do for instance is for translators to, once they’ve clicked on their language, be able to click on a package that needs attention and be taken to the corresponding Launchpad Translations page. This only needs the corresponding rows in the table to be linkified, which is something I’ve been struggling with and I’m sure would be a five-minute job for an experienced web developer.

So if you want to help translators with your web skills, drop a comment here or feel free to submit a bzr branch. Thanks!

Looking forward to the best translated Ubuntu release ever!

Announcing the Ubuntu App Developer site

I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a significant milestone in the ongoing effort of making Ubuntu a target for app developers: the new Ubuntu App Developer site.

Developer.ubuntu.com should now be the central point of reference for any topics related to application development. From creation to publication: porting, sharing, contributing, finding information… a site that should grow organically to provide the tools, share the knowledge and act as the springboard to foster app proliferation and developer community growth in this exciting area.

Embracing the concept that for sustainable business development and wider adoption Ubuntu should provide the ability to purchase apps as well as to install open source software for free, the site has been developed with that exact idea in mind. In that regard, developer.ubuntu.com has been built upon the foundations of existing tools such as the Ubuntu Software Centre and My Apps to offer a unified and consistent journey for both open-source, non-commercial and commercial app authors.

A quick walk through the App Developer site

All sections of the site have been carefully designed upon research and user testing to provide a simple yet intuitive journey to app developers, from software creation to publication and distribution in the Ubuntu Software Centre. Here’s a quick guide:

• Get started – an introduction to the recommended tools and the workflow for Ubuntu app development, including a video to kickstart new developers in less than five minutes.
• Resources – a growing directory of resources to support app development in Ubuntu: reference documentation, guides, tutorials and more.
• Publish – a simple guide to app publication in the Ubuntu Software Centre, including an extensive FAQ on how to publish commercial applications.
• Community – the place to get involved, share and actively participate within a network of like-minded developers, including the app developer blog.
• My Apps – an online tool to enable app developers go straight from a finished app to the Software Centre, making publication a seamless process.

Big thanks

In this project I’ve had the privilege of working with the Web Design team, who essentially made the site happen. It’s been a fun ride, and they’ve produced a truly stunning result in a very tight schedule. To them, and to many Canonicalers and other members of the Ubuntu family go the thanks for making developer.ubuntu.com possible.

Next steps

This is just the beginning. For all its current awesomeness, we are aware that the site needs to pass the test of a wider audience, adapt to their needs, and grow. Expect more developer.ubuntu.com discussions at the next Ubuntu Developer Summit in Orlando, Florida, where any community member can participate and contribute to the discussion of the future plans for the site.

In the meantime, there are two easy ways in which you can already start participating:

• Tutorials – we’re in need of more tutorial content, and you can help other developers by having your tutorial featured on developer.ubuntu.com
• Bugs – help us test and improve the site by reporting any bugs that you might find

This is a very exciting and new territory for Ubuntu, and I’m thrilled to see all the progress we’re making in this area. This is going to be awesome.

Goodbye And Thanks For All the Apps: Ubuntu App Developer Week – Day 5 And Wrap-Up

Another edition of the Ubuntu App Developer Week and another amazing knowledge sharing fest around everything related to application development in Ubuntu. Brought to you by a range of the best experts in the field, here’s just a sample of the topics they talked about: App Developer Strategy, Bazaar, Bazaar Explorer, Launchpad, Python, Internationalization, Launchpad Translations, Unity, Unity 2D, Gedit Developer Plugins, the MyApps Portal, the App Review Board, the UbuntuSoftware Centre, Unity Mail, Launchpad Daily Builds, Ubuntu One APIs, Rapid App Development, Quickly, GooCanvas, PyGame, Unity Launcher, Vala, the App Developer Site, Indicators, Python Desktop Integration, Libgrip, Multitouch, Unity Lenses, Ubuntu One Files Integration, The Business Side of Apps, Go, Qt Quick… and more. Oh my!

And a pick of what they had to say:

We believe that to get Ubuntu from 20 million to 200 million users, we need more and better apps on Ubuntu
Jonathan Lange on making Ubuntu a target for app developers

Bazaar is the world’s finest revision control system
Jonathan Riddell on Bazaar

So you’ve got your stuff, wherever you are, whichever device you’re on
Stuart Langridge on Ubuntu One

Oneiric’s EOG and Evince will be gesture-enabled out of the box
Jussi Pakkanen on multitouch in Ubuntu 11.10

I control the upper right corner of your screen
Ted Gould on Indicators

If you happened to miss any of the sessions, you’ll find the logs for all of them on the Ubuntu App Developer Week page, and the summaries for each day on the links below:

• Day 1 Summary
• Day 2 Summary
• Day 3 Summary
• Day 4 Summary
• Day 5 Summary (this post)

Ubuntu App Developer Week – Day 5 Summary

The last day came with a surprise: an extra session for all of those who wanted to know more about Qt Quick and QML. Here are the summaries:

Getting A Grip on Your Apps: Multitouch on GTK apps using Libgrip

By Jussi Pakkanen

In his session, Jussi talked about one of the most interesting technologies where Ubuntu is leading the way in the open source world: multitouch. Walking the audience through the Grip Tutorial, he described how to add gesture support to existing applications based on GTK+ 3. He chose to focus on the higher layer of the uTouch stack, where he explained the concepts on which libgrip, the gesture library, is built upon, such as device types and subscriptions. After having explored in detail the code examples, he then revealed that in Oneiric Eye Of GNOME and Evince, Ubuntu’s default image viewer and default PDF reader, will be gesture-enabled.

Check out the session log.

Creating a Google Docs Lens

By Neil Patel

Neil introduced his session explaining the background behind Lenses: a re-architecture effort of the now superseded Places concept to make them more powerful, provide more features and make it easier to add features through a re-engineered API. Lenses create its own instance, add categories, filters and leave the searching to Scopes. The Lenses/Scopes pairs are purely requests for data, independent of the type of UI, and being provided by the libunity library, they can be written in any of the programming languages supported by GObject Introspection (Python, Javascript, C/C++, Vala, etc.). To illustrate all of this concepts, Neil devoted the rest of the session to a real example of creating a Lens for Google Docs.

Check out the session log.

Practical Ubuntu One Files Integration

By Michael Terry

Another hands-on session from Michael, with a real world example on how to supercharge apps with cloud support. Using his experience in integrating the Ubuntu One Files API to Deja Dup, the default backup application in Ubuntu, he went in detail through the code of a simple program to talk to a user’s personal Ubuntu One file storage area. We liked Michael’s session so much that it will very soon be featured as a tutorial on developer.ubuntu.com!

Check out the session log and Michael’s awesome notes.

Publishing Your Apps in the Software Center: The Business Side

By John Pugh

Ubuntu directly benefits from Canonical becoming a sustainable business to support its development, and that’s exactly what John talked about. Being responsible for business development in the Ubuntu Software Centre, he’s got a privileged  insight on how to make it happen. He started off explaining that the main goal is to present Ubuntu users with a large catalog of apps available for purchase, and then continued concentrating on how to submit paid applications to be published in the Software Centre. A simple 5-step process, the behind-the-scenes work can be summarized in: Canonical helps packaging the app, it hosts the app and provides the payment via pay.ubuntu.com, in a 80%/20% split. Other highlights include the facts that only non-DRM, non-licensed apps cannot be submitted right now, but there is ongoing work to implement license key support, and that MyApps, the online app submission portal, can take any nearly any content: apps with adverts, “free” online game clients and HTML5 apps.

Check out the session log.

Writing an App with Go

By Gustavo Niemeyer

Gustavo’s enthusiasm for Go, the new programming language created by Google shows every time you start a conversation with him on that topic. And it showed as well on this session, in which he created yet another “Hello world” application in a new language -you guessed-: Go. Along the way, he had time to describe all of the features of this new addition of the extensive family of programming languages: statically compiled with good reflection capabilities, structural typing, interfaces and more.

Check out the session log.

Qt Quick At A Pace

By Donald Carr

Closing the week on the last -and surprise- session, we had the luxury of having Donald, from the Nokia Qt team, the makers of Qt itself, to talk about Qt Quick. Using a clear and concise definition, Qt Quick is an umbrella term used to refer to QML and its associated tooling; QML being a declarative markup language with tight bindings to Javascript. A technology equally suited to mobile or to the desktop, QML enables developers to rapidly create animation-rich, pixmap-oriented UIs. Through the qtmediahub and Qt tutorial examples, he explored QML’s capabilities and offered good practices for succesfully developing QML-based projects.

Check out the session log.

Wrapping Up

Finally, if you’ve got any feedback on UADW, on how to make it better, things you enjoyed or things you believe should be improved, your comments will be very appreciated and useful to tailor this event to your needs.

Thanks a lot for participating. I hope you enjoyed it  as much as I did, and see you again in 6 months time for another week full with app development goodness!

All Good Things Come To An End: Ubuntu App Developer Week – Day 4

Ubuntu App Developer Week – Day 4 Summary

Last day of UADW! While we’re watching the final sessions, here’s what happened yesterday:

Creating an App Developer Website: developer.ubuntu.com

By John Oxton and David Planella

Creating the concept and implementing a site for app developers is no easy task. The Ubuntu App Developer site is meant to be a place for app authors to get started with development, to find the information they need and to be able to publish their apps in the Software Centre. John explained all the research and user testing that happened behind the scenes, highlighting the key findings, while David focused on the purpose of the site, where it fits in the overall developer strategy for Ubuntu and the plans for the future.

Check out the session log here.

Rapid App Development with Quickly

By Michael Terry

Fitting nicely topicwise with the questions about the default choice of tools for Ubuntu development on the previous session, Michael gave an overview of what Quickly is and how to use it. Going through the workflow of creating your first app with Quickly, he demonstrated all the key commands and explained in detail all the bits in between.

Check out the session log here.

Developing with Freeform Design Surfaces: GooCanvas and PyGame

By Rick Spencer

Rick started off the session explaining what GooCanvas and PyGame were good for: providing a 2D surface on which to construct interactive GUIs for users. Beginning with GooCanvas, he showed with a very simple example how to get started playing with 2D composing surfaces, adding images, text and doing other operations such as resizing and calculating coordinates to determine clicks. Next up was PyGame, for the same purpose, but better suited for apps with lots of animation updates without user input. He then wrapped up with three samples of simple games to study.

Check out the session log here.

Making your app appear in the Indicators

By Ted Gould

Ted Gould, the man who controls the upper right corner of our screen, talked all about indicators. The idea was to illustrate how to get the information that comes from applications and handle it to the indicators. First up was the messaging menu, a menu to handle human-to-human communication, next the application indicators, which alllow long-running apps to put statuses on the panel consistently, and finally the sound indicator, taking care of all related to sound. Each one of them explained with code examples. Nice!

Check out the session log here.

Will it Blend? Python Libraries for Desktop Integration

By Marcelo Hashimoto

Marcelo shared his experience acquired with Polly, a Twitter client he developed, on using Python and libraries to let apps provide better integration to the desktop. First explaining the concept of desktop integration, stressing the fact that it’s not only about visuals. The rest of the session was structured around 3 main areas: how to send notifications to the user, where to place files read or written by an app and what to use to store sensitive information. A very clear and solid session, also with example code for easy learning.

Check out the session log here.

The Day Ahead: Upcoming Sessions for Day 4

Check out the first-class lineup for the last day of UADW:

16.00 UTC – Getting A Grip on Your Apps: Multitouch on GTK apps using Libgrip

Multitouch is everywhere these days, and now on your desktop as well -brought to you by developers such as Jussi Pakkanen, who’ll guide through using libgrip to add  touch support to your GTK+ apps. Learn how to use this cool new library in your own software!

17:00 UTC – Creating a Google Docs Lens

Lenses are ways of presenting data coming from different sources in Unity. Neil Patel knows Lenses inside out and will present a practical example of how to create a Google Docs one. Don’t miss this session on how to put two cool technologies together!

18:00 UTC – Practical Ubuntu One Files Integration

Yet again the Deja-dup rockstar and UADW regular Michael Terry will be sharing his deep knowledge on developing apps. This time it’s about adding cloud support to applications: integrating with the Ubuntu One files API.

19:00 UTC – Publishing Your Apps in the Software Center: The Business Side

Closing the series of sessions around publishing apps in the Software Centre, we’ll have the luxury of having John Pugh, from the team that brings you commercial apps into the Software Centre and who’ll be talking about the business side of things.

20:00 UTC – Writing an App with Go

Go is the coolest kid around in the world of programming languages. Gustavo Niemeyer is very excited about it and will be showing you how to write an app using this language from Google. Be warned, his enthusiasm is contagious!

20:00 UTC – Qt Quick At A Pace

A last minute and very welcome addition to the schedule. In his session Donald Carr will introduce you to Qt Quick to create applications with Qt Creator and QML, the new declarative language that brings together designers and developers.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Knowing Your Destination Is Half The Journey: Ubuntu App Developer Week – Day 3

Ubuntu App Developer Week – Day 3 Summary

Time flies and we’re already halfway through UADW, but there is still much to come! Here’s yesterday report for your reading pleasure:

Unity Mail: Webmail Notification on Your Desktop

By Dmitry Shachnev

Starting off with a description of the features of Unity Mail, such as displaying webmail unread message count, notifications and mail subjects, we then learned more about how it was developed and the technologies that were used to create it. It’s written in Python, using GObject introspection (PyGI) and integrates with Ubuntu through the Unity, Notify and Indicate modules. After describing each one in more detail, Dmitry continued talking about how the app can be translated using Launchpad, and how he uses the Bazaar  source revision control system to work with code history. Wrapping up, he went through the plans for the future: more configuration options, marking all messages as read and the need for a new icon. Any takers?

Check out the session log here.

Launchpad Daily Builds and Rapid Feedback: Writing Recipe Builds

By Jelmer Vernooij

Assuming some previous knowledge on Debian packaging, in his session Jelmer walked the audience through a practical example of a basic recipe build for a small project: pydoctor. Drawing the cooking recipe analogy, package recipes are a description of the ingredients (source code branches) and how to put them together, ending up with a delicious Debian package for users to enjoy. Launchpad can build packages from recipes once or automatically on a daily basis provided the code has changed, conveniently placing the result in a PPA. In the last part of the session, he described in detail the contents of an existing recipe and added some notes on best practices when building from a recipe.

Check out the session log here.

Using the Ubuntu One APIs for Your Apps: An Overview

By Stuart Langridge

The idea bahind the Ubuntu One developer programme is to make it easy to add the cloud to your apps and make new apps for the cloud. With this opening line, Stuart delivered a talk about a high-level overview on the cool things you can do as an app developer adding Ubuntu One support. One aspect it data: for example building applications that work on the desktop, on mobile phones and on the web, securely sharing data among users. Another is music: streaming, streaming music and sharing playlists on the desktop, on mobile and from the web, all through a simple REST HTTP API. He also mentioned some examples of cloud enabled applications: Shutter and Deja-Dup, and many other interesting ways to use Ubuntu One to do exciting thigs with data. And you can get started already using the available documentation.

Check out the session log here.

Supercharging Your Apps with Unity Launcher Integration

By Jason Smith

In his talk, Jason first went through the terminology that covers the elements related to the Unity Launcher, and the bachground behind the Launcher API, implemented in the libunity library. Libunity can be used in many programming languages: Python, C, Vala and others supported by GObject Introspection. Going through what you can do with the Launcher (marking/unmarking apps as urgent, setting object counts, setting progress on objects and adding quicklist menu items to the object), he used Vala snippets to illustrate each feature with code.

Check out the session log here.

Hello Vala: An Introduction to the Vala Language

By Luca Bruno

Vala, a new programming language with C#-like syntax that compiles to C and targets the GObject type system: with a clear statement of what Vala is and what it can do, Luca, a contributor to the project introduced one by one the mostkey features of the language through his “Hello world” example: namespaces, types, classes, properties, keywords and more. As a highlight he mentioned Vala’s automatic memory management using reference counting, andits interoperability with other languages, most notably C, but it can also work with many others supported by GObject Introspection. Other cool featuresto note were also error handling on top of GError, support for async operations, closures and DBus client/server, on each of which he elaborated before finishing the session.

Check out the session log here.

The Day Ahead: Upcoming Sessions for Day 3

Another day, another awesome set of sessions coming up:

16.00 UTC – Creating an App Developer Website: developer.ubuntu.com

Ubuntu 11.10 will not only bring new features to the OS itself. In time for the release we’ll be launching the new Ubuntu App Developer site, a place for developers to find all the infromation and the resources they need to get started creating, submitting and publishing their apps in Ubuntu. John Oxton, David Planella and many other people have worked to make the next developer.ubuntu.com possible and will tell you all about it.

17:00 UTC – Rapid App Development with Quickly

Quickly is a wrapper that pulls together all the recommended tools and technologies to bring apps from creation and through their whole life cycle in Ubuntu. With an easy set of commands that hide all the complexity for your, it effectively enables developers to follow rapid development principles and worry only about writing code. Michael Terry, from the Quickly development team will be looking forward to guide you through the first steps with this awesome tool.

18:00 UTC – Developing with Freeform Design Surfaces: GooCanvas and PyGame

Have you ever wondered what freeform design surfaces, or canvases are? You probably have now. Well, lucky you then, because Rick Spencer will be here to tell you what they’re good for and how to get started with them

19:00 UTC – Making your app appear in the Indicators

In another session on how to integrate with the platform, Ted Gould, the man who knows most about them, will describe how to add indicator features  to your apps, both in terms of panel indicators and messaging menu support.

20:00 UTC – Will it Blend? Python Libraries for Desktop Integration

You certainly will want your app to have that familiar look and feel at home in the OS it’s running on, but you’ll also want it to use all the backend technologies to integrate even deeper and provide a great user experience. Well, fear not, for Marcelo Hashimoto is here to tell you exactly how to do that!

Looking forward to seeing you all there in a few hours!