Notices

This is pretty cool!

Here is how I got it to work with Windows Vista:
1. Go to the garage page and download & install mSideShow from the .deb.
2. Pair your N810 with your bluetooth-enabled computer (note: Do *not* have mSideShow running yet). Skip this step if you already have your tablet paired with your laptop and bluetooth on.
For some reason, (probably because this isn't a finished version) there is a little bug in which mSideShow doesn't let anything come "above" the program. Even hitting the "switch" applications button has no effect. I'm mentioning this fact because if you pair with your laptop, and allow it to set the pairing code, you can't enter the pairing code on the tablet because the pairing box is hidden below mSideShow. For this reason, it is better to pair before you open mSideShow.
3. Run mSideShow from under the "Extras" category on your tablet (this is the default category some programs are placed in).
4. Go to Start>Control Panel and set your Control Panel to "Classic View". (This option can be found on the bar on the left hand side of the Control Panel window).
5. Open "Bluetooth Devices".
6. Find your tablet (named whatever you named it, eg.: my cool N810), and right click>properties.
7. Go to the "Services" tab on the window that pops up.
8. Make sure you are connected to the internet.
9. Check the "SideShow" service and click OK to apply settings/close window.
Note: Windows now finds and installs the drivers for the SideShow service. For my computer, it connected to Windows Update to find the drivers, download them, and install them. For this reason, you should be connected to the internet so that Windows can find the driver. On my laptop it took about 5 minutes to find/download/install the driver.
10. When the device is ready to use, go to Start>Control Panel>"Classic View" (if it switched back to the "Control Panel Home" view)>Windows SideShow.
11. Check the boxes for the SideShow gadgets you would like to see on your tablet. If this step fails (a connected device cannot be seen and you can't see any check boxes), see the note below.

Note: After I installed the SideShow driver (right after step 9), I had to turn off my laptop bluetooth, turn it back on, and retry steps 10 and 11 (until I turned my bluetooth off/back on, nothing showed up for the SideShow devices). While I am assuming this was some sort of random error with my laptop's bluetooth, I'm mentioning this as a side note, so anyone else with the same problem can try restarting bluetooth and seeing if it works.

Features I would love to see when mSideShow approaches beta/final versions:
- ability to switch from mSideShow back to the hildon desktop or other programs
- a working "exit" button for mSideShow (For some reason, the exit button did not work on my tablet. I'm not quite sure why, but I ended up restarting my tablet every time I wanted to exit mSideShow)

Again, this is an excellent application, and I would love to see development continue! If anyone notices that I have made an error with my instructions, or would like anything added (issues you experienced and your solutions), please just let me know!

Thanks for your feedback!

Pushing the Fullscreen button (the one between the + and - buttons on top of the device) should switch between windowed and full screen mode.

When you tap the exit button, does a message bar appear that says it's quitting?

I've just submitted an update to the autobuilder. I'm going to bed now (it's 3:30am ) so I won't be around to see if it fails.

Hopefully there'll be an update in extras-devel soon.

This is the changelog:

Yet another update. Version 0.0.3 is now in extras-devel and also available for download from the garage.

This version is far more responsive and fixes a few bugs.

I have the N810, so the full screen button is to the left of the + and - buttons. When I use that button, nothing happens.

I can close the program using the "exit" button when I'm not connected properly (when I forget to turn bluetooth on and mSideShow can't find the service), but it doesn't work when I'm connected properly. When I'm connected properly, no message appears to tell me that it's quitting. It just simply doesn't do anything.

Sadly, version 0.0.3 seems to have broken something. Either that, or something is failing on the Windows side of things. When I run mSideShow, it looks for the service, tries two connections (eg. looking for service on XX:XX:XX:XX) and (I'm guessing) doesn't find it on either. The program just stops, though. No message appears to say the service was not found or anything of the sort. I just tried deleting my tablet from my computer bluetooth devices and going through all the pairing steps again, which seemed successful. However, when I open mSideShow, it just tries connecting to 2 bluetooth addresses and finding the service and then it just stops. I do have the bluetooth icon in the "taskbar" but nothing else happens. When I check the Windows SideShow settings in Control panel, it shows as not connected ("Devices (none)"), but my bluetooth settings do show the tablet as connected. Strange. I guess I'll wait until 0.0.4 update appears on my tablet and see if anything changes.

It sounds like you need to tell Windows to use the SideShow service published by mSideShow. It doesn't by default, which is annoying.

This page should be helpful:
http://msideshow.garage.maemo.org/

The main bit to look out for is the right clicking on your bluetooth device (N810) and choosing properties, then selecting the services tag.

Let me know how you get on.

I shall look into the exit and full screen button issues. I suspect there's a nasty loop taking place somewhere when the device isn't connected.

I've found the bug re quitting and the fullscreen button!

I'll get it fixed and release an update.

Version 0.0.4 is now in the extras-devel repository. It is also available from the garage.

Quite a lot of work has gone into this release and it should address the issues raised.

This release also includes some interactive menu support. This support is incomplete. You can control some aspects of some gadgets, but not everything. The purpose of this release is to address already highlighted issues.

If you choose you use the menus, it's all controlled from the D-Pad: Middle to select, Up/Down to scroll, Left to go back.

Have fun and please report with your comments.

This release is excellent! It fixed the windowed, connecting, and quitting issues. The software is maturing very quickly! The only thing that could really be improved on are the connection speed (which I'm not sure you have much control over, since the information is transferred through bluetooth).

Would it be possible to connect the device as a sideshow device through usb? I imagine that would be quite a bit more complicated, but it would allow the data to load quicker. Currently, (I'm not sure if this is a bug in the program or if slow bluetooth transfer speeds are to blame) the program does not load my rss feeds. It keeps on saying "waiting for data" even while all the other gadgets are loaded.

All in all, though, a great improvement already!

The Windows SideShow Universal Driver does support USB, but that would require OTG mode. Yes, it's possible, but it's not really as user transparent as it could be. I don't think that it would make much difference to speed, TBH. Most of the delays come from SideShow, or the gadgets themselves.

One thing I've found while developing the app is that the available gadgets do things in very different ways. The SideTunes gadget, for example, has dynamic menus (each menu is loaded when needed). While the Microsoft Outlook Contacts gadget loads everything at once. If you have a lot of contacts, this can take some time.

I've seen similar issues with RSS feeds. The app simply doesn't get the data. So it's an issue with the gadget. It may have something to do with the RSS refresh times. It does eventually get data, you just have to be patient.