Feature requests for HF6

[owenshadbolt]

Hi All,


This might be the wrong place to do this, but I couldn't see anywhere more appropriate, so I thought I'd start a topic for people to post feature requests for the HotFix 6 that is currently undergoing development.


My own requests are:


1) A working CUPS environment to fully enable printing from the Pandora.


2) More control over button mappings etc from the XFCE GUI eg remap shoulder buttons to mouse buttons


3) GUI creation and maybe auto mounting of swap files on SD cards (I wouldn't want to use swap partitions as this would defeat the SD cards built-in wear levelling)


Thanks to all of the OP team for a fantastic device and to the rest of the community for supporting it long enough to get this far and beyond


Owen

 

[Vitel]

Suspend to RAM


DSP support

 

[Esn]

2) More control over button mappings etc from the XFCE GUI eg remap shoulder buttons to mouse buttons

I would like a single place to map/remap ALL Pandora inputs (including nubs, keyboard, should buttons, face buttons). This would all by itself solve a lot of issues with hastily-ported programs in which keys are mapped to awkward places. If you come across one, just switch your buttons mappings.


It would also allow people to use the Pandora to type in different languages with non-Latin scripts.


There was a discussion about that here, so I'll just quote my proposal from it:

1. In the Pandora start menu, perhaps under "system" or "settings", there is an option I can click on called "key config".


2. When I click on it, a window comes up giving me the option to EITHER choose between adjusting existing configs (at first, there would only be the default one) OR create a blank, new key config. Like with gamma, basically.


3. If I click, "add new", an image pops up with a reproduction of the Pandora controls, looking something like this: http://geo.hmg.inpg.fr/~janek/pan/printed_layout.svg (with labels also added to the directions of the nubs and d-pad)


4. I can then use the stylus to EITHER click on the key/nub that I want to change from the default settings (if I only want to make minor changes, i.e. switching the right nub and A/B/X/Y settings, as a number of people want to do, or switching A/B/X/Y with Enter/Space/Shift/Ctrl to make badly-keymapped Pandora software playable), OR I have an option to remove ALL assignments and start a new key config from scratch (the function of stylus input can never be changed; that way, nobody can screw up and accidentally save a config that won't allow them to do anything on their Pandora; at least the stylus will still work).


5. When you click on a key on the screen to assign a new function to it (and secondary/tertiary function, as well - what you'd get by holding Shift or Fn keys...), you're given the option EITHER to simply exchange the functions of two existing keys (so if I want to exchange "A" and "Enter", I would click on the "A" on the image on the screen, it would ask me to press the key I'd like to exchange it with, I'd press "Enter") - this would be what most people would use, probably, OR you can entirely delete its current function and assign another one to it, including unicode characters (so let's say I want to type in another language on my Pandora, I'd delete everything, and assign each key to some unicode character from my language instead.) (also "mouse movement" can only be assigned to either the entire left or right nub, and takes up all 4 directions on it)


6. After you're done, the IMAGE of the Pandora Keyboard Layout on the screen CHANGES, so you can visibly see the changes you've made


7. You can click "save config". If you have more than one config, the program forces you to create a key-combination-shortcut that you can use to cycle between them (whatever your config is, this key-combination will be the same).

Alternate proposal (quicker to make than the above, but maybe not as easy for users):


A folder where I can edit & create text files (like the .conf files in DOSBox), each of which will be recognized as a control input config which I'll be able to choose in a menu or by cycling through them with a key shortcut.


It could look something like:

letter-a=a

letter-a-shift=A

letter-a-Fn='

letter-b=b

letter-b-shift=B

letter-b-Fn=|

l-nub-left=movemouse

l-nub-up=movemouse

l-nub-right=movemouse

l-nub-down=movemouse

r-nub-left=Home

r-nub-up=PgUp

r-nub-right=End

r-nub-down=PgDown

A=left-mouse-click

B=right-mouse-click

X=middle-mouse-click

Y-double-mouse-click

etc.


and it could be easily editable in a text editor.


Notice that ALL of the control inputs (nubs, keyboard, face buttons) are edited in ONE place. I think this is really important.

 

[FaeMinx]

^ + 1


Or, at the *very* least - allow shoulder buttons to be used as left and right click instead of the right nub.


This really should one of the default options.


Also, how about a 'set default brightness setting'.


I don't know if this is already possible, but if not - please make it so!


Because of the way I've set up my desktop in Xfce, every time I want to run gpSP I have to toggle 'Enable display compositing' under 'Window Manager Tweaks'.


It would be great if I could set it that every time I run gpSP, display compositing is automatically disabled and obviously re-enabled when I exit.


In other words, I would like to have my default system settings as well as completely new system settings for each program I run if I so choose.

 

[mhadf]

That sounds like a more feature complete version of the override settings.

 

[maplesugarlover]

I propose adding a gui app for taking screenshots and a system monitor with gui. Pandora already has this stuff, but its cli : (

 

[Eridger]

Just a new kernel. That's about it.

 

[pisiiki]

A would appreciate a lot a fix for read/write errors with "problematic" SD cards.

 

[Aethix]

^seconded. I've had a lot of corrupted files.

 

[edgex004]

In other words, I would like to have my default system settings as well as completely new system settings for each program I run if I so choose.

I support this very muchly. I love having display compositing in xfce, but when I switch to minimenu to squeeze out the best performance, compositing is left on for some reason. I can start programs and they will still have partially translucent window decorations. I would love either program specific overrides, or at least an override for when minimenu is chosen as the gui.

 

[Aurekana]

Native NFS/CIFS support would be nice, though I guess Gigolo does duplicate some of the functionality of this. Also, +1 for the newer kernel.

 

[Eridger]

And by the way, I don't mean just 'a new kernel'. I mean an up-to-date kernel. Nothing like .28 or something cheap like that. I mean the latest stable kernel available. It's ridiculous to have a kernel as old as ours.


'Course if I'm so adamant about it I could just do it myself.

 

[WizardStan]

All of my battery charging hacks.

 

[SNESFAN]

improve sleep mode to be more battery efficient (more then 24 hour standby)

 

[richiz]

Suspend to ram

 

[Bosbeetle]

Just a new kernel. That's about it.

 

[sebt3]

Just a new kernel. That's about it.

What for boys ? What new feature will that bring you ? I'm working on servers still using 2.6.9 fine.

 

[the_marshal]

Just a new kernel. That's about it.

What for boys ? What new feature will that bring you ? I'm working on servers still using 2.6.9 fine.

I believe there are a lot of OMAP related patches in newer Kernel. Would permit to use the DSP too IIRC.

 

[Caine]

Suspend to RAM


DSP support

I agree with these.

 

[sebt3]

I believe there are a lot of OMAP related patches in newer Kernel.

Not sure lastest mainline kernel have way more patch for us then the 2.6.27 arm linux


But I might be wrong.

Would permit to use the DSP too IIRC.

I'm pretty sure our current kernel could allow us to use the DSP. But are you willing to reserve some memory (say 64M or 1/8 of all currently available) to something nothing use currently ?