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Never Missing the Train Again

lilymara.xyz

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Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#21

Post by alsodumb »

This sounds like a fun project, but there are existing apps whose default page is "when is the next bus/train coming up on stops near me"

Transit App (https://transitapp.com/) is one of them and I freaking love their interface overall. This app's default view shows you the next bus (in either directions) at the 3-4 transit stops closest to your current location. And you can customize/add favs too. It's a beautiful app, also allows for multi/mixed-modal route planning (part walking, part bike, part bus).

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#22

Post by stavros »

FrecklySunbeam wrote: post #12
cptcobalt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be even cooler if Amazon also encouraged and built a "Kiosk mode" browser view of the kindle for this sort of display hacking.

(author here) I've also been thinking about this - I've since built out a Rust library ( https://github.com/lily-mara/kindling ) for scaffolding the server piece of this and I've been considering creating a Kindle client app that integrates with it. This is possible but would require using the Kindle Java SDK, which does not fill me with excitement.

That would be fantastic, although even just the way you've done this here is great. I've got a few old Kindles that would be good to convert to displays, and if I could just install a server and a client, it would take a lot of the work out of it.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#23

Post by FrecklySunbeam »

stavros wrote: post #22
FrecklySunbeam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(author here) I've also been thinking about this - I've since built out a Rust library ( https://github.com/lily-mara/kindling ) for scaffolding the server piece of this and I've been considering creating a Kindle client app that integrates with it. This is possible but would require using the Kindle Java SDK, which does not fill me with excitement.

That would be fantastic, although even just the way you've done this here is great. I've got a few old Kindles that would be good to convert to displays, and if I could just install a server and a client, it would take a lot of the work out of it.

No matter what, jailbreaking would be the most difficult step in the process, but the library I linked above takes a lot of the work out of it. It's entirely undocumented atm (I am surely the only one using it), but it comes with an install script you can run on the Kindle to do the setup once you have the jailbreak done.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#24

Post by parl_match »

alsodumb wrote: post #21

This sounds like a fun project, but there are existing apps whose default page is "when is the next bus/train coming up on stops near me" Transit App ( https://transitapp.com/ ) is one of them and I freaking love their interface overall. This app's default view shows you the next bus (in either directions) at the 3-4 transit stops closest to your current location. And you can customize/add favs too. It's a beautiful…

To be honest, I found having something physical and on the wall and always present _really_ helpful. When the train/bus comes every 15 minutes, being able to casually look and see if you should make a dash for it is way better than pulling out your phone, bringing up an app, and entering your destination.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#25

Post by echoangle »

I always want to get into rust but examples like this always make me reconsider. Every time I want to code something and start with rust, I switch to python 5 minutes later because it’s just so much easier (for me at least). The code to build exactly this dashboard would probably be less than 100 lines of python. Rust is much better for performance (and maybe runtime correctness, but most errors here would be parser errors anyways) of course, but for this application, I don’t think it really matters.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#26

Post by alsodumb »

parl_match wrote: post #24
alsodumb wrote: post #21

This sounds like a fun project, but there are existing apps whose default page is "when is the next bus/train coming up on stops near me" Transit App ( https://transitapp.com/ ) is one of them and I freaking love their interface overall. This app's default view shows you the next bus (in either directions) at the 3-4 transit stops closest to your current location. And you can customize/add favs too. It's a beautiful…

To be honest, I found having something physical and on the wall and always present _really_ helpful. When the train/bus comes every 15 minutes, being able to casually look and see if you should make a dash for it is way better than pulling out your phone, bringing up an app, and entering your destination.

Oh yeah of course, I personally have a physical screen that shows live feed from my local transit agency's GTFS real time feed. I was just pointing out the app for those who don't have the time/interest to build something physical.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#27

Post by laserlight »

crazygringo wrote: post #16
philips wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am almost certain disable screensaver was removed for later Kindles.

I didn't seem to be last I checked -- the older Kindles require the sequence: ;debugOn ~disableScreensaver ;debugOff while newer ones only require: ~ds I know that for some ad-supported Kindles it doesn't work unless you pay to remove the ads (for obvious reasons), but if you pay then it will. But last I checked was a couple of years ago. I'd be very curious if anyone can report it not working. (Also note the command…

Unfortunately, ~ds was disabled by a firmware update a few years ago.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#28

Post by PaulHoule »

“where are you and where are you going?” Is a delusional question for a transit system but it’s a good question for Uber.

When I was involved with the Green Party we were thinking of “just doing” the things the local government wasn’t doing and I think we set a fire under the bus company’s butt to fix a large number of usability problems that we were going to fix for them (and stick our logo everywhere.)

The bus company was very negative on us extracting schedules from their web site because they wanted to see what people were searching for — hypothetically they could have added new service somewhere if there was demand for it but (1) it seemed hard to believe they’d really do it because changes are so infrequent and (2) they never showed any sign of caring what people thought, why would they start now?

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#29

Post by crazygringo »

laserlight wrote: post #27
crazygringo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't seem to be last I checked -- the older Kindles require the sequence: ;debugOn ~disableScreensaver ;debugOff while newer ones only require: ~ds I know that for some ad-supported Kindles it doesn't work unless you pay to remove the ads (for obvious reasons), but if you pay then it will. But last I checked was a couple of years ago. I'd be very curious if anyone can report it not working. (Also note the command…

Unfortunately, ~ds was disabled by a firmware update a few years ago.

Ugh, that sucks. Any idea how to determine which ones are affected? I.e. what firmware version, or which models it started affecting?

Older models still support ~disableScreensaver -- at some point Amazon just stopped issuing firmware updates for them, I have to assume.

Re: Never Missing the Train Again

#30

Post by n4r9 »

43920 wrote: post #17

Not to diminish OP’s project, but the stated goal of “know when each transit line has an upcoming train/tram/bus” is probably already achieved by https://transitapp.com/ - the default view when you open the app is a list of nearby transit lines, sorted by distance and showing the next departure for each.

You can also bring up a station's departure board in CityMapper by clicking on its marker in the map view.
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