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

[dflemstr]

Just to clarify -- the mime type "text/html" doesn't mean "either text or HTML" but rather "namespace text, file type html"... Your writing in the spec suggested that you might have misunderstood, sorry if that wasn't the case...

Aka, here are the file types that should be accepted:

• "text/html" for normal HTML 4.1 pages
• "application/xhtml+xml" for those who decide to use the (newer) XHTML 2.0 specification... some desktop environments report this instead of "text/html" if the file is XHTML, some don't.
• "text/plain" for general text e.g. "*.txt" files
• "text/htmlh" for HTML Help Pages, but dunno if there's a need to support this since it's a *very* old standard.

 

[mindlord]

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

jeff

There appears to be no way to add a context menu to xfce4-menu.Right-clicking in the xfce4-menu is treated as exactly the same as a left-click. But with .desktop entries under the Help category - that's almost as good.

I've tested the above solution will work for ~/Desktop and anywhere else in the filemanager. Of course the shell script will have to be clever enough to know whether it's being sent a .pnd or .desktop and react accordingly.

 

[skeezix]

Just to clarify -- the mime type "text/html" doesn't mean "either text or HTML" but rather "namespace text, file type html"... Your writing in the spec suggested that you might have misunderstood, sorry if that wasn't the case...

Aka, here are the file types that should be accepted:

• "text/html" for normal HTML 4.1 pages
• "application/xhtml+xml" for those who decide to use the (newer) XHTML 2.0 specification... some desktop environments report this instead of "text/html" if the file is XHTML, some don't.
• "text/plain" for general text e.g. "*.txt" files
• "text/htmlh" for HTML Help Pages, but dunno if there's a need to support this since it's a *very* old standard.

yes, I'm aware of this. My example was "text/html" for HTML, and my suggestion was people to use text, or html. ie: they should use text/plain or text/html.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough.

I don't think application/xhtml or variations is needed; usually text/html will handle js/css/executables okay IIRC. I'll clone the two rows above intothe wiki

jeff

 

[skeezix]

mindlord, leave implementation details to me

The .desktop will be handed pnd_run.sh, the same way the .pnd is 'run'; just the executable will not be set to ./foo in the pnd, but /usr/bin/midori blah blah. I will make the 'viewer' app be in conf file (/etc/pandora/conf/desktop), so that it can be set. I'd like to use x-www-browser (on desktop it is a link to users preferred browser) but doesn't look like we have that (yet anyway), so I'll just 'assume' midori for the moment, till a better way is found. (ie: akin to 'start' or 'open' on Windows and Mac, where it looks up the preferred app in the registry/system, but without me grepping through all the mimetype files to find it

jeff

 

[Aninhumer]

Perhaps it would be better to have a "Help" app, which has a simple list of PNDs with help available. (Perhaps searchable too)
If the help is likely to be html anyway, you could make the list in html too.

Also I assume the .desktop files include a description of what an app does anyway?
Not that standardised help is a bad idea by any means, just that I'm not sold on the "I forgot what app X does" scenario.

 

[dflemstr]

Perhaps it would be better to have a "Help" app, which has a simple list of PNDs with help available. (Perhaps searchable too)

+9000

Also I assume the .desktop files include a description of what an app does anyway?

Yes. (And libpnd's .desktop extration thingie could be improved -- I'll patch it this weekend if I'm allowed to )

 

[skeezix]

The .desktop generator needs lots of love, for sure; the actual Exec line I can generate from pnd_apps_exec so its all in one place, but putting in the [isolang] bits and such could be handy. If thats all you want I can stick that in pretty easy, but feel free if you want.

jeff

 

[laurencevde]

Why generate them at all? Why not just use the .desktop(s) that comes with the app? Almost all existing linux-gui-apps already have one...

 

[dflemstr]

Why generate them at all? Why not just use the .desktop(s) that comes with the app? Almost all existing linux-gui-apps already have one...

But PND-packaged apps don't.

 

[skeezix]

Why generate them at all? Why not just use the .desktop(s) that comes with the app? Almost all existing linux-gui-apps already have one...

Clearly, you have been missing something the last year

An app can be packaged as a tar or zip or whatever, with a .desktop; this may require an app to be installed into the filesystem, or perhaps can use all its resources in place once unpacked. But the .desktop file will then need to be copied by the user into various places for it to be visible, or you use a directory browser to launch your apps by moving around directories looking for them. (Nothing wrong with that.)

With pnd-files, the .desktop is automatically generated from info in the embedded PXML.xml file, and the .desktop is automatically placed in The Right Places, so a user can drop a pnd file into the SD card, stick it in (or download the file right using the pandora itself), and poof, the app shows up ready to use with no effort.

(The question of why we used PXML.xml instead of .desktop for the embedded info is something; we had reasons, good ones even, but most of that might be moot now. In the end, its probably because ED came up with the idea of PXML.xml, and thats where we started half of this mess

jeff

 

[skeezix]

Ahright, checked in the code I was noodling with .. nice and easy change.

An app can optionally request a single entry to be added to the menu, in the Help or Documentation subtree depending how ED sets it up I think. It can be a .txt or .html type file in the pnd, and that in turn can open up other files.. so dev could include no help for simple apps, or include a install guide, or include a whole large pile of documentation.

I really like this .. if Pickle or whoever wanted, could stick in a whole 'how to configure dosbox' type detail, and it'll show right up in the help on the device, without taking up any extra space. How cool is that?

That whole mechanism can also be disabled entirely with one easy change in a conf file, or you can redirect the files somewhere else, or can change the viewer to be a different app, etc...

jeff

 

[rabidpoobear]

Sounds pretty perfect, Jeff. Thanks for all your hard work! Very unobtrusive but still useful.

 

[alucart1984]

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

Sounds Good!!! I love it!!! Pandora is going to kick ass and possibly chew bubble gum! LOL