Initial Release Of Rsvp4gp2x

[azmodean]

Initial release of rsvp4gp2x.

Download from archive.gp2x.de

Requires Pygame.

This application displays text for reading in a rapid sequential fashion, which allows rapid reading even on a restricted-size screen such as the gp2x.
Current features include: Bookmarking, Text Rotation, rewind, fast-foward, adjustable text display speed, a progress bar, configurable controls, configurable font size, configurable colors (for all display elements)
[cut]
Future features may include: alternate document formats (compressed files, .doc, pdf), syntactic pause adjustment (increases the display pause between words when called for by syntax, for instance commas, periods, paragraph breaks), ice cream dispenser, world peace.

Known issues: requires installation to root sd directory (just a config file issue I'm sure), launch time is seems somewhat slow (about 8 seconds)

Default Controls:
Up stick/Y: accelerate text
Down stick/X: decelerate text
Left stick: rewind
Right stick: fast-foward
A/select: make bookmark
start: pause/unpause
Vol +/-: rotate text clockwise/counterclockwise
L: previous bookmark
R: next bookmark.[/cut]

 

[mth411]

Cool, glad you posted it.
Will try it out.

mth411

 

[gp2x.info]

Thanks azmodean, sounds very interesting!

 

[reeced]

This looks very exciting - unfortunately I can't get it to work.
Can you please explain which files go where. I currently have the Rsvp4gp2x and Python dirs in the root.
I get as far as listing the txt files, but when I try and display, it crashes. Do I have to do anything to the config file ?

 

[azmodean]

I've completed a few revisions to the app, most importantly I seem to have disabled config file parsing while doing testing in the first version, it is now functional. (I missed it all this time since I just use the defaults, they're my defaults after all)

A bit more verbosity about requirements. I use selector as my file chooser, but you don't need to worry about that as it is included in the zip along with a config file for it.
rsvp4gp2x also requires pygame to be present in the default location (root of your sd card) though it is a trivial modification to the rsvp_selector_config file to point the launcher at a new directory. The included gpu file also expects the rsvp4gp2x directory to be at the root of the sd card. I'd appreciate any tips on making the configuration more user-friendly, or otherwise I'll look into it eventually myself.

 

[reeced]

I've completed a few revisions to the app, most importantly I seem to have disabled config file parsing while doing testing in the first version, it is now functional. (I missed it all this time since I just use the defaults, they're my defaults after all)

Will there be a new version available in the archive ?
Many Thanks

 

[azmodean]

Will there be a new version available in the archive ?
Many Thanks

The most recent version is at the url in the first post, it's 1.3 (should have been 1.1, but I kept noticing problems right AFTER submitting it to my local repository) There was some kind of delay between me posting it (and my previous forum post) and it actually appearing on the archive. I'm afraid it isn't likely to fix your problems if you're still having them though, as it was running fine previously, it just wasn't loading the config file, but that means it would stick with the defaults.

As for your problem, I can only think of two reasons for it not to run properly.
First: it uses pygame from this archive (pygame_beta1.zip), if you are using anything else it will likely not work
Second: relative paths of rsvp4gp2x and the pygame directory. Unless you tinker with the config files, both the python and rsvp4gp2x directories must be in the root directory of your SD card. So to be clear:

Windows:
say you have rsvp4gp2x_1.3.zip and pygame_beta1.zip in c:\tmp and your sd card is d:
cd c:\tmp
unzip pygame_beta1.zip
unzip rsvp4gp2x_1.3.zip
copy pygame_beta1\python d:
copy rsvp4gp2x d:
then you run rsvp4gp2x.gpu on the gamepark (rsvp4gp2x.gpe if it is version 1)
uh, that might need to be "copy -r" it's been a while since I've used windows now and I can't remember

Linux:
you have rsvp4gp2x_1.3.zip and pygame_beta1.zip in ~/tmp and your sd card is mounted at /mnt
cd ~/tmp
unzip pygame_beta1.zip
unzip rsvp4gp2x_1.3.zip
cp -r pygame_beta1\python /mnt
cp -r rsvp4gp2x /mnt
then you run rsvp4gp2x.gpu on the gamepark (rsvp4gp2x.gpe if it is version 1)

Also, I haven't mentioned this anywhere before, but you can run this on your PC, it still requires pygame, which is just "<your package manager> pygame" in Linux, I haven't tried it on windows. It launches with "python rsvp.py -t <filename>" or "./rsvp.py -t <filename>" It's hardly even decent on a PC since it doesn't take advantage of pretty much anything a PC has to offer, and I don't do much more than keep it working on the PC since I use it for debugging. I'd recommend Dictator for a PC rsvp reader, it has many features I'd like to emulate, but also quite a few that just don't make sense on the gp2x, which is why I started from scratch instead of porting it as I'd originally planned.

Here's the keyboard commands:
q: quit
up/down: speedup/slowdown
left/right: rewind/fastfoward (these work differently with the keyboard than with the gamepark)
p: pause
period/comma : previous/next bookmark (think '<' and '>', just no need for shift)

At the moment I'm working on a preloading scheme to try to reduce the load time, but I'm running into some kind of backgrounding/foregrounding issue. Let me know if you have any requested features, I'm starting to run out of things to add but I'm still interested in developing it further.

Also, mad props for theoddbot for the pygame port and Kounch for selector.

 

[reeced]

As for your problem, I can only think of two reasons for it not to run properly.
First: it uses pygame from this archive (pygame_beta1.zip), if you are using anything else it will likely not work
Second: relative paths of rsvp4gp2x and the pygame directory. Unless you tinker with the config files, both the python and rsvp4gp2x directories must be in the root directory of your SD card.



Azmodean, I've been doing exactly as you've said, and I repeated it with the new version, but I still get the same problem.
However I can get it to work, if I first run another pygame application - pyDiskusage, quit it, and then run rsvp4gp2x. Do you know why this should happen ?

 

[azmodean]

Ok, I do have one idea from your description, I might have set up the launch script incorrectly, but it works on my system for some reason.

in rsvp4gp2x.gpu, add the following before "./selector ./rsvp_selector_config":

PYTHONHOME=/mnt/sd/python
export PYTHONHOME

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=${PYTHONHOME}/extras{LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH


Running the other application might set these environment variables, which allows python to find its modules. If this is it though, I'm puzzled as to why it works on my system :blink:

 

[reeced]

Thanks Azmodean, your suggested modification to the gpu file worked straightaway.

 

[azmodean]

Awesome, that change will be in the next version, along with a speedup in load time. It now incrementally loads and parses the text file instead of doing it all up front before displaying. (the load time has been bothering me since the first time I ran the program, so I'm ecstatic to see it reduced)