Day 14

Today I made some pretty good progress!
New features:

• finally finished the favorites tab
• bugfixes
• easter egg…….

Everything was pretty easy to implement, maybe the favorites tab was harder than I imagined (I had to let go of the popup message when you add a favorite )
There were ALOT of bugs to fix, like code snippets appearing multiple times, and straight up not functioning code.
I also added an easter egg…. try out my app to find out!

This is the last devlog before shipping, I tested everything on a live install of manjaro… so there shouldn’t be any issues.

(im tiredddd)

Changelog

• feat: add favorites page, bugfixes, and ??? (31409b6)
• fix: typo in action (6d8d395)
• fix: update action (511da3b)

thanks for coming to my final ted talk before the ship!
-zsobix

Day 13!!

Wow, i didn’t expect to make this much progress today!!!!!

New features:

• HRT Teletekst (croatian public broadcaster) support
• Favorites tab (not finished)
• bug fixes

The hardest thing to implement wasn’t even the HRT Teletext support, it was the (still broken) favorites tab!
Atleast the favorites tab looks nice (i think)
Implementing the teletext service was easy because (you know it) there is an actual api!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn’t get to ship today because I didn’t get to add all the features I wanted to add.

(i want to sleeeeeeeep )

So, features before shipping:

• more teletext services
• bugfixes
• despagettifying my code (almost typed coke)
• finishing the favorites page

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Day 12

Today was better in terms of progress, but I hadn’t had enough freetime…

New features:

• NOS Teletekst (dutch public broadcaster) support
• info button
• bugfixes

Implementing NOS Teletekst was VERY HARD, because they give the teletext pages in html, so I have to basically copy the german teletext implementation, but not fully because the api response only has partial html, without any styling, so I have to copy the styling from the official website, then combine it with the api response.
Other than that, everything went pretty well, even the info page, and yknow why? I read the f**king docs!!!!!!!!

(it’s currently midnight as of writing this and my brain isn’t functioning.)

I’ll probably ship tomorrow, because I gave up on waiting, and also I hit 30 hours!!!!

So, the last minute features I want to implement:

• add favorites page
• bugfixes
• add some more teletext services

Changelog

• chore: update readme (f85a191)
• feat: add nos teletekst support + about button (11fdea9)

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Day 11

Today also I couldn’t do much so this devlog will be short.

New features:

• TVP Teletext (polish public broadcaster) support
• BHRT Teletext (bosnian public broadcaster) support
• bugfixes

The most annoying thing I had to do was implementing the bosnian teletext, mostly because, there wasn’t a normal api!!!!
So getting the number of subpages, and the next/previous page was pretty hard!
Other then that, implementing the polish teletext was actually, well not pretty easy, but not that hard, because you know why…. there was an actual normal working api!!!!!!
Well the not easy part was that, the api was just a json file, and a not very good one at that, so implementing the next/previous page functions were not trivial.

New features I still want to add:

• moaar teletext services support
• bugfixes

I gave up on waiting for the weekly shipping stickers, so I’ll probably ship when I get home.

(birbs are chirping around me as of writing this )

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Day 10!

Today was VERY slow, because I’m currently on a trip and don’t have much time.

So, new features:

• RBB teletext (german regional broadcaster) support
• MDR teletext (german regional broadcaster) support
• Teletexto TVE (spanish public broadcaster) support
• bugfixes

The first two teletext services were easy to implement, because I already implemented their API!
Teletexto TVE support was also easy to implement mostly because, their html files were readable! (they didn’t even have an api)
So yeah, I don’t have much things to say.

I still want to add:

• moar teletext services support (like for poland, netherlands, portugal)
• bugfixes

Changelog

my stardance extension broke

anyways,

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Day 9!!

Today I made waaay better progress then the last two days!

So recap (new features):

• KiKa Teletext (german childrens channel) support
• DR Tekst-TV (Danish public broadcaster) support
• Arte Teletext (german/french public broadcaster) support
• ARD Text (german public broadcasting group) support
• some ui changes in the sidebar
• bug fixes (there are always some)

The most major issue I had was that the DR teletext page doesn’t give the amount of subpages! So I had to rework the SAT.1 system for it to work.
Also, because I put all stations in the sidebar, I had to (by hand) name every button, add station switching logic and also make the sidebar scrollable.
This weekend, progress will be slower because I will be away from home and I also need suggestions to what to do next…. (I will not be shipping until there is no shipping sticker!!!)

I will probably add:

• an info button (just because)
• more teletext services
• easter eggs (mmm eggs)
• not in the first ship, but I was thinking about implementing an ACTUAL teletext simulator

Changelog

• feat: add dr, kika, ard, and arte support + ui changes (d3acca6)

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Day 8!!!!!

Today was also a slower day, because I had less time and less ideas, but I have some ideas now!

New features:

• ProSiebenSAT.1 Teletext (german broadcaster) support
• umm
• bug fixes

Working with the SAT.1 teletext was actually pretty easy, before I realized I had to get the number of subpages on each page! I spent an hour figuring it out, in the end I have to interate over all the next subpages to get the max number of subpages.
Anyways I have some new ideas!!
So before shipping, I will add:

• KiKa Teletext (german childrens channel) support (why does a children’s channel have teletext????? especially in 2026???)
• DR Tekst-TV (Danish public broadcaster) support
• Arte Teletext (german/french public broadcaster) support
• ARD(1) Text (german public broadcasting group) support
• Put all countries/stations in the sidebar with a Gtk.ScrolledWindow (shown in picture)
• moar bugfixes

Changelog

• feat: add prosiebensat.1 teletext support (4226ff0)

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Day 7!

First week complete! Today was a slower day, with not much progress, but I added yle Teksti-TV support.

New features:

• YLE Teksti-TV (Finnish national public broadcaster) support
• BUG FIXES (there were alot)
• some UI tweaks
• testing

the biggest problem I faced was, that the yle teletext api was hidden, and I had to search for it. I thought that all the data was on the frontfacing page itself but I was wrong.
I don’t have much to say because everything went pretty well.

(sidenote: the hungarian public broadcaster is undergoing MAJOR changes, and I don’t think the teletext service will survive the next 3 months )

Changelog

• feat: add yle finland teletext support (b290c1c)

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Day 6!

Finally added packaging support, also added 3 other teletext services!

I could add THREE more teletext services, because they had functional apis!!!!

New features:

• ČT Text (Czech public broadcaster) support
• SRF Text (Swiss public broadcaster) support
• SVT Text (Swedish public broadcaster) support
• Some UI fixes
• more bugfixes

the biggest problem I faced was that the ČT teletext subpages are marked with LETTERS instead of NUMBERS, which makes things (very) HARD.
Other than that, everything went pretty well, even the packaging went well, because I (basically) just copied the packaging structure from my older project Lidl Plus on desktop.
I made huge progress today, and either tomorrow or when I can get stickers, I will probably ship!

Remaining features:

• despagettifying my code
• adding more teletext providers
• some more UI fixes
• and bugfixes

Changelog

• fix: forgor to add a dot 💀 (f919029)
• feat: added packaging support, and 3 other teletext services (6278dc6)

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Another day, another devlog!!

Finally added Rai Televideo support… I did NOT enjoy this, mostly because Rai’s servers are 1 millenium old Sun workstations, and they take a bajillion years to load, and also there is no next page anything, so I have to iterate over all next pages to find the next page.

New features:

• Rai Televideo (Italian public broadcaster) support
• Rai Televideo regions support
• Bug fixes

My first problem with Rai Televideo was, as I mentioned, the waiting times are UNBEARABLE, so if more than 2 people connect to their servers, they crawl down to a halt.
Other problem is that there are REGIONS of Televideo, meaning I had to add a dropdown to select between the regions, which seems pretty easy, right? To be fair, it was pretty easy but I had so many bugs with it, and combined with the wait times, it was a pain.
Only good thing about Televideo, is that the teletext pages are images, so I don’t need a browser to render them.
(also there are ADS on the non-existing pages so finding real pages is a pain)
The things I still want to add is:

• More Teletext providers support
• UI Improvements
• despagettifying my code
• preparing it to package
• and also there are alot of unnoticed bugs I need to fix

Changelog

• 5bf2423

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

4th Devlog!!!

Another long day complete, today’s coding session was 4 hours, which is great!

New features:

• ZDF Text (german public broadcaster) support
• Sidebar to switch between countries
• Bottom button bar to switch between stations
• Fixed some bugs

Figuring out ZDF Text was VERY painful, and I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND any sane person to work with that garbage.
Working with MTVA Text and their 2012 website was easier than this.
Me finally finding the libadwaita docs, and reading through them, I found the geniusly called AdwNavigationSplitView (the sidebar).
The main problem with ZDF Text was, that, the teletext pages were in HTML!! which are NOT IMAGES, so I had to use WebKitGTK to render the HTML pages, which makes the whole thing WAAYYYY slower.

Changelog

• 82a66ba

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

Third devlog!!!!!

It’s late at night currently so I can’t write much, but this is what I worked on.

• ORF (Austrian public broadcaster) Text support
• MTVA Text (Hungarian public broadcaster) colored buttons support (a bit borked still)

Working with websites that don’t have actual api, is, tiring, but i still got it.
The only things I want to still work on is:

• more public broadcaster support (like for Italy and Germany)
• better looking interface

Also, I found the adwaita documentation! (I did not know this existed)

Changelog

• 92a449b

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

First (normal) devlog, actually second

Hey there! I have been working on some things.

Firstly, I added basic functionality, like actually viewing teletext pages and navigation. The readme, is, bad. That is something I have to fix.

To actually get the teletext pages, i have to scrape this archaic website, which doesn’t even have an api, i had to get the first (DOT HTM!!!!) page then with BeautifulSoup4 get the hidden input tags that had the next and the previous page ids (????), which is peak 2012 development.

I still have to make it look prettier and add other teletext services, because now, it still looks barren.

Changelog

• 74da49f

thanks for coming to my ted talk
-zsobix

I cannot press enter, so I can’t use markdown very much. Anyways, this is my random project, Teletext on Desktop. It’s literally in the name, it’s (going to be) the Hungarian teletext service (like Ceefax was in the UK) on desktop! I’m currently working on the basics, like deciphering this 2012 website to get the teletext pages, and making a GTK window.