Go SDK for Pocketbook

Unofficial Go SDK for Pocketbook based on libinkview.

Supports graphical user interfaces and CLI apps.

Build a CLI app

Standard Go compiler should be able to cross-compile the binary for the device (no need for SDK):

GOOS=linux GOARCH=arm GOARM=5 go build main.go

Note that some additional workarounds are necessary if you want to access a network from your app. In this case you may still need SDK.

Although this binary will run on the device, you will need a third-party application to actually see an output of you program (like pbterm).

The second option is to wrap the program into RunCLI - it will emulate terminal output and write it to device display.

Preparation - Build or pull the Docker Image

You can pull a docker images from dockerhub:

docker pull 5keeve/pocketbook-go-sdk:6.3.0-b288-v1

To build this image on your own, feel free to use docker-compose.yaml.

docker-compose build

This will create a pb-go service which can be used to compile a go program.

Adjust the source path in docker-compose.yaml to your needs.

With the current settings you can compile the test programs.

E.g.:

docker-compose run --rm pb-go build ./sqlitetst.dir/sqlitetst.go

Note In order to see some output for this, you need to run in using something like pbterm. If you just start it without pbterm you can verify successful execution by attaching your device to your computer and check for the presence of the file sqlite-database.db.

docker-compose run --rm pb-go build ./devinfo/main.go

Alternatively, after building the image, docker can be used to compile without adjusting the file.

Build an app with UI

To build your app or any example, run (requires Docker):

cd ./examples/sqlitetst.dir/
docker run --rm -v $PWD:/app dennwc/pocketbook-go-sdk build -o sqlitetst.app

cd ./examples/devinfo/
docker run --rm -v $PWD:/app dennwc/pocketbook-go-sdk
mv app devinfo.app

You may also need to mount GOPATH to container to build your app:

docker run --rm -v $PWD:/app -v $GOPATH:/gopath dennwc/pocketbook-go-sdk

To run an binary, copy it into applications/app-name.app folder on the device and it should appear in the applications list.

Notes on networking

By default, device will try to shutdown network interface to save battery, thus you will need to call SDK functions to keep device online (see KeepNetwork).

Also note that establishing TLS will require Go to read system certificate pool that might take up to 30 sec on some devices and will lead to TLS handshake timeouts. You will need to call InitCerts first to fix the problem.

IPv6 is not enabled on some devices, thus a patch to Go DNS lib is required to skip lookup on IPv6 address (SDK already includes the patch). Similar problems may arise when trying to dial IPv6 directly.

Notes on workdir

Application will have a working directory set to FS root, and not to a parent directory. To use relative paths properly change local dir to a binary's parent directory: os.Chdir(filepath.Dir(os.Args[0])).