Discussion About Additions To The Pnd Format

[Rockthesmurf]

I'm going to go ahead and admit that I haven't read all 10 pages of this thread, nor have I have I read the numerous other threads relating to the PND format, but I would like to go ahead and ask a quesiton anyway (how cheeky of me!)... Is there any support in the PND format to have video embedded, which a launcher would then have the option of displaying? You get this sort of thing on some of the main stream consoles, and although I'm sure some developers wouldn't be interested in providing video, and some users wouldn't be interested in seeing videos, if support was in the PND format, at least there would be an option.

On a simliar note, can there be a reasonable length description (text) in the PND format, so a launcher could display the icon/video of an application and provide a bunch of text about the application? Expanding from this, I personally think it would be quite cool if there was a bunch of fields that developers are encouraged to fill in, for example 'FAQ', 'Notes', 'Compatibility', 'Contact', 'Website' etc. - a lot of developers provide this information one way or other anyway (via README files, or notes scattered around) but once again it'd be handy if all the information was stored in the same place for each PND application, that way launchers/user interfaces will have a generic way to query this information and provide it to the user on demand. Windows kind of has this concept, when you right click on executables you get some information about it, but I very seldom find anything of use on Windows - which indicates that this kind of support would only be of benefit if developers decided to embrace it.

I've only just started to appreciate the benefits this PND stuff could bring us (outside of 'fixing' the linux dependency mess) and am quite excited at the possibility of having complete packages in a single, with all the information layed out in a generic way, ready to run, etc. it seems like the ideal way to combine simple console style gaming (put in disc and hit go) with a linux computer.

Just some thoughts anyway...

Steve

 

[Vorporeal]

I'm pretty sure there are fields for the PND description, author's name, author's website, author's email, etc. built into the spec. There's nothing currently built into the PND format for embedding a video that could be played by a launcher. It could be done, but I assume that most people won't have much of a use for it, because they'll be downloading PNDs individually, and would probably know what they're downloading before they do it, making preview videos fairly useless. They'd end up just taking up space. Some could even be larger than the programs that they're a preview of.

 

[dflemstr]

Is there any support in the PND format to have video embedded, which a launcher would then have the option of displaying?

Well, there's always APNG that could be used for animations, but there are currently no menu systems/launchers that support it. It's already "in the PND standard", however (since APNGs are a kind of PNG and PNGs already are used for the icon/preview thingie). So, if menus start supporting APNG, then you'll have the option of adding animated previews to PNDs.

On a simliar note, can there be a reasonable length description (text) in the PND format,

It's already in there; you can even specify a description in multiple languages (→ translations) so that users get a description in their own language.

Expanding from this, I personally think it would be quite cool if there was a bunch of fields that developers are encouraged to fill in, for example 'FAQ', 'Notes', 'Compatibility', 'Contact', 'Website' etc. - a lot of developers provide this information one way or other anyway (via README files, or notes scattered around) but once again it'd be handy if all the information was stored in the same place for each PND application, that way launchers/user interfaces will have a generic way to query this information and provide it to the user on demand.

We already have fields for: Title (aka a human readable title for the PND; translatable), Description (as mentioned; translatable), Author name, Author email and Author webpage. There really hasn't been a need to add anything more so nobody has. I personally think that FAQs and such things belong on the project's webpage, and compatibility won't be an issue since we all will be using the same type of Pandora

Windows kind of has this concept, when you right click on executables you get some information about it, but I very seldom find anything of use on Windows - which indicates that this kind of support would only be of benefit if developers decided to embrace it.

Remember: a PND is not equivalent to an .exe on Windows.
Windows has this "feature" because of the executable resource model that it uses, so in Windows, an executable doesn't just contain machine code, but also icons, signature information, and pretty much anything you want to put inside of it; kind of like how a ZIP file works. The world of Linux has never really wanted to embrace a similar system, because it leads to bloat very easily, and leaves backdoors open for viruses and trojans. So, the general philosophy is to just stick things into a file format that could actually be useful to that kind of file. Linux ELF executables only contain actual executable data and resources used by the executable itself (so no external metadata or icons and similar), and similarly, a PND should only contain metadata that is relevant for its purpose. So, things such as an Issues list or Readme should be put in an Issues or Readme file, because it's not the job of the PND to take care of such information.

The ideal Unix/Linux system would work precisely like that: every file would have a single purpose and every purpose would have a single type of file. You would never have to edit a file, ever, just add or remove them. This is the direction in which Linux is *trying* to go.

I've only just started to appreciate the benefits this PND stuff could bring us (outside of 'fixing' the linux dependency mess) and am quite excited at the possibility of having complete packages in a single, with all the information layed out in a generic way, ready to run, etc. it seems like the ideal way to combine simple console style gaming (put in disc and hit go) with a linux computer.

Now, remember, the PND format wasn't designed to clean up any dependency messes or similar. If we had been able to use the IPKG system with dependency resolution and such things, the PND format wouldn't exist today. It only exists because it has to exist; the IPKG system, or the RPM (Fedora/RedHat) or APT (Ubuntu) systems use a much more efficient method of package distribution, and we would all have preferred if they had been available to us.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

Sounds reasonable enough - with regards to the playing a movie thing, with some main stream consoles, in the brower screen, when you select the game (that is in the drive) it plays a video clip provided by that game, it isn't something that I'm particularly bothered about, but clearly people that have the game in their drive already know what the game is, so I think it's purpose is beyond that of just showing the user what the game is. It sounds like this has all been taken care of with the either don't do it, or [ii] use the animated PNG stuff.

To be honest I didn't really follow all the linux stuff about files and their purpose and place, and all that jazz, but providing the end user ends up with a clean easy to use system all shall be good. Having a uniform way of associating generic information for all programs seems like a good idea on many levels - how that is done under the hood doesn't really bother me (from an end users perspective) too much. From a developers perspective, I'm not too worried either, as long as it is straight forward to release a package to the target audience all will be good! )

Steve

 

[Tuxedomask29]

I'm going to go ahead and admit that I haven't read all 10 pages of this thread, nor have I have I read the numerous other threads relating to the PND format, but I would like to go ahead and ask a quesiton anyway (how cheeky of me!)... Is there any support in the PND format to have video embedded, which a launcher would then have the option of displaying? You get this sort of thing on some of the main stream consoles, and although I'm sure some developers wouldn't be interested in providing video, and some users wouldn't be interested in seeing videos, if support was in the PND format, at least there would be an option.

On a simliar note, can there be a reasonable length description (text) in the PND format, so a launcher could display the icon/video of an application and provide a bunch of text about the application? Expanding from this, I personally think it would be quite cool if there was a bunch of fields that developers are encouraged to fill in, for example 'FAQ', 'Notes', 'Compatibility', 'Contact', 'Website' etc. - a lot of developers provide this information one way or other anyway (via README files, or notes scattered around) but once again it'd be handy if all the information was stored in the same place for each PND application, that way launchers/user interfaces will have a generic way to query this information and provide it to the user on demand. Windows kind of has this concept, when you right click on executables you get some information about it, but I very seldom find anything of use on Windows - which indicates that this kind of support would only be of benefit if developers decided to embrace it.

I've only just started to appreciate the benefits this PND stuff could bring us (outside of 'fixing' the linux dependency mess) and am quite excited at the possibility of having complete packages in a single, with all the information layed out in a generic way, ready to run, etc. it seems like the ideal way to combine simple console style gaming (put in disc and hit go) with a linux computer.

Just some thoughts anyway...

Steve

I see where you're going with the video in the PND file; trying to make it work similar to PS3/PSP. While I agree that I do like the feel of how the preview works on these systems, I don't feel that it will ever be support in this file format.

 

[dflemstr]

I see where you're going with the video in the PND file; trying to make it work similar to PS3/PSP. While I agree that I do like the feel of how the preview works on these systems, I don't feel that it will ever be support in this file format.

It is already supported. Look at how APNG works. It's basically compressed, high resolution lossless video for you (and it supports transparency; imagine having partly transparent application previews ), right there. I might even support it in the PND Manager sooner or later (I can't at the moment because I need to resize images)

 

[Dunny]

I've been reading with interest, but I have to confess that this seems a bit too much for your average user.

I tend to mess with Windows. I've got a couple of linux installs, but they don't see much use. The way I see this is that I go download a .pnd of say, Quake from the archive. I drop that onto my SD card and by magic it's available to play. Well, almost. Where do I put my .wad files? Which folder do they go in? Same as the .pnd file? Or do they have to be packaged up into a .pnd and dropped in with the quake.pnd? Do I have to manually add them to the quake.pnd myself?

Don't get me wrong, this all sounds pretty easy to me, but those are likely the questions that a regular user is going to ask. And if it's not just a case of drag-n-drop, they're gonna get turned off pretty quickly and the Pandora may even gain a reputation for being a bitch to get working properly.

So am I going to be able to just migrate from my "GP2X" style of file management, or am I gonna be stuck asking dumb questions in forums and on IRC? A lot of Pandora owners will be GP2X owners also...


And finally, can I just elect not to use .pnd files at all? Maybe write a prog that extracts the files and hands them to me in a nice folder I can drag-n-drop?

D.

 

[bzar]

And finally, can I just elect not to use .pnd files at all? Maybe write a prog that extracts the files and hands them to me in a nice folder I can drag-n-drop?

AFAIK, sure you can. PNDs are just disk images with appenended pxml. Extracting the files should be easy as pie. You'll probably lose application autodetect-on-sd-insert this way, though.

EDIT: typo

 

[Pickle]

I've been reading with interest, but I have to confess that this seems a bit too much for your average user.

I tend to mess with Windows. I've got a couple of linux installs, but they don't see much use. The way I see this is that I go download a .pnd of say, Quake from the archive. I drop that onto my SD card and by magic it's available to play. Well, almost. Where do I put my .wad files? Which folder do they go in? Same as the .pnd file? Or do they have to be packaged up into a .pnd and dropped in with the quake.pnd? Do I have to manually add them to the quake.pnd myself?

Don't get me wrong, this all sounds pretty easy to me, but those are likely the questions that a regular user is going to ask. And if it's not just a case of drag-n-drop, they're gonna get turned off pretty quickly and the Pandora may even gain a reputation for being a bitch to get working properly.

So am I going to be able to just migrate from my "GP2X" style of file management, or am I gonna be stuck asking dumb questions in forums and on IRC? A lot of Pandora owners will be GP2X owners also...


And finally, can I just elect not to use .pnd files at all? Maybe write a prog that extracts the files and hands them to me in a nice folder I can drag-n-drop?

D.

The questions you asked are the same ones ive been trying to find answers to. The ideas being thrown around sound great for apps that can be shipped with thier data, but doesnt work well with those that dont. One answer was to package wad's/pak's into pnd's. Thats not going fly for the reasons you gave for a regular user.
Since I will probably be the one to package/release quake I can use the pnd format but change the hardcoded paths to data to look in a external folder for data
Or scrap the pnd format completely and just go with the tried and proven solution of a folder installation

 

[Dunny]

Or scrap the pnd format completely and just go with the tried and proven solution of a folder installation

I have to admit, I'm leaning towards this for my releases also. What's the point of packaging up say, a Spectrum emulator, if the user has to jump through hoops just to grab a tape image from WOS and get it to run? Though the idea of an installable interface for Windows which exposes .pnd files as drives so I can drag and drop into them would be nice.

Also not liking this idea of mounting stuff at startup at all. I could well have a metric fuck-load of .pnd files on my SD card. In a multi-tasking environment, memory will become very tight very quickly and I'd rather not have it cluttered up with a load of stuff that I might not even run until next week. It's all very well saying that I'll not be using .pnd files, but will I have to endure this ramdisk even though I'm unlikely to make use of it?

Ah well, I shall continue to follow this thread and see if things can't be made clearer. Or until someone (PLEASE!) points out which end of the stick I'm holding here, as it has to be the wrong one.

D.

 

[dflemstr]

It's all very well saying that I'll not be using .pnd files, but will I have to endure this ramdisk even though I'm unlikely to make use of it?

There won't be a ramdisk; that idea was abandoned long ago. And even if we had kept that idea, the ramdisk would have taken up no more than maybe 100 KiB of RAM anyways, so it wouldn't have been an issue.

I also think that the PND solution is a horribly broken one, but we haven't found any alternatives to it (yet).

 

[Vorporeal]

Even if you unpack a PND to a folder, it'll still be autodetected with no problems, as you can just put the PXML file into the root directory of the app (and it will be recognized just fine). (IIRC, that was a feature, dunno if that got changed or removed though.)