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

[elwing]

just let text be text please

XML is text...

 

[grasshoppir]

just let text be text please

XML is text...

plain text then.
so porters paste the README file/man page into the PXML with tags around it? enlighten me!

 

[Qvazar]

Idea: A generic PND launcher that at 1st run (or if no appdata dir is found) shows information about the app, provides an option to read the readme, and a dialog to browse for needed other data, like where the Quake .pak-files, ROMs etc. are located. Maybe also provide configuration options for other app-specific options. Shouldn't be too hard to program?

It could be included in every .PND that needs it, and customized to fit that one app. Or be a part of the firmware, and .PND-files could just launch "pnd-setup --setup-config ./pnd-setup/setup.xml --exec ./quake.sh --only-1st-run"

Hm, maybe I'm gonna set up some cross-compile env and make it myself I've no experience with gtk/qt though, but new knowledge is always welcome...

 

[EvilDragon]

ZIPping a PND removes one thing atm: You can't download it off the website with your Pandora and make it automagically appear. You would have to unzip it first.

In MiniMenu, press Y if a documentation exists.

 

[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.

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)

Whatever approach works, the problem of broken PNDs has to be addressed quickly, imo. People spend too much time troubleshooting. I don't care if the PND itself explains that it's broken or a zip file. This could also be directly implemented in the OS. If there is a .pnd that is broken, the OS could pop up a warning instead of doing nothing and confuse the user.

 

[mawler]

A PND manager not unlike a package manager would be able to solve a lot of these problems (URL to help, description, file verification and easy downloading, easy searching, etc.)

I know this is early software but I say just give it some time...

Speaking of which, Evildragon (I think that's the file archives' owner) if you're willing to make your file archive http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi a little more open by say making a Package API that just dumps the all the files on there with the file download link, name, version, and description one per line I'll throw a PND manager up myself!

 

[cosam]

It's early days, yet. Developers are still getting to grips with how PND works and what it can do for them. A lot of the packages are also early/beta releases just to get things out there, without hand-holding or even documentation. Some such packages are posted with a brief explanation which disappears when it gets absorbed into any of the several package hosting sites. Making a nice package takes effort, and it could be that developers just can't be arsed; quite justifiable if they've poured their heart and soul into the software itself.

This will all get better with time and eventually READMEs shouldn't even be necessary in most cases. If a PND needs stuff in it's appdata directory, it should ask for it and copy it itself. This is not hard to do. If there's really something important, it's even easier to pop up a Zenity message with some text in it when the package is first run. A few lines of shell scripting go a long way. Maybe some day we'll see the emergence of package maintainers, a bit like those of Linux distributions like Debian, who don't write the software but instead make neat and compliant packages of other people's work.

 

[torpor]

Just make your app display the README.TXT file on first-launch. How hard could that be?

 

[elwing]

Just make your app display the README.TXT file on first-launch. How hard could that be?

It shouldn't be hard, but since PND is already an "intelligent" format, why not embbed some information inside and offer a simple way for a launcher to implement an "information" button (or something like a right-click property?

 

[Trip]

It shouldn't be hard, but since PND is already an "intelligent" format, why not embbed some information inside and offer a simple way for a launcher to implement an "information" button (or something like a right-click property?

I've been suggesting the same thing myself over the last week or so.

A line in the PXML file telling it where the readme is and simple addon to the file manager that allows it to read that line and automatically open the text file (this would also work for the config file). Simplest way IMO.
This would also work for pointing the user towards the software's home page, source code (if downloadable) and info pages for walk throughs etc.

The PND system was made to hold extra lines of information like that, we just need some way of reading the lines from the PND file itself

 

[cosam]

I've been suggesting the same thing myself over the last week or so.

A line in the PXML file telling it where the readme is and simple addon to the file manager that allows it to read that line and automatically open the text file. Simplest way IMO.
This would also work for pointing the user towards the software's home page, source code (if downloadable) and info pages for walk throughs etc.

PXML supports all this already with the "info" tag, so you only need the file manager extension.

The PND system was made to hold extra lines of information like that, we just need some way of reading the lines from the PND file itself

I would think you can extract it using libpnd, but I'm not familiar with the ins and outs. Worst case, you could always grok it out of the PXML on the end of the PND.

 

[EvilDragon]

It shouldn't be hard, but since PND is already an "intelligent" format, why not embbed some information inside and offer a simple way for a launcher to implement an "information" button (or something like a right-click property?

I've been suggesting the same thing myself over the last week or so.

A line in the PXML file telling it where the readme is and simple addon to the file manager that allows it to read that line and automatically open the text file (this would also work for the config file). Simplest way IMO.
This would also work for pointing the user towards the software's home page, source code (if downloadable) and info pages for walk throughs etc.

The PND system was made to hold extra lines of information like that, we just need some way of reading the lines from the PND file itself

Well.... but that documentation feature is already in and working

The documentation either appears in the Documentation-Menu of XFCE4 or when you press Y while selecting the app in MiniMenu.

 

[Trip]

It shouldn't be hard, but since PND is already an "intelligent" format, why not embbed some information inside and offer a simple way for a launcher to implement an "information" button (or something like a right-click property?

I've been suggesting the same thing myself over the last week or so.

A line in the PXML file telling it where the readme is and simple addon to the file manager that allows it to read that line and automatically open the text file (this would also work for the config file). Simplest way IMO.
This would also work for pointing the user towards the software's home page, source code (if downloadable) and info pages for walk throughs etc.

The PND system was made to hold extra lines of information like that, we just need some way of reading the lines from the PND file itself

Well.... but that documentation feature is already in and working

The documentation either appears in the Documentation-Menu of XFCE4 or when you press Y while selecting the app in MiniMenu.

Yes but unfortunately it doesn't do anything about the other features that people where asking for. e.g..

Linking to the source code,
Way to get to the programs home page,
Easy way to copy/move the program to Desktop/Menu/Both,
Easy way to un-install the PND,
An easy way to edit the config file,

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the way it does it already; I'm just saying that if your going to expand it to included these other features, that you might as well add the ability to open the readme file from the same place as where you go to edit the config file. Better to keep everything together in one place.

That's all

 

[kagato]

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.

Well.... but that documentation feature is already in and working

The documentation either appears in the Documentation-Menu of XFCE4 or when you press Y while selecting the app in MiniMenu.

Right, well... thanks for preemptively implementing my suggestion then!

I've got lots of other great ideas -- maybe the Pandora could be made to run this "lee-nux" operating system that's all the rage these days...

 

[kagato]

Yes but unfortunately it doesn't do anything about the other features that people where asking for. e.g..

Linking to the source code,
Way to get to the programs home page,

These could be standardised in pxml I suppose, but it's entirely up to the developer as to how the source would be provided, and they'd both require opening the browser. Given that's what the"view documentation" feature does, it would probably be more sensible to just include those links in the doc file. There could be a style guide for documentation that recommends this sort of thing; but I don't think they should be required features because not all apps will have source (or even a homepage).

Easy way to copy/move the program to Desktop/Menu/Both,
Easy way to un-install the PND,
An easy way to edit the config file

I'm pretty confident all of these things will happen in due time.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well.... but that documentation feature is already in and working
The documentation either appears in the Documentation-Menu of XFCE4 or when you press Y while selecting the app in MiniMenu.

Yes but unfortunately it doesn't do anything about the other features that people where asking for. e.g..

Linking to the source code,
Way to get to the programs home page,
Easy way to copy/move the program to Desktop/Menu/Both,
Easy way to un-install the PND,
An easy way to edit the config file,

Well, the file is opened with Arora and is HTML, so linking to homepage and sourcecode is easy

Overriding PXML files (thus editing them) is already possible - just not comfortable yet.
Uninstall? Move? Well, any file manager can do that - but it's also not as comfortable yet as it could get.

Those features sound more like a PND Manager (which I also suggested on another thread) which can easily edit the overlay files of PNDs, delete them including or excluding the Appdata (or only delete the Appdata), check the version number and download updates, etc.

That's nothing to do with PXML - basically, all you need is already there. All that's missing is a proper tool for easy management

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the way it does it already; I'm just saying that if your going to expand it to included these other features, that you might as well add the ability to open the readme file from the same place as where you go to edit the config file. Better to keep everything together in one place.
That's all

Yep. Still, that needs s program in the system - and not some PXML- or PND-Enhancements. It's already included. Even File Associations for PNDs are already in the specs, but not included in the system.

We planned that format so that it shouldn't have to change much after the first release, but you can do anything with it.
Providing proper tools for management later on is easy - changing the format would most likely break things.

 

[dschroeter]

To address the broken downloads, can't we use simple checksums? Just post it beside the download or even within the PND with an internal checking system.

Also, I'm curious now - I thought PNDs incorporated some form of compression, but with all the zipping talk I must be wrong.

 

[juniorm33]

Well.... but that documentation feature is already in and working
The documentation either appears in the Documentation-Menu of XFCE4 or when you press Y while selecting the app in MiniMenu.

Yes but unfortunately it doesn't do anything about the other features that people where asking for. e.g..

Linking to the source code,
Way to get to the programs home page,
Easy way to copy/move the program to Desktop/Menu/Both,
Easy way to un-install the PND,
An easy way to edit the config file,

Well, the file is opened with Arora and is HTML, so linking to homepage and sourcecode is easy

Overriding PXML files (thus editing them) is already possible - just not comfortable yet.
Uninstall? Move? Well, any file manager can do that - but it's also not as comfortable yet as it could get.

Those features sound more like a PND Manager (which I also suggested on another thread) which can easily edit the overlay files of PNDs, delete them including or excluding the Appdata (or only delete the Appdata), check the version number and download updates, etc.

That's nothing to do with PXML - basically, all you need is already there. All that's missing is a proper tool for easy management

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the way it does it already; I'm just saying that if your going to expand it to included these other features, that you might as well add the ability to open the readme file from the same place as where you go to edit the config file. Better to keep everything together in one place.
That's all

Yep. Still, that needs s program in the system - and not some PXML- or PND-Enhancements. It's already included. Even File Associations for PNDs are already in the specs, but not included in the system.

We planned that format so that it shouldn't have to change much after the first release, but you can do anything with it.
Providing proper tools for management later on is easy - changing the format would most likely break things.

I did start a thread asking what people wanted in a PND manager but there wasn't much input. So I assumed it wasn't of much interest to anyone.
Think I mentioned most of these stuff.
Maybe I'll give it a bump and see if anyone has come up with any more requests or given it any more thought.

Most of the problems I seem to see aren't really problems with PND's or PXML but more organizatioal, or not knowing what it can currently do if required to.

 

[PokeParadox]

To address the broken downloads, can't we use simple checksums? Just post it beside the download or even within the PND with an internal checking system.

Also, I'm curious now - I thought PNDs incorporated some form of compression, but with all the zipping talk I must be wrong.

You can use a compressed file system (squashfs) instead of the standard ISO layout. This can save you a lot of space. PandoraPanic! benefits from this

 

[juniorm33]

To address the broken downloads, can't we use simple checksums? Just post it beside the download or even within the PND with an internal checking system.

Also, I'm curious now - I thought PNDs incorporated some form of compression, but with all the zipping talk I must be wrong.

I think a simple checksum would be very useful.

A PND can be in a compressed format. It's up to the person creating the PND. It's not always beneficial to have it compressed.