Beta Minimenu Preview Beta For You To Try!

[skeezix]

Grep the mmskin.conf for keys ending in _w, there were about 6 added. (A couple _w ill match from before, and its not those.) The new keys all have something obvious in their comment like [detail pane hidden mode] or something. Look at the diff:

arrow_up_y 80 # top edge of up-arrow showing more icons scrolled away

arrow_up_x_w 780 # left edge of up-arrow showing more icons scrolled away [detail pane hidden]

arrow_up_y_w 80 # top edge of up-arrow showing more icons scrolled away [detail pane hidden]

-arrow_down_x 780 # left edge of down-arrow showing more icons scrolled away

+arrow_down_x 450 # left edge of down-arrow showing more icons scrolled away

arrow_down_y 380 # top edge of down-arrow showing more icons scrolled away

-arrow_down_x_w 450 # left edge of down-arrow showing more icons scrolled away [detail pane hidden]

+arrow_down_x_w 780 # left edge of down-arrow showing more icons scrolled away [detail pane hidden]

arrow_down_y_w 380 # top edge of down-arrow showing more icons scrolled away [detail pane hidden]

arrow_bar_x 450 # left edge of scrollbar

arrow_bar_y 98 # top edge of scrollbar

The [detail pane hidden] ones are the new ones.


I'll be adding 'popup dialogs' very soon, which will need the theme to define artwork for topleft, topright, bottom-left, bottom-right, left-side, right-side, top-, bottom frames, as well. The art loader will look in the theme dir, and if not found, look in the default theme, so the functions will all work with old themes.. I'll post about the new theme requirements soon, once I nail it down. I think that'll be the last theme-impacting stuff for hotfix5.

jeff

 

[Esn]

Actually could be right, there is a tiny delay in there which I'll take out next build... But noticing a .1-.2 sec delay? Leave i to gamers to notice

Jeffphone

Thank you, skeezix.

How about those short descriptions from the pxml file, would it be possible to make those visible? (perhaps in the detail panel)

 

[skeezix]

Maybe, just need to write a 'word wrapper' and figure out how much space is left in the panel; I'll put it on my todo

jeff

 

[DaveC]

Maybe, just need to write a 'word wrapper' and figure out how much space is left in the panel; I'll put it on my todo

jeff

I was thinking the detail panel and text display for "Y" could be combined if you ditch the XFCE webbrowser for displaying text (reccommended as it is SSSLLLLOOOOOOoowwww) . Afterall both of those are all information displays. I don't think it makes much sense to split into two. This simplifies the buttons needed to call each as well. If there is no text file for particular app that area would just be blank (or a picture of a notepad for placeholder could be displayed). Below is a quick mock-up of how it could look (could be refined a bit but is just a concept). The top that used to be for tabs would display text file name. Instead of having to write your own code isn't there some linux text displayers out there that you could pinch for this?

 

[Esn]

if you ditch the XFCE webbrowser for displaying text (reccommended as it is SSSLLLLOOOOOOoowwww)

It really is. By the way, does anyone know how I can ditch it in XFCE, too? The thing takes like 20 seconds to load, and Mousepad seems like a much better option for reading documentation files.

I like the look of DaveC's suggestion (I still would like the short pxml description to be visible in the detail panel by default, as it would be very useful when you just want to tell at a glance what a program does, without pressing any extra buttons).

 

[Chaser]

That looks really good DaveC and it would be great to ditch Arora from the firmware in the process.

 

[skeezix]

The reason I didn't do something like that (theres always a reason) is .. apps can include multiple kinds of documentation, though typically it is text or html-text right now. AFAIK Mousepad doesn't handle html display as formatted.

If we have a light display job for html+text, we can switch xfce and mmenu to use it trivially (just a config file what viewer to use.)

So, someone tell me a good viewer that we already have in firmware, or one thats tiny and we can build into firmware, and good to go

Currently mmenu doesn't really depend on any external libs, to help keep it light. I could easily bring up a QT window to show the docs say, but it'd still take a bit (but hell of a lot faster than the heavy lifting thats going on right now.)

Another option is .. mmenu could inspect the file and see the documentation is plain-text, and then view it internally, or for html pull of an external job to do it, so that half the time it'd be more like the above.

Any thoughts?

This is why I didn't do it, day one .. its work

jeff

 

[naples39]

- you can disable pnd autodiscovery by minimenu if you like; doing so makes it start up pretty darned fast.. but not much to look at However, if you turn on directory browser, and turn off pnd-browser, you can just walk around your SD and run things that way (manual discovery).

Without having tried this yet, can we turn off auto-discovery but then minimenu remembers programs after a manual scan? Or does that kind of system present other issues?

That way it won't scan every time but will keep the full browsing environment.

 

[skeezix]

Auto-discovery is pretty fast; most of the startup time is loading up the icons. They're small, but loading up 400 little pictures doesnt' take a bit.

Right now it actually pulls icon from the pnd (on the assumption that the rest of libpnd may not be active, but so far it always is.) I should just load the icon cached files from /tmp/iconcache that pndnotifyd is emitting, where possible, as its probablyt faster to load from ramdisk (/tmp) then SD (which is slow on a per-file basis, but fast for block transfers with an open file.)

I'm adding that today hopefully..

jeff

But actually 'remembering' (and caching) the previous auto-discovery info is probably more work than just autpo-discovering which is nice and easy with libpnd

 

[naples39]

Hmm, okay. Sounds good.

 

[skeezix]

Just updated again; newest is here:
http://www.codejedi....er_20110201.pnd

This one changes it so .. when you have an item selected (currently has to be an app, not a folder or a directory browser entry) and hit SPACE, it shows a 'context menu'. (Used to be that space would just run the app, same as hitting Start or B, but not SPACE is reserved for popping up this menu.)

This menu lets you specify _overrides_ for display name, preferred cpu speed, preferred prime category, preferred subcategory, or hide the app (to save you heading into the config main menu via Select menu.)

Example:

Battle for Wesnoth might be too long a name for you; so hit Space, pick Change display name, and type in "Wesnoth", hit Enter. It'll ask you to confirm, and if you pick "Confirm", it'll write out an .ovr file beside the .pnd file on your SD card. (same filename, just with .pnd changed to .ovr); it'll create the ovr-file if needed, or update it if its already present.

.ovr's are already supported across the system since day one (just no easy editor until now), so a change in mmenu will actually show up in xfce or anywhere, next time they rescan the applications. (ie: next boot or rescan .. mmenu will force itself to do a rescan immediately, of course, so will reflect the change right away.)

Note:

This lets you assign a category or subcategory (or override what is already present), but does not yet let you create new categories or subcats. We're still mulling that over.

This update may not go into hotfix 5; we think this will need more testing over more time with more people, so we'll leave hotfix 5 going as 'stable', and put this in for hotfix 6. Please help me test The pnd installer should work, and shouldn't break anything, but be warned! It is not in hf5-beta4 that ED just posted.

jeff

 

[Esn]

The reason I didn't do something like that (theres always a reason) is .. apps can include multiple kinds of documentation, though typically it is text or html-text right now. AFAIK Mousepad doesn't handle html display as formatted.

If we have a light display job for html+text, we can switch xfce and mmenu to use it trivially (just a config file what viewer to use.)

So, someone tell me a good viewer that we already have in firmware, or one thats tiny and we can build into firmware, and good to go

To be honest, I'd rather just display ALL of it as plain text, html or no. I haven't come across one that's not a plain text file yet, and in any case, html is easy to read even if you do see all the tags. I think that's much a lesser evil than having to wait so awfully long for Arora to load. Even if it IS html, I'd prefer to read it as plain text, because it's just as readable and much quicker to load (unless there's an html reader that would be equally quick to load). I think Minimenu should prioritize speed - whatever takes the least time for the user is the right thing to do.

It would be nice if it were integrated seamlessly like in DaveC's mockup, not a separate program - that way I don't have to get out the stylus just to close the window.

Thanks for the new version! I'll give it a try when time permits (next few days, I hope).

 

[DaveC]

if you ditch the XFCE webbrowser for displaying text (reccommended as it is SSSLLLLOOOOOOoowwww)

It really is. By the way, does anyone know how I can ditch it in XFCE, too? The thing takes like 20 seconds to load, and Mousepad seems like a much better option for reading documentation files.

I like the look of DaveC's suggestion (I still would like the short pxml description to be visible in the detail panel by default, as it would be very useful when you just want to tell at a glance what a program does, without pressing any extra buttons).

Well with my suggestion you CAN have the detail panel in the main icon grid too if you want. When you hit Y and go to the info screen with the text the detail panel just stays. The ones who choose to shut off the detail panel in the main grid will still see the detail panel when you hit Y.

The reason I didn't do something like that (theres always a reason) is .. apps can include multiple kinds of documentation, though typically it is text or html-text right now. AFAIK Mousepad doesn't handle html display as formatted.

If we have a light display job for html+text, we can switch xfce and mmenu to use it trivially (just a config file what viewer to use.)

Currently mmenu doesn't really depend on any external libs, to help keep it light. I could easily bring up a QT window to show the docs say, but it'd still take a bit (but hell of a lot faster than the heavy lifting thats going on right now.)

Another option is .. mmenu could inspect the file and see the documentation is plain-text, and then view it internally, or for html pull of an external job to do it, so that half the time it'd be more like the above.

Any thoughts?

This is why I didn't do it, day one .. its work

jeff

Can't we just specify to use text files and NO HTML in the doc files? There is not much reason for it to need that right?

It is much nicer to have the notes integrated into the panel like shown in my example and not have to load XFCE and have a seperate window pop up. It is ugly and just seems very unfinished, the "look and feel" is not too great and of course the speed issue.... And yes it is annoying to have to dig out the stylus just to close a window. That is just not very user friendly and is "hacky" and awkward.

I didn't go to HF5 yet either, I don't know if that makes a difference.

 

[skeezix]

Html is certainly a valid doc option.. Artwork, tables, multiple pages linking around.. Consider dosbox which could have nice extensive docs built in. *shrug*

Remind me later.. Can pull in a lightweight html renderer perhaps. Or QT render to image and blit it onto mmenu window..

Jeffphone

 

[DaveC]

Html is certainly a valid doc option.. Artwork, tables, multiple pages linking around.. Consider dosbox which could have nice extensive docs built in. *shrug*

Remind me later.. Can pull in a lightweight html renderer perhaps. Or QT render to image and blit it onto mmenu window..

Jeffphone

Wouldn't you have an issue with using the MM scrollbar to scroll down if the Doc was more than one page long?

Do docs have all of that other stuff usually? I found that with most stuff devs will just do a quick read-me, They don't even allow preview pics (did you ever fix that when the pnd doesn't have a prev pic you can still add with override?) I don't see them getting that elaborate.

I guess the option if it is just simple text, display in the mm "Y" screen, if it is loaded with all kinds of HTML crap pull up the browser would be a good compromise for now.

 

[skeezix]

Notaz had a cool idea; some trick we used to do all the time years aog, but I've not needed in ages -- using lynx or 'links' text-mode browsers. Both of them have a --dump option that just renders the html file/url to text and spits it out, so we may look into bringing links into the firmware (about 3-5MB of space), and then mmenu could use that to get the text of a page and render it to the display. That'd be a piece of cake and should come up a lot faster.

On the to-do list..

jeff

 

[sebt3]

This new beta is way better.
I'm starting to like it much

One thing though : I manage to get it restart itself :
go to a sub-cat and back
choose an other main cat with sub categories
get in one of them, kaboom

 

[skeezix]

OKay, found that one, thanks!

Bug was where .. you're (say) far-left tab, enter subfolder and back up to parent, then scroll tabs far right (scrolling the tabs), and enter a subfolder and back, and it was getting confused about the visibility of the tab (scroll or not to ensure tab visibility.) ie: in subfolder, theres only one tab, where as back up you might have 20 tabs and a different tab-scroll amount.

jeff

 

[skeezix]

And the very latest:
http://www.codejedi.com/pandora/minimenu/mmenu_beta_installer_20110202.pnd

Thats a release candidate in my books .. lots of new stuff, pretty solid.

I'm not doing any more features, just bug fixes for anything that might come up .. after hf5 ships, I'll get back on features

jeff

 

[naples39]

Just tried it out. Pretty cool with the ovr editor and full screen view.

The new tabs are messing me up though. For I have ovr's for all of my pnd's and use custom categories ("Linux" for Linux ports, "PC" for pc ports like doom, zelda classic, "Emulators"...) In this new version of minimenu now all of my pnds are being forced into Other and my custom categories are being ignored.

Maybe allowing custom folders could be a user setting?