Coders, Good Work So Far But One Tiny Request..

[DaveC]

I have been downloading many files on the archive to test. Allot of nice stuff so far.

One problem I am consistantly running into. I Download the app and I get a xxxx.pnd. That is it. Most of these aren't being zipped with a readme or an example dir structure or anything. So now I get emus, games etc and have no idea where the BIOs, ROMS, PAKs, or other data files go or what external files they need to run. I assume the dreaded appdata pile but sometimes bios etc of a certain type are needed or data files go into a subdir inside. I don't always know what the BIOS version is called, sometimes I don't even know it needs one. How about Quake PAKS? which files from the PC disk are needed? Where do they go?

Could a small readme be included (where applicable) in a zip file to give a hint there? Thanks and thanks for the great work.

 

[droneb]

that should be a MUST, there are no big complains so far, because most of the people around are very close to technology,
but i believe if pandora wants to be a hit, it needs to get things right.

 

[gahndalf]

someone already suggested just making the download a folder with the pnd and the readme inside.
I think that is a great solution. simple and effective.

 

[DaveC]

someone already suggested just making the download a folder with the pnd and the readme inside.
I think that is a great solution. simple and effective.

Zip, folder, whatever that is fine just so it has something for dummies like me who don't "just know" what to do.

 

[Prometheus]

All of the stuff that I've downloaded so far that has special requirements does include documentation. It tends to put it in one of the menus in Xfce - I can't comment on Minimenu at this time, though, as I've had to box my Pandora up due to a faulty nub.

 

[gahndalf]

All of the stuff that I've downloaded so far that has special requirements does include documentation. It tends to put it in one of the menus in Xfce - I can't comment on Minimenu at this time, though, as I've had to box my Pandora up due to a faulty nub.

that sounds horrible....
if i have 100 things installed and i add a new program i need to scroll through all the readme files looking for a new one?

 

[Prometheus]

I can't comment. I haven't installed 100 things yet.

 

[WizardStan]

that sounds horrible....
if i have 100 things installed and i add a new program i need to scroll through all the readme files looking for a new one?

If you've got 100 things installed, they're already sitting on your desktop and in the menu, no? You're going to be cluttered to begin with
That being said, it's only a matter of time until someone comes up with a right-click->manual script so you can just bring up the instructions directly from the PND without having to go looking for them.

 

[fischju2000]

Zipping the files would also allow you to see if a PND you downloaded was complete and without errors, a problem that has been happening to users.

 

[DaveC]

that sounds horrible....
if i have 100 things installed and i add a new program i need to scroll through all the readme files looking for a new one?

If you've got 100 things installed, they're already sitting on your desktop and in the menu, no? You're going to be cluttered to begin with
That being said, it's only a matter of time until someone comes up with a right-click->manual script so you can just bring up the instructions directly from the PND without having to go looking for them.

I use minimenu so I can have things catagorized into tabs. I can separate into Emus, Games, Utilities etc. Then I can have 20 icons per page , multiple pages and move around without having to use the stylus. It works great with the d-pad.

I think when you start getting allot of games and stuff XFCE is going to get unweildy.

 

[mali]

Zipping the files would also allow you to see if a PND you downloaded was complete and without errors, a problem that has been happening to users.

+1

 

[Hooka]

I'll apologize for being one of those dev's atm... I didn't get a full fledged release of RACE! out, just a .pnd that needs some more work and I wrote information about it in a thread here, now I see it's in the app store...

I think the reason for a lack of a readme with most is that it is included in the .pnd itself, but I guess a bit of a pain if you want to install roms/data files without having to look at it on the pandora.

 

[Creature XL]

someone already suggested just making the download a folder with the pnd and the readme inside.
I think that is a great solution. simple and effective.

Zip, folder, whatever that is fine just so it has something for dummies like me who don't "just know" what to do.

lol, they event the PND to get rid of the ZIP stuff, and now we demand it back. Brilliant
Maybe it should be mandatory to put the README on the same web site where the download is, in text form, and make it an extra download as well.
So, you can read it while downloading and find the answerers to "where put the roms" very fast. If it is a download for itself, you can skip it if you do not needed or you can download it and open it in a text editor which you can close when you have installed your stuff.

 

[DasFool]

Is the text box on the "appstore" site limited in size? Every description on there is about a paragraph or less.

 

[elwing]

I didn't check the PXML file documentation, but isn't there a place there for that kind of comments? that would seems to be a better place to put installation information rather than an external readme, no?

 

[kagato]

One problem I am consistantly running into. I Download the app and I get a xxxx.pnd. That is it. Most of these aren't being zipped with a readme or an example dir structure or anything. So now I get emus, games etc and have no idea where the BIOs, ROMS, PAKs, or other data files go or what external files they need to run.

PNDs are supposed to come with a readme/documentation contained inside, aren't they?
As Prometheus noted, they get dumped in a "docs" folder in XFCE (which sounds less than ideal to me).

Minimenu could deal with it even better, I think; in the PND-appdata thread there's a lot of talk of a pop-up menu when you press Y (for example) to rename/delete/etc... in my opinion, the first item in that menu should be "View Help"/"View Manual", which opens the documentation file.

The only drawback I can see is that minimenu will need to be aware of a default browser with which to open the docs, but there will always be one in the core OS so I don't imagine that's much of a problem.

As far as the app store is concerned, perhaps it could have a bit of extra smarts added to it to extract the docs from uploaded PNDs and make them available directly on the site?
Screenshot | Video | Manual | User Reviews

Zipping the files would also allow you to see if a PND you downloaded was complete and without errors, a problem that has been happening to users.

Shouldn't this check be possible on the PND files themselves?
The pxml is appended to the file, so if that's missing (incomplete file) it's not a valid PND.
Because the PND is a self-contained image, it should be possible to take an MD5 hash of the image, then include the hash in the pxml before appending it. Verifying the PND isn't corrupt should be a very simple script, unless I'm missing something. (which, let's face it, is likely)

 

[atomicthumbs]

We should have a standard application data directory structure if there isn't one already

 

[gruso]

Zipping up PNDs defeats the purpose of PNDs, no? Otherwise we'd be using the same system as the GP2X (download a zip which contains the executable + supporting files & docs, extract, suddenly you're managing a multitude of files... whereas PND is supposed to be download and run.)

Anyone who has used Gmenu2x will know that when an app has a readme in its folder, a blue "info" logo appears in the footer bar when that app is highlighted. You can then press Y to read it. It's the perfect system IMO. Couldn't the same method be used when a readme is present inside a PND - without the need to dump that file anywhere else?

 

[elwing]

Anyone who has used Gmenu2x will know that when an app has a readme in its folder, a blue "info" logo appears in the footer bar when that app is highlighted. You can then press Y to read it. It's the perfect system IMO. Couldn't the same method be used when a readme is present inside a PND - without the need to dump that file anywhere else?

or couldn't the read me text be inserted inside the PXML file? it seems its the perfect place for that, no?

description in a descriptor, that seems quite logical...

 

[grasshoppir]

Anyone who has used Gmenu2x will know that when an app has a readme in its folder, a blue "info" logo appears in the footer bar when that app is highlighted. You can then press Y to read it. It's the perfect system IMO. Couldn't the same method be used when a readme is present inside a PND - without the need to dump that file anywhere else?

or couldn't the read me text be inserted inside the PXML file? it seems its the perfect place for that, no?

description in a descriptor, that seems quite logical...

just let text be text please