[kismac] Re: GPSD Support for KisMAC?

  • From: kyle@xxxxxxxxxxxx
  • To: kismac@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 11:12:57 -0400 (EDT)


>
> Wouldn't it be more useful to have an AppleEvent or AppleScript
> executed in Kismac on various occasions, depending on the user's
> wishes:

While I agree being able to assign external events or programs to kismac
functions would be useful, i'm thinking of this differently.

Basically what kismac does (im guessing this w/o having opened the
source), is  just what any other program (minicom, gpsd, whatever) does to
access a GPS device. It checks if it can get an exclusive lock on the gps
device (a serial device), locks and opens it, and watches for input (in
the case of most gps' an update every 1s).

Whether the NMEA data is coming from an opened serial port, or from a tcp
socket connection to a daemon (either remote or local, the hostname should
be configurable) shouldn't matter. When Kismac detects a new AP, it just
sucks the lat/long out of the NMEA strings and plots it on the maps..

While we're on the subject of mapping, i can't help but be totally envious
of the kismet screenshots on their website (kismetwireless.net). I would
kill to have cool plots of power output and stuff like that!

I realize the majority of kismac development comes from our buddy Mick,
and I'm appreciative of it, but are there any inroads being taken into
making the GPS mapping part of kismac more.. full featured?

Have you guys seen how GPSdrive works with kismet? GPSdrive isn't kismac,
and its not meant to be, it just happens to be a mapping software package
that has kismet integration, and unfortunately theres no viha capture
source for kismet, so kismet on os x isn't really possible yet.

Anyway, I'd love to see KisMAC get some of the gps mapping features that
gpsdrive has, such as the ability to download maps from mapblast or
expedia, to be able to have multiple resolution maps for one location,
scroll around etc, but obviously maintaining such a project is a daunting
task for one person.

I'm not sure if mick would even be motivated to flesh out the project to
be such an animal, because i'm not really sure what capacity he uses it
in, but I figured i'd throw some of these ideas out there incase people
havn't seen some of the other stuff thats out there.

-kyle

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