.next User Experience

[ShleeDragon]

Because .next should be replacing the older OSes. Id like to discuss any of the plans for a user experience standard.


Id like to see support the following. 1L/1R buttons used as a mouse button in desktop. and normal button in game. The right nub as button thing doesn't always work.


The standard keyboard/number keys and function keys should be kept standard without any addtional trigger.


The Start/Select can be used per application.


The Pandora should be used 1) quick press for ingame options 2) long press for Pandora options.


I think the space button should be a standard ingame options button too.


Pandora options should take following. Toggle wifi/nubmodes/Minimise game/quit game/force-quit game.


The OS should be kept on the NAND and should be kept seperate from the content stored on SD. The OS can be wiped and everything should work as expected with settings/saves.


The SD cards should be mounted as usual. the PNDs mounting and storing all dynamic content on the folders stored on the SD cards.


Any additional/shared content should not be stored in an applications dynamic folders. eg: mame roms can used with multiple PND enabled ports. panmame/mame4pandora/mameex should request the default rom location on first boot and store the path to the roms in settings instead of looking for a hardcoded location on a single PND appdata.

 

[Neelix]

Much of what you are saying isn't really within the scope of the OS itself, and is up to the developers of individual applications, or those porting them. In this it differs not at all from the present situation.


Pandora key should be reserved for OS based functions, nothing game specific - in-game stuff would be better mapped to start or select.

 

[fusion_power]

Most important for me would be, that the OS experience is much faster and fluid than on the current Pandora. I use Hotfix 6 and everything seems to take ages. It takes long for the Pandora Menu to show up, it takes long to select stuff, it takes long to load everything, apps, or just the menu options. It takes ages for every browser to render just simple websites (bad HW support everywhere I guess) and so on. It is just not "fluid". So this is an very important point for the next Pandora OS. More smooth performance, much more.

 

[EvilDragon]

The next OS won't be a complete rewrite of an OS. It's basically our OS updated to the latest Linux versions.


The only way to get it more fluid would be a complete compatible rewrite of either X (maybe Wayland would help here in the future) or a complete rewrite of GTK, etc.


This is just not possible, it would probably take months for a hired and paid developer team to do that.

 

[diligentcircle]

The next OS won't be a complete rewrite of an OS. It's basically our OS updated to the latest Linux versions.

Linux, the kernel? SuperZaxxon is pretty close to the current version of Linux...

 

[fusion_power]

No clue what the Bottleneck actualy is in case of the Pandora, how god is X actualy performance wise? I mean on regular Linux PCs compared to other window managers or maybe compared to MS Windows, Mac OS n stuff? Because I can't say what could make the overall performance on Pandora faster. Is it releated to the Hardware, the OS or the windows Manager or limited NAND speed or other Bottlenecks?


I just had the Idea that it should be possible to speed up these stuff without to much work, since usualy Linux is more or less fluid today, o matter in what incarnation. So I guess there is not that much magic behind. Wasn't Android or even iOS some kind of Linux based? And for mobile OS they are fluid enough I guess. Not sure if this can be compared since there is so much stuff today in the Linux world.

 

[diligentcircle]

I just had the Idea that it should be possible to speed up these stuff without to much work, since usualy Linux is more or less fluid today, o matter in what incarnation. So I guess there is not that much magic behind. Wasn't Android or even iOS some kind of Linux based? And for mobile OS they are fluid enough I guess. Not sure if this can be compared since there is so much stuff today in the Linux world.

Android uses a modified version of Linux, the kernel. The main difference between Android and GNU/Linux is Android doesn't have GNU.


iOS has absolutely nothing to do with Linux or GNU. It's a Unix OS, which makes it somewhat similar in a way (GNU and Linux are both based on Unix), but it's not the same thing by a longshot.

 

[ShleeDragon]

The next OS won't be a complete rewrite of an OS. It's basically our OS updated to the latest Linux versions.


The only way to get it more fluid would be a complete compatible rewrite of either X (maybe Wayland would help here in the future) or a complete rewrite of GTK, etc.


This is just not possible, it would probably take months for a hired and paid developer team to do that.

I understand. but Id like to consider asking developers to follow the same/similar UX on all appliations. I've noticed almost every app has a different button combo.

 

[mcobit]

That topic came up a million times and it was discussed to death. I think we really don't need anoher topic about it imho.


From the other threads I gather that you simply can't have standards, if you have an open source device. If you don't pay the people, they will do what they want.


Of course, if there would be a menu on pandorabuttonpress, then is should be reserved for it. But there is no menu right now...


Most apps won't use an inappmenu. Just because the app doesn't haveit in the first place. Some might code one in and some won't. For such a thing, someone would need the ability to actually code such a menu with the parameters the program needs. Thats not always an easy job.

 

[foft]

The main OS feature I miss from the GP32 is the fast boot time.


I believe the Pandora now has some hibernate support. Could this be used for instant booting? e.g. rather than starting from the latest hibernate image, on 'cold boot' it starts from a 'startup' image? Of course this would need the facility for an optional real boot and a way of creating/selecting named hibernate images - perhaps select from boot menu since its should just be a param to the kernel.


The Pandora could be shipped with a hibernate image for the two main menus with sensible defaults.


I think this could be doable without significant development time. Though I guess it hinges on how long it takes to load a hibernated image.

 

[EvilDragon]

Well, the GP32 didn't load a normal OS. It had no drivers at all, it was basically just some code that allowed you to run other code.


That's fast, for sure, but is not possible if you want to load a full OS.


Since we got suspend working, I usually don't shut it down.


It loses about 13% battery per day in suspend and has an instant-on.


I charge it every few days for a few hours, and that's it.

 

[Askarus]

Since we got suspend working, I usually don't shut it down. It loses about 13% battery per day in suspend and has an instant-on. I charge it every few days for a few hours, and that's it. Posted Image

Right.


I don't even go into suspend.

 

[fusion_power]

Well, the GP32 didn't load a normal OS. It had no drivers at all, it was basically just some code that allowed you to run other code.


That's fast, for sure, but is not possible if you want to load a full OS.

Still a good Idea because you don't need a full OS all the time on the Pandora. Some kind of MiniMenu would be nice but really without OS underneeth, just close to the Hardware, I guess that was the basic Idea of MiniMenu. ThePandora really could benefit from such a mode, not sure if all the HW drivers that are needed would support this without having a full OS running...

 

[slaeshjag]

Iirc, .next boots quite quickly.

 

[mcobit]

With a close to hardware os, tha doesn't boot a full linux, many stuff might not work. Especially, if you like goodies like xorg or wifi etc.

 

[peacelovefleshbones]

I know I can't be the only one that currently loves the user interface as it is, What I would really love to see, besides things like speed and efficiency updates, is a better overall presentation. It really is a nice interface but I think an initial misunderstanding of how it all works makes for a lousy overall experience. I wish I knew how to help with this kind of thing.


As for the right nub for mouse button thing, it's one of those things where it's not broken so don't fix it, but I would move to add Ab Mouse into the next firmware update so that you can switch between using the A and B buttons and using the nub. There are lots of program inclusions that could fix minor problems like this, like replacing the pndstore with PNDmanager because PNDmanager is alot nicer and more user friendly. I would also like to elect the idea of making a starter pack of preloaded pnd files already in the pandora file structure contained within an easily downloadable zip file. Actually, That IS something I could do to help, as long as there wouldn't be any problems for the authors with my doing that.


In my opinion the pandora should do less to imitate the look and feel of other devices, except obviously a computer, and do more to simly introduce new people to the idea of a pandora. It's a new interface but a simple one. Now if you excuse me I think I'm going to get started on that starter-pack idea...

 

[levi]

I find XFCE to be a fine user interface, and pretty consistent in its UX (though of course when you run apps on it you could get anything). To be honest, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the Pandora XFCE setup looks like, as all other installs of XFCE I've done so far have been converted from Gnome, so there's always Gnome bits and pieces that shouldn't be there.

 

[dreamer]

If we want to get rid of some of the gtk-bloat in xfce I'd still suggest going for lxde, which uses openbox (then again, I like thunar).


I already think the quick-config in superzaxxon taskbar is a very good improvement (also shows the actual cpu setting).


Furthermore in terms of speed I'm hoping the updated os with compilers etc will make a leap here.


Definitely looking forward to be closer to upstream Ångström, with more updated software/tools included etc.


PNDs for games, apps etc are cool, but being able to install a system wide package with a package manager would greatly enhance the user experience for me (as a linux user).


Of course, for the default nand-firmware everything needs to be tight and efficient.

 

[diligentcircle]

PNDs for games, apps etc are cool, but being able to install a system wide package with a package manager would greatly enhance the user experience for me (as a linux user).

That exists in Zaxxon, I think it's opkg. The problem is the Angstrom repo has software in it that isn't up-to-date. Also, of course, large packages just wouldn't fit because of the NAND limit, but I'm sure you're aware of this.

 

[aTc]

The Angstrom and openembedded stuff is actually reasonably up to date, but that's mostly the unstable version. It takes a while for that to settle down into something stable.


I did some tests and getting an image based on the latest gcc 4.7 , and xfce 4.10 runs without too many problems.





(it uses the xfce 4.6 config from the old firmware, which is why things look a bit broken


It doesn't have the huge package selection as some of the big name distros out there, but the basics are there, and it's not that hard to add/update a recipe if it's really needed.


And if you do want to go wild installing packages, you should be running it from SD.