FIRST OF ALL, did you read all of my Sony Ericsson P900 notes?
FIRST OF ALL, did you read all of my Sony Ericsson P900 notes?
Quick notes:
| software: | Circumvesuviana Timetables |
| release: | 1.00 (July 2004) |
| platforms: | SonyEricsson P900 only |
| license: | freeware |
| purpose: | train timetables, technical details and images |
| home site: | my site! |
| source available: | not yet |
| download: | click here to download TimeTables_1.00.sis (469 kbytes) |
This is my first serious software project for the SonyEricsson P900 (click here for other P900 downloads). I wrote it just for the fun of having something that other P900 people cannot get before me :-)
YAY! 115 downloads in July 2004 and 119 in August and 109 in September...! :-)
What's this software?
Since I use very often Circumvesuviana trains, I wrote this software because I wanted to get rid of the timetables sheet that I always carried with me. To the basic function of having the timetables of the Sorrento-Napoli I added some Circumvesuviana train and cableway imagery and technical characteristics, to show to people who do not know them.
Thus, this software is something nice to have on your P900 even if you will never happen to travel on these trains. Have a look at it!
Timetables
The main menu shows two buttons for train timetables from Napoli to Sorrento
and from Sorrento to Napoli. When you click on one of them, you will get to
the related table, with stations names and next four trains from the current
time (this is very good for urgent decision making!).
Rolling the jog-dial (or tapping in the leftmost and rightmost area of the table) you will move around with trains. As you can see from the "--" markers, not all trains will stop in every station. Also, the red column specifies a "workdays only" train (i.e. it won't run on Sundays and other Italian holidays). On the right you can see a screenshot.
If you tap the pen on a station name, it will remain highlighted (in low red) until you tap again on it. This is for easier browsing, to keep in mind -for example- a destination station.
Tapping and dragging on the higher part or lower part of the table will scroll up/down the table between the 34 stations of the Napoli-Sorrento line.
Notice that there are no trains between midnight and 4am.
These timetables are useful on every day of the year, with only two exceptions:
Tap on the "Exit" button (or press backwards the jog-dial) to return to the main menu.
Since the program runs only in full-screen mode, when it detects some window-level changes (for example, an incoming phone call or the flip being closed) it exits.
Circumvesuviana trains
Circumvesuviana, also known as "Vesuviana", has a number of train lines and bus lines around the Vesuvius, and even a cableway.
When you select the "Circumvesuviana trains" option in the main menu,
you will get to the train and cableway imagery. To move to the next or
previous image, roll the jog-dial or tap in the rightmost/leftmost
parts of the screen. To disable/enable the on-screen technical details
and comments, press the jog-dial.
To go back to the main menu, tap on the center of the screen or press backwards the jog-dial.
Technical details
Simply said, I don't like Symbian/UIQ C++ programming approach. Countless rules and conventions and classes and functions to do the simplest things. And a bit slow and buggy. And -ouch!- only cross-platform-debuggable in a Windows environment.
Since I like "imperative" style (instead of "tabular" and "event-driven" styles), I wrote from scratch a cross-platform library, the P900X11 library (not yet released!), to cross-develop and debug applications in a Linux/Xfree environment, without changes/ifdefs/etc and without the hassle of Epoc/Symbian C++ conventions.
This allowed me to write a non-trivial software like this without needing to install every build on the P900 to test and debug.
Also, the library features direct screen manipulation, getting full-throttle graphics handling as you can see for example on smooth fonts and fast screen updates.
Final note: this software has an official UID assigned to me from EPOC UID Number Allocation Service at Symbian on 2004-Feb-11.
Frequently Asked Questions
Don't worry about timetables update. First, because since ten years the timetables for Sorrento-Napoli line are always the same (with a few absolutely minor exceptions). Second, because you would actually need an update only some days before using these trains... :-)
This is intentional. At first it I used the vibration for debugging purposes (the ending vibration means "clean exit" of the application), but I found it was a nice effect for a full-screen application, so I left it there.
I am not interested in adding other timetables because it's a hard work to set up and update timetables. Anyways, if you are interested, you can send me some other full Vesuviana timetable in a .CSV format (or .TXT fixed-width fields) and I may try to rework it in the program.
Don't bother: will be fixed when I will get a safer & cleaner mode.
NO!! internet GPRS connections may have a high cost, so I won't use them in my programs. If you click on the links in the information pages, you will be redirected to a local links page without connecting to the internet.
The photos were all shot by myself. You can find them at a higher resolution in the Circumvesuviana fan pages of this site.
TimeTables: user comments
The Stylus-Kata
The message below was sent by me in a P900 local forum some months ago. It parodies one of the main scenes of ''Equilibrium'', a movie by Kurt Wimmer. Sorry, this time no English translation.
Scena iniziale: un gran numero di brutti ceffi intenti a scrivere disperatamente un messaggio sui loro cellulari di varie marchie. Ingrandimento sui pollici sanguinolenti, callosi e purulenti.
Voce del commentatore: stentorea, legge lentamente, ma con accento deciso, questo testo:
Il Kata del Pennino.
Mediante l'analisi della registrazione di migliaia di utilizzi
dei telefoni cellulari, il Cleric ha stabilito che la
distribuzione probabilistica delle ditate è un elemento
statisticamente imprevedibile.
Il Kata del Pennino tratta il cellulare come un computer
completo, in cui ogni software interno o installato rappresenta
un utilizzo di massimo risultato, che infligge l'umiliazione
maggiore al maggior numero di utenti di cellulare, mentre
mantiene il pinovecentista al di fuori delle figuracce
statisticamente tradizionali del detentore di telefonino.
Dalla padronanza di questa arte, la vostra efficacia nella
telematica e informatica mobile aumenterà non meno del
centoventi per cento. La differenza di un 63% in più negli
utilizzi straordinari fa del maestro di Kata del Pennino
un avversario da non prendere alla leggera.
Scene-flash durante il commento:
In ogni scena, spettatori sbalorditi, ragazze estasiate e con gli occhi a forma di cuoricino, gente che si vergogna del proprio cellulare trogloditico - inserire anche un "piottocentista" sfegatato che butta il suo mattone nel bidone della spazzatura. Ingrandimento del bidone, una scritta, concentrare per un attimo la telecamera in modo che si veda la scritta: covo juventino.
