Anticipate The New Video Here

[DaveC]

Yes. The large icons are a waste of screen real estate. I would prefer a smaller icon size and have far more icons. It is a touch screen. It's not going to be hard to select the icon you want.

@ MDAVE: What do you mean by single column?
You can have multiple rows of icons?
I think something like 4 x 4 rows would be efficient. I plan on having a hell of a lot of apps/progs!

It's programmed so only 1 single column of apps is possible, no rows. Mainly because it looks neater having the application name and description next to the icons like that. It's not something the skin artists can control through the skin config file.

Why couldn't an option to have something like what I have shown in the other "art wanted" thread in dev section(that no one commented on, good or bad) with an icon grid in place of that small list be added? This way you could show 25 or more apps per page and getting to them would be a whole lot faster. You could navigate with the d-pad if you don't want to grease up your screen with your fingers or fumble with a stylus. Plus it would be nicer to see more of what you have on a card. The description would show up under that picture on the right. Besides how important is a description? I mean "Doom" is not too hard to figure out, especially after you load it a few times! I mean really how often are you going to read those descriptions after you know what it is? I would guess only once to make sure you didn't make a typo. After all you should know what it is, you put it there! It just seems like allot of space was wasted on useless fluff and not on what counts, your apps.

 

[fiori_musicali]

Promotheus listed some good examples of acronyms that have become words.

Thankyou most kindly, but I can't take any credit for that - it wasn't me who listed those, it was Rathum.

Oops, he just quoted you in the message in which he included the list. How careless of me, and I even mistyped your name. :angry:

But I see Trooper himself makes some compromises in this regard, which begs the question what makes GUI more childish/vulgar than J PEG?

 

[MDave]

Yes. The large icons are a waste of screen real estate. I would prefer a smaller icon size and have far more icons. It is a touch screen. It's not going to be hard to select the icon you want.

@ MDAVE: What do you mean by single column?
You can have multiple rows of icons?
I think something like 4 x 4 rows would be efficient. I plan on having a hell of a lot of apps/progs!

It's programmed so only 1 single column of apps is possible, no rows. Mainly because it looks neater having the application name and description next to the icons like that. It's not something the skin artists can control through the skin config file.

Why couldn't an option to have something like what I have shown in the other "art wanted" thread in dev section(that no one commented on, good or bad) with an icon grid in place of that small list be added? This way you could show 25 or more apps per page and getting to them would be a whole lot faster. You could navigate with the d-pad if you don't want to grease up your screen with your fingers or fumble with a stylus. Plus it would be nicer to see more of what you have on a card. The description would show up under that picture on the right. Besides how important is a description? I mean "Doom" is not too hard to figure out, especially after you load it a few times! I mean really how often are you going to read those descriptions after you know what it is? I would guess only once to make sure you didn't make a typo. After all you should know what it is, you put it there! It just seems like allot of space was wasted on useless fluff and not on what counts, your apps.

I agree with you in having more apps to see on the screen. In fact, it sounds like you want something like the iPhone interface having it as all icons on the screen, with a simple flick to see your next lot of icons.

This interface has actually been developed for quick navigation through the use of apps being sorted into specific lists, with the D-Pad left and right to select different lists and up and down to go through the list itself. Touch wasn't the main use of navigating through P-Menu during the planning stages it seems, and has more of a likeness to Sony's XMB interface, which works pretty well too. I guess P-Menu is all about a more console like experience

Descriptions are helpful for homebrew or apps that are not well known or popular and have ambigious names/icons that you may have downloaded. Also part of that console like experience.

 

[silver]

Yep, it was the original UAE, the slowest of them all.

And one thing I noticed: There is no Frameskip 0! The best setting is FS 1 (which means it draws EVERY frame) and the second one FS 2.
So basically... it runs fullspeed by just skipping one frame! The normal UAE!

Incredible... think about what PUAE (based on UAE4ALL) can do on this system!

p-UAE is based on e-UAE and winuae, not uae4all. I believe.

 

[silver]

The UAE shown is this : http://www.amigaemulator.org/
(The GTK gui works, ED didnt show it)

I attempted to build E-UAE, but no luck yet.
I also built uae4all, fixed controls for pandora, but it wont load anything, not event the kicker.

I wasnt aware of PUAE: http://github.com/GnoStiC/PUAE
Interesting description: "Amiga Emulator (for Pandora & Unixish systems)"

thanks.

Don't think that gnostic keeps the github up to date, hence the rapidshare link.

Hopefully some work optimising p-UAE will give a decent speed amiga emu in the same mould as winuae, rather than just an A500 emu...

 

[Loonie]

"Gooey" appears to be the pronunciation used by dictionaries.

Well then the world is hopelessly doomed.

Do you say C D R O M or C D rahm?

I say "Rom", because I'm of British origin. Americans say "Rahhhhhhm".

Also your list was really starchy and serious, and I bet if it were a person, it would be Stephen Harper.

 

[DaveC]

I agree with you in having more apps to see on the screen. In fact, it sounds like you want something like the iPhone interface having it as all icons on the screen, with a simple flick to see your next lot of icons.

This interface has actually been developed for quick navigation through the use of apps being sorted into specific lists, with the D-Pad left and right to select different lists and up and down to go through the list itself. Touch wasn't the main use of navigating through P-Menu during the planning stages it seems, and has more of a likeness to Sony's XMB interface, which works pretty well too. I guess P-Menu is all about a more console like experience

Descriptions are helpful for homebrew or apps that are not well known or popular and have ambigious names/icons that you may have downloaded. Also part of that console like experience.

No I wasn't talking about an iphone interface. I was just saying to replace that small list with an icon grid (or put it as an option) and pretty much leave all else the same. It doesn't sound like you looked at that mockup so I will post again below. The graphics are very UGLY but it is only for concept and of course it would be skinnable. The icons could be larger etc but I just pinched them from Gmenu2X on GP2X. You don't have to use touch for this in fact it is easier to navigate than the other as you can use the shoulder buttons (or user selected keys) to go through the tabs on top then use the d-pad to select the icon. Since you are not limited to just up and down but can now navigate 4 way plus wrap around (if you are all of the way right tap right one more time with D-pad to wrap to the left column) it is MUCH faster than that list and you can see more of what you have. The descriptions are still there they are under the picture on the right, you don't lose anything, only gain. I think the PSP interface is poor for the same reason, again having to spend time scrolling one by one by one sequentially through a list without seeing much of what you have. It is gimmicky but not very functional. All of these interfaces seem to be made with someone with like 5 apps in mind. Of course on Pandora with the potential for dual 32 GB cards we could have tons of stuff on it.

I like the separate catagories. I just don't like the small sequential list. A concept like below solved that. If you DID use the TS it is even easier. You can get to most apps with 2 taps, one for the tab, the other for the icon. The only scroll would be if you had allot and had to page down to more icons, but you would have to do it MUCH less.

If you look at the layout it can easily be an option in the existing interface. Just replace the list panel with an icon panel. If the user selects list the list shows, if they select icon the icon panel shows. With the icons panel the user can add wallpaper if they wish too.

 

[Awakening]

Just adding to the GUI debate:

In Sweden we all say G.U.I. but with Swedish pronunciation making it much shorter and easier to say. Using Swedish pronunciation the English "word" would look something like this "GjiJuoAi" but the Swedish version looks like this "GeUI".

BTW, in Sweden we don't read out W as double-U in abbreviations, like www. We just say vvv (since it's double-V in Sweden). So, in English all abbreviations using W is a bother to say compared to Swedish.


Oh, and thanks ED for the vids, much appreciated

 

[jonlad1]

That does make a lot of sense, Dave.

I _REALLY_ like "You can get to most apps with 2 taps". Why do we want to be pissing around navigating through pages and pages of menus when just trying to get another emu?

I hope that others adopt this somehow.

 

[mali]

"GeUI".

Same in German, thus ED may have never heard of the original English pronunciation.

 

[Pleng]

That does make a lot of sense, Dave.

I agree. I intend to be using PMenu as my main interface and a grid system would make it all the more usable, though I'd suggest that the icons are a little bigger; say 4 rows by 4 columns. However I also like the list view - so I think it would be nice for them both to be options.

On another note, after watching that video again, I notice, in both Netbook Launcher and the Desktop interface, that when an SD card is inserted, the games are placed on the current menus and then the menus are sorted alphabetically, including all the games that are included in the default OS. Would it not be possible, and perhaps make more sense, if the games/apps on the SD card were promoted to the TOP of the menus as they are more likely to be the ones that you're interested in using? Unless I'm mistaken, PMenu ignores the games installed on the system as standard? Which is fine with me!

And one thing I noticed: There is no Frameskip 0! The best setting is FS 1 (which means it draws EVERY frame) and the second one FS 2.

I think you mean it draws every OTHER frame. FS0 draws every frame. FS1 means it skips every other frame meaning it runs at 30 FPS instead of 60.

UAE's framekip settings are not 'drop every xth' frame, but 'draw every x frame(s)', so a frameskip of 1 means draw every 1 frame, that is draw every frame. A frameskip of 2 means draw every 2 frames; drop every 1.

This can be verified in the UAE video. When turrican blasts his laser thingy the laser does not animate. It's a 2-frame animation so it means an odd number of frames are being skipped.

 

[EvilDragon]

Yep, it was the original UAE, the slowest of them all.

And one thing I noticed: There is no Frameskip 0! The best setting is FS 1 (which means it draws EVERY frame) and the second one FS 2.
So basically... it runs fullspeed by just skipping one frame! The normal UAE!

Incredible... think about what PUAE (based on UAE4ALL) can do on this system!

I think you mean it draws every OTHER frame. FS0 draws every frame. FS1 means it skips every other frame meaning it runs at 30 FPS instead of 60.

Nope, not for UAE. UAE doesn't have a FS0 setting, as said. The minimal setting is FS1, and that is clearly without any frameskip if I try that on my PC.

 

[craigix]

Yep, it was the original UAE, the slowest of them all.

And one thing I noticed: There is no Frameskip 0! The best setting is FS 1 (which means it draws EVERY frame) and the second one FS 2.
So basically... it runs fullspeed by just skipping one frame! The normal UAE!

Incredible... think about what PUAE (based on UAE4ALL) can do on this system!

I think you mean it draws every OTHER frame. FS0 draws every frame. FS1 means it skips every other frame meaning it runs at 30 FPS instead of 60.

Nope, not for UAE. UAE doesn't have a FS0 setting, as said. The minimal setting is FS1, and that is clearly without any frameskip if I try that on my PC.

I noticed that it was just skipping every other frame in the video, you can see that especially when you get the powerup.

 

[gruso]

On another note, after watching that video again, I notice, in both Netbook Launcher and the Desktop interface, that when an SD card is inserted, the games are placed on the current menus and then the menus are sorted alphabetically, including all the games that are included in the default OS. Would it not be possible, and perhaps make more sense, if the games/apps on the SD card were promoted to the TOP of the menus as they are more likely to be the ones that you're interested in using?

I made a mental note of this too. If I can, I'll just move all the default OS games to a submenu.

 

[The Buccaneer]

Wow brilliant videos, ED, really nice to see the range of choices for interfaces that we can use.

Good to see the Amiga emu working so well, I can't wait to play Turrican again, I had the tune in my head all of last night after seeing that video.

Also I agree with DaveC's interface choices for PMenu. As nice as the one shown off in the video was, the look of DaveC's mockup a few posts above looks much more usable to me.

 

[EvilDragon]

Also I agree with DaveC's interface choices for PMenu. As nice as the one shown off in the video was, the look of DaveC's mockup a few posts above looks much more usable to me.

I also like a grid one better, but such things can be included by devs from the community, etc.
We're currently concentrating on getting the base system run smoothly. Apps like launchers, etc. can definately be done by some devs here... and it's not that we're like GPH and would not include community stuff into future firmwares

The base system is setup so that you can easily add more GUIs.

The whole "make it nice"-thing will happen together with the community during the next months .)

 

[The Buccaneer]

Also I agree with DaveC's interface choices for PMenu. As nice as the one shown off in the video was, the look of DaveC's mockup a few posts above looks much more usable to me.

I also like a grid one better, but such things can be included by devs from the community, etc.
We're currently concentrating on getting the base system run smoothly. Apps like launchers, etc. can definately be done by some devs here... and it's not that we're like GPH and would not include community stuff into future firmwares

The base system is setup so that you can easily add more GUIs.

The whole "make it nice"-thing will happen together with the community during the next months .)

Oh yeah I understand entirely that all this sort of thing is community driven. Although I don't know too much about linux and related things at the moment, I'm really looking forward to diving in and contributing where I can.

That's one of the reasons the Pandora was a must buy for me, was due to the open-ness of the software - I can make it work/look how I want, which is brilliant!

 

[strider_mt2k]

That video was a very good reminder of what I'm waiting for and why. SO COOL B)

However, may I humbly request that the video link be moved to the front of the thread for easier...uh...finding?

 

[NickLoTurco]

I must say I'm a tad disappointed with the video. These games worked on the GP2X.

I'm sure people would have been looking forward to seeing things the Pandora could do that the GP2X could not. Any chance of another UAE video showing us other games running, such as, Jimmy Whites Whirlwind Snooker (touchscreen will be awesome for this), MicroProse Formula 1 Grand Prix, Speedball , Project X, SWOS.......???

Sorry if I seem ungrateful!

 

[EvilDragon]

I must say I'm a tad disappointed with the video. These games worked on the GP2X.

I'm sure people would have been looking forward to seeing things the Pandora could do that the GP2X could not. Any chance of another UAE video showing us other games running, such as, Jimmy Whites Whirlwind Snooker (touchscreen will be awesome for this), MicroProse Formula 1 Grand Prix, Speedball , Project X, SWOS.......???

Sorry if I seem ungrateful!

It takes about 2 - 3 hours of time for me to do a video - time I usually don't have as during the days I'm working in my daytime job and at nighttimes it's Pandora OS development time. With about 3 - 4 hours of sleep each day at the moment there's not much time really to do a video, sorry.

And for the Amiga video I chose games that are popular and people do love. I cannot do all games anyone would like to see, sorry about that.

Also, I doubt that the GP2X could even come close on running these games with a direct UAE port without any Cyclone ARM core.