Do you _need_ a pnd Documentation reader for Windows?

[skeezix]

Its a bit of work, and I'm pretty strapped for time, but a few people have mentioned a want for something like this for awhile, so I'm wondering if its useful or not.. before I build it. IF its not needed, I'd rather not waste my time


PND applications can include docoumentation; when found on the Pandora, if the app publishes documentation them xfce/etc will have a menu item for the doc link (and minimenu makes it available via pressing the 'Y' button.) ITs all automatic and awesome (assuming the developer includes it at all, and names it in such a way as you can find it The only real annoyance is its hard to read that documentation on your desktop, out of the pnd file.


(People could post a zip to the dl.openhandhelds repo, with the pnd and the documentation in it, but thats not generally done, and implies the docs are in there twice.. once in the pnd, and once in the zip. Sort of goofy.)


--


I could make a tiny little app that is just an empty useless window (maybe drag and drop into it someday), that when prodded brings up a file picker; pick a pnd file, and it'd check if it has documentation, and if so.. extract it to a temp (or user specified perhaps) directory, and open up a browser window to render it. A cheesy little thing, but if you want it, let me know.


ie: So you could see the documentation on your windows desktop, or pull it out for reference.


--


jeff

 

[Prometheus]

^ If there is demand for this, would there possibly be any chance of a port for x86 Linux? I must admit, I would actually find it incredibly useful, but I don't use Microsft Windows.

 

[John Bedlam]

Hmm, this sounds simple enough that I should be able to do this before my Pandora arrives.


Is there documentation on the PND format somewhere?

 

[Eridger]

Would be pretty cool, especially a linux version.

 

[Tempel]

Is there documentation on the PND format somewhere?

Plenty.


Summary: It's an isofs or squashfs file with a PXML file (package info, XML format) appended, and optionally an icon in PNG format appended after that. To access the documentation, you'll need to check the PXML to find the path to the doc file, then extract it from the iso/squash filesystem. I think it's also possible to have HTML doc files that link to other files within the filesystem, so those would need extracting too.

 

[SirDregan]

I'd love that. I could do it myself if you're stuffed, though?

 

[John Bedlam]

Is there documentation on the PND format somewhere?

Plenty.


Summary: It's an isofs or squashfs file with a PXML file (package info, XML format) appended, and optionally an icon in PNG format appended after that. To access the documentation, you'll need to check the PXML to find the path to the doc file, then extract it from the iso/squash filesystem. I think it's also possible to have HTML doc files that link to other files within the filesystem, so those would need extracting too.

Cheers. Easy enough to do even with pre-Pandora jitters, I think. I'll see what I can do after work tonight.

 

[slaeshjag]

^ If there is demand for this, would there possibly be any chance of a port for x86 Linux? I must admit, I would actually find it incredibly useful, but I don't use Microsft Windows.

I'd say totally doable with a very small shell script.

 

[skeezix]

Doing it with a sh-script is not the point .. Windows folks (and OSX and Linux/BSD non-terminal folks) need something as well.


Its pretty easy to do n a unix foundation of course - grep PXML, mount pnd, open file with browser


For Windows hack, I figured just a quick PyQT app and bundle 7z with it; python job run 7zto dump the contents of the pnd to a user specified dir, and then just 'run' the noted documentation file so windows could pull up a bowser or text viewer and good to go.


Its a 1 day job, and I'm thinking folks could use it..


jeff


edit; oh, for linux folks like Prometheus .. heck, can even use libpnd direct in a pinch But yeah, you can really just mount the pnd, that hit up your browser in there, and unmount it. Wrapping it up may be nice, to make it easier, and then providing a .desktop so you can just drop it into a menu/etc.


I wasactually thninking something that could do the mkdir /pandora/menu and /pandora/desktop on SDs too, sort of a 'pandora buddy' that newbies need

 

[John Bedlam]

Doing it with a sh-script is not the point .. Windows folks (and OSX and Linux/BSD non-terminal folks) need something as well.


Its pretty easy to do n a unix foundation of course - grep PXML, mount pnd, open file with browser


For Windows hack, I figured just a quick PyQT app and bundle 7z with it; python job run 7zto dump the contents of the pnd to a user specified dir, and then just 'run' the noted documentation file so windows could pull up a bowser or text viewer and good to go.


Its a 1 day job, and I'm thinking folks could use it..


jeff

I agree, that's a hack. My plan was exposing the PND contents to a browser control without having to dump it somewhere.

I wasactually thninking something that could do the mkdir /pandora/menu and /pandora/desktop on SDs too, sort of a 'pandora buddy' that newbies need

I hope you don't mind if I steal that idea and run with it.

 

[skeezix]

We've been thinking about a menu item for on-pandora that user can hit to create the directories (among other tasks, such as performing backup/restores of the user homedir from NAND and so on.)


But on desktop .. if you or someone wants to create a Pandora Buddy or PAndora Meta-Doctor or whatever, that does things like ..


1) Prepare SD (just a couple mkdir's but important for newbies


2) Can mount the pnd (a pita in windows, hence why coudl use 7z/whatever to unpack it)


3) Read the pnd-built-in documentation


4) whatever


Then run with it. I've been posting at every opportunity to try and get more help from the folks in the community, and so few jump in .. but there is much to do, so the more help we can get the merrier


So, you want to run with this task so I can forget about it?


jeff

 

[DavidBowman]

I've been posting at every opportunity to try and get more help from the folks in the community, and so few jump in ..

Are you saying my smart-ass comments aren't helpful? Because if you are, well then, I... no, you'd be right.


I probably wouldn't have a whole lot of use for this as the few times I've looked at a documentation text, it was on the Pandora itself. But still, I can see where this would have it's uses. I'm willing to test this out if that helps.

 

[John Bedlam]

So, you want to run with this task so I can forget about it?

Sure thing. Better way to spend time than trawling old forum posts anyway.

 

[gadgetoid]

Isn't all the documentation available online, anyway!? I'd copypasta it all onto a Wiki where it's searchable, indexable and whatnot.

 

[WizardStan]

Isn't all the documentation available online, anyway!?

Not necessarily. The documentation is whatever the developer decides to include in the PND. For many ports, it's likely to just be a direct copy of the readme file that came with the original, but what about all new programs, or those that didn't have documentation or needs Pandora specific documentation?


Then you run the problem of all the apps that haven't been put in a central location so makes it difficult to get their documentation.


A single app running on your computer solves all those problems.

 

[skeezix]

A lot of the built-in docs aren't very good unfortuantely, but some is really good stuff, and some is just essential. (Where do y put you Quake pak files? look in the Docuemntation menu in mmenu or xfce and good to go


The doc system i quite flexible .. folks coudl put the whole of DosBox documenation in there if they like -- any old HTML or txt will do, so it can branch into other files via links, or have graphics and whatnot to spruce it up. Or just cut to the chase. I have hopes the built in docs will become high quality over time, as users demand it


jeff

 

[John Bedlam]

Righto, here's a little tech demo for you guys. It unpacks the files it needs on-the-fly. No temporary files are generated anywhere, yet it should still allow browsing the full documentation.


It requires .NET Framework 2.0 (and may very well work with Mono. Didn't test that.)


Keep in mind it's quick and dirty. Despite the fact that it should be completely safe, use it at your own risk, yadda yadda. I'm not responsible if it eats your puppy, nor do I know how to fix the yipping noise coming from your computer afterwards. :unsure:


How to use:


1. Run executable


2. Drag PND onto the title bar of the window. (Anywhere else and it doesn't work. Tech demo, quick and dirty, yadda yadda.)


3. ??? (Magic!)


4. Profi- Err, documentation.

PandorasDoxTD1.zip

 

[siggjen]

Righto, here's a little tech demo for you guys. It unpacks the files it needs on-the-fly. No temporary files are generated anywhere, yet it should still allow browsing the full documentation.


It requires .NET Framework 2.0 (and may very well work with Mono. Didn't test that.)


Keep in mind it's quick and dirty. Despite the fact that it should be completely safe, use it at your own risk, yadda yadda. I'm not responsible if it eats your puppy, nor do I know how to fix the yipping noise coming from your computer afterwards. :unsure:


How to use:


1. Run executable


2. Drag PND onto the title bar of the window. (Anywhere else and it doesn't work. Tech demo, quick and dirty, yadda yadda.)


3. ??? (Magic!)


4. Profi- Err, documentation.

I tried it in Win7 64 bit and instantly I got up that it had stopped working and windows is looking for a solution.

 

[John Bedlam]

I tried it in Win7 64 bit and instantly I got up that it had stopped working and windows is looking for a solution.

Which is just typical, considering my development laptop is Win7-64 as well. Works-on-my-machine Syndrome. :huh:


I'll set up a clean virtual machine to try it in when I get home from work. I'll also add some decent error reporting, I think.

 

[MarioPandio]

I tried a few pnd's quickly on a vista 32bit laptop and got the following results,


=========


sdl-ball.pnd


"Whoops! Something went wrong while trying to parse PXML.xml


'sdl-ball.png' is an unexpected token. The expected token is '"' or '''. Line 9, position 15.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>


<PXML xmlns="http://openpandora.org/namespaces/PXML" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PXML_schema.xsd">


<!-- please see http://pandorawiki.org/PXML_specification for more information before editing -->


<application id="sdl-ball-sdl-ball-10306" appdata="sdl-ball">


<exec command="scripts/sdl-ball.sh"/>


<author name="Paeryn" website="http://paeryn.myby.co.uk/pandora/sdl-ball.pnd"/> <!--Optional email and website, name required-->


<osversion major="1" minor="0" release="0" build="0"/> <!--The minimum OS version required-->


<icon src=sdl-ball.png/>


<info name="sdl-ball Readme" type="text/plain" src="README.Pandora"/>


<previewpics>


<pic src="previews/sdl-ball.png"/>


</previewpics>


<title lang="en_US">sdl-ball</title>


<description lang="en_US">en_US Automatically generated pxml from /mnt/utmp PND=sdl-ball</description>


<version major="1" minor="01" release="0" build="1"/> <!--This programs version-->


<categories>


<category name="Game"> <!-- Main Category : {Audio Video Development Education Game Graphics Network Office Setting System Utility} -->


<subcategory name="ArcadeGame"/> <!-- http://standards.freedesktop.org/menu-spec/latest/apa.html -->


</category>


</categories>


</application>


</PXML>"


==================


Wind and Water


"The PND does not contain documentation."


=========


Pcsx-rearmed r6 produced no reaction at all.


It caused no issue with windows though and looks nice a neat approach