Idea.. Automatic Pnd Info/install/help? Good Or Bad?

[WizardStan]

How/Why would you have a pnd and not know what it is?
Before you download you probably would have read what it is your downloading especially if your a newb.

I've got quite a few things I downloaded years ago that I have no idea what they do.
I'd delete them, but they have cool sounding names like "ascii3D" that I might be interested in if I can ever figure out how to run them.
Not to mention this idea has the potential to become a standard help system, not unlike man. Such a help could not only tell you what Quake is, but possibly where to get the demo files, how to extract the retail files from your purchased PC version, where to put them on the SD card, and how to load different mods.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, Right-Click content info and hovering is a bad idea, as that would only work on desktop but not in the menu.

The ideal solution would be more .desktop-files, yeah. However, they have to be in a HELP category.

Only PNDs which need something special (like copying the datafiles somewhere) should include such help file - otherwise the Help Menu would be crammed with entries when you have a lot of games installed.

Most games won't need help files, so it should be okay

 

[torpor]

I think the idea of having to click a .desktop file (selecting it in a menu) in order to find out about a PND file, is confusing. You're performing a menu selection just to get info - some people really won't get the difference between this and the 'normal' routine of running a program, and I think this is going to be confusing.

Ideally we'd be able to just hover over the PND and get a popup describing the contents .. or the menu could display it in an info region, or something. But still, I think the idea of double-clicking a PND and getting a HTML-based description, with a button to 'mount the PND' is the cleanest solution ..

 

[skeezix]

Yeah, sorry folksd for writing on my phone so not being as clear --

1) ".desktop" is the technology; in this case, it just means more items in the popup menu under the Help category (or whatever.) For xfce (our desktop, when you use the full desktop option), or other desktops you install. For pmenu or mmenu or other custom launchers, the developers could pull up the info and do what thry want with it if they wish .. I'll probably add 'hit Y to get install help' type option to mmenu.

2) This would be automatic; you drop the pnd file in (say) /pandora/desktop and poof, it shows up on your desktop; but also, in the menu, you'd get an Info item (say, somethign like "Quake 1: Info") which would tell you what it is, and how to set it up.

3) Standalone games etc probably wouldn't need this at all; I'm thinking more stuff like DosBox, or ScummVM, or Quake, where the actual game content is not distributed with the pnd, and oyu load it separately. like GemRB for Bioware games -- we're not shipping 1GB of Baldur's Gate around with the pnd or Pandora, you have to buy it yourself. So a GemRB.pnd will exist, but as most people never used or heard of it.. how to set it up? what directoiries to copy what files into? Bam, go to Help menu and that'll tell you

It won't slow anything down, and takes me 30 mins to code.. sounds brilliant

jeff

 

[EvilDragon]

I think the idea of having to click a .desktop file (selecting it in a menu) in order to find out about a PND file, is confusing. You're performing a menu selection just to get info - some people really won't get the difference between this and the 'normal' routine of running a program, and I think this is going to be confusing.

Why should it be confusing?
It's not an explanation HOW to use a PND file, only if something special needs to be done (like copying datafiles for Quake in a specific folder).

There will be a new folder "Help" or "PND Info" or whatever we want to call it in the XFCE4-Menu and in it there are the Help-Items.
The games stay where they are.

Other menus could also open a help category with information about this PND file

Ideally we'd be able to just hover over the PND and get a popup describing the contents ..

you can't hover in XFCE4 menu AFAIK

or the menu could display it in an info region, or something.

That's what I said in my post above

But still, I think the idea of double-clicking a PND and getting a HTML-based description, with a button to 'mount the PND' is the cleanest solution ..

Then you'd have to manually move to your folder and doubleclick the PND, etc.
Annoying.

Just opening help subcategory and selecting the game you want to display the helpfile for seems the nicest way for me.

 

[skeezix]

torpor -- we're tlaking touchscreen, there is no 'hover' per se. Its not a desktop machine with a mouse

Now, a right-click thing might be possible, not sure if theres a freedesktop standard for that, or how configurable it is.

This is more than that I'm thinking though .. the PXML.xml could register a 'install help' of index.html, which could then lead to whatever it wants to in the pnd .. could have a whole multipage and javascript based search if it wanted to.

If a basic right-click properties type option is available, we could add that _As well_, but remember.. noobies will not know about right click at all. (Only people hwo've used touchscreen devices before might have an idea you can tap-and-hold to get a right-click simulation.)

jeff

 

[skeezix]

Double click (or "execute") is mapped to pnd_run binary, which runs the job; it would be annoying for every time to run an app, it asks a confirmation dialog and shows some info .. the second time you do that, you just want to run it

jeff

Alerino .. and this applies to the conversation, how?

 

[juniorm33]

How/Why would you have a pnd and not know what it is?
Before you download you probably would have read what it is your downloading especially if your a newb.

I've got quite a few things I downloaded years ago that I have no idea what they do.
I'd delete them, but they have cool sounding names like "ascii3D" that I might be interested in if I can ever figure out how to run them.
Not to mention this idea has the potential to become a standard help system, not unlike man. Such a help could not only tell you what Quake is, but possibly where to get the demo files, how to extract the retail files from your purchased PC version, where to put them on the SD card, and how to load different mods.

I'm so bad for having files rar/zip files around, and having no idea what there for
Maybe you missed my other posts, but it's about priority to me.
You used yourself as an example of having stuff from years ago. If anything that just proves my point that it's not a high priority for initial release.
To be honest I'm not too sure about how he intends to implement it, but having an "info pane" is a good idea as I said.

I think we should be thinking about feature freeze and making sure what is there works as well as possible until after release.

I have seen (and done myself), let's add this quick feature in, oh and that feature, when the deadline is close, it can just end up eating up time that can be spent on higher priority things.

If people consider this to be high priority for initial release, fair enough.

And he did say he could do it very quickly, so maybe my point in regards to this is void.....

 

[torpor]

Okay I get it now .. thanks for the explanation ED. I look forward to seeing how this works on the real thing!

 

[skeezix]

I think I'll add it quick; its not very much new stuff, just leveraging the already working stuff. Piece of cake, I've been mulling it over for ages, just had a brainfart to do it this way and make it trivial to implement, and pretty useful. Also, I want to have it in the PXML.xml spec before launch, and into some of the samples on the wiki, so at least developers are consious of the option, and it has a chaqnce of being a standard. As long as devs are tasteful and dont' go hogwild registering 50 files onto the menu for one .pnd, it should be a great option. I'll whip it up, then maybe make a trivial video so you can see how it works out

Weird, browser or forum screwy today

jeff

edit: Deciding in chat with ED now .. do we let a pnd do a max of 1 file, and let it branch out to further html files on its own, or let them register multiple files. Don't sweat it, we'll work it out.

 

[Bigun]

I would think a brief description of what a PND file would be a great idea. On a launcher, just carve out some space for the description. But from a Managerial point of view, with the launch being so close, I would wait.

I would shelve the idea until launch happens, and the assortment of problems that come with a launch are resolved.

 

[dflemstr]

I think I'll add it quick; its not very much new stuff, just leveraging the already working stuff. Piece of cake, I've been mulling it over for ages, just had a brainfart to do it this way and make it trivial to implement, and pretty useful. Also, I want to have it in the PXML.xml spec before launch, and into some of the samples on the wiki, so at least developers are consious of the option, and it has a chaqnce of being a standard. As long as devs are tasteful and dont' go hogwild registering 50 files onto the menu for one .pnd, it should be a great option. I'll whip it up, then maybe make a trivial video so you can see how it works out

Weird, browser or forum screwy today

jeff

edit: Deciding in chat with ED now .. do we let a pnd do a max of 1 file, and let it branch out to further html files on its own, or let them register multiple files. Don't sweat it, we'll work it out.

Just please don't do anything hasty that screws up the spec again... I'm for an optional '<help type="text/html" src="doc/xyz.html"/>' tag but nothing more aka nothing that breaks the standard.
Also, one file should be enough IMO.

BTW, can't we try to "unify" the extensions to PXML somehow? At the moment there are only more and more tags, while I (with my background in Maven and the like) am more for a '<extension type="help">...' or '<extension type="categories">...' kind of syntax (It's too late to clean up the mess that's already in the spec but extensions could be added cleanly I think)

But PXML won't have an XML schema anyways, right, so it might not be necessary to comply to the XML spec...

 

[skeezix]

I'm goinmg to add 'nice and simple, like the other crap' , just a single info-line..

<infoguide name="foo" mimetype="txt/html" filename="fooby.html"> (where filename should be a .html or .txt, since I'll just run midori on it for now, more or less.)

Something I can add quick.

The PXML.xml spec does need some review, but that needed to be ages ago .. if only we'd known we'd have >year of time to design/drev stuff, rather than having a sliding 'ship next month, panic every day to be ready for that' type schedule

jeff

For post-release PXML.xml 'overrides' and 'externsions', I'm with you. I'll settle odwn the PXML.xml override system a bit, and then all future changes we shoudl just do the usual 'attribute' style extension .. "extension name=""' bit, containing all extension bits inside there.

If you want to note down the extension mechanism in the libpnd hub -> pxml specification, wiki, feel free. I've not looked into eisting standards for that enough to make a solid rec.

 

[dflemstr]

I'm goinmg to add 'nice and simple, like the other crap' , just a single info-line..

<infoguide name="foo" mimetype="txt/html" filename="fooby.html"> (where filename should be a .html or .txt, since I'll just run midori on it for now, more or less.)

Something I can add quick.

The PXML.xml spec does need some review, but that needed to be ages ago .. if only we'd known we'd have >year of time to design/drev stuff, rather than having a sliding 'ship next month, panic every day to be ready for that' type schedule

jeff

For post-release PXML.xml 'overrides' and 'externsions', I'm with you. I'll settle odwn the PXML.xml override system a bit, and then all future changes we shoudl just do the usual 'attribute' style extension .. "extension name=""' bit, containing all extension bits inside there.

If you want to note down the extension mechanism in the libpnd hub -> pxml specification, wiki, feel free. I've not looked into eisting standards for that enough to make a solid rec.

If you were to swap "infoguide" for "info", "name" for "id", "mimetype" for "type" and "filename" for "src", and I'd be happy! (It's annoying to have to learn different naming conventions for each specification, and the de-facto convention is to use "src" for URLs etc.)

Or if you dislike those proposed name changes, then at least choose something more concise

 

[skeezix]

Added to spec: http://pandorawiki.o...he_info_element

jeff

yeah, meant to change filename -> src, hadn't thought of the others.

Going with:

<info name="AwesomeGame Setup" type="txt/html" src="index.html">

name I prefer ot id, since its a menu-entry, id suggests somethign more internal.

 

[juniorm33]

I think I'll add it quick; its not very much new stuff, just leveraging the already working stuff. Piece of cake, I've been mulling it over for ages, just had a brainfart to do it this way and make it trivial to implement, and pretty useful.

Cool, I got caught up in work stuff so couldn't press the add reply button, by the time I did a fair few posts had happened. :lol:

 

[ashdjones]

Well, Right-Click content info and hovering is a bad idea, as that would only work on desktop but not in the menu.

The ideal solution would be more .desktop-files, yeah. However, they have to be in a HELP category.

Only PNDs which need something special (like copying the datafiles somewhere) should include such help file - otherwise the Help Menu would be crammed with entries when you have a lot of games installed.

Most games won't need help files, so it should be okay

Why not something like on Mac OSX? The help files that come with individual applications augment themselves into the system-wide help program.

 

[mindlord]

You could add a custom action to Thunar, by inserting

<name>Display PND info</name>
<command>pndInfo.sh %f</command>
<description>Displays opens the file indicated by the info tag included in the selcted PND&apos;s pxml.xml file.</description>
<patterns>*.desktop; *.pnd</patterns>
<other-files/>
<text-files/>

into ~/.config/Thunar/uca.xml
This would add an entry in the context menu that would appear for both .destop and .pnd files that would invoke a shell script for displaying the associated help in pxml.xml (if it exists). I'm not sure if the XFCE4 menu looks here or not, but I'm pretty sure it has this functionality as well.

edit: forgot a ; in the patterns tag

 

[skeezix]

mindlord -- keep digging; I'd love to add this as an option as well; dig around, let me know

jeff

 

[Mithrildor]

Looks good. My idea on that:

Give a option to chose the genres of games you like to play. Make a file for each genre and update this automaticly every few days. Let the user be able to disable/set a max for games in the file (let them sort this out on popularity/release date/whatever). And another files for the PND files on their SD card (can be done with auto detection)