Ok I Tried The Whole Separate Appdata Dir Thing

[craigix]

I agree with Dave (he knows I share his views on most things Pandora).

I always just wanted zip files with a text file in them for the info.

Even I don't understand all this PXML reinventing the wheel stuff.

 

[Aninhumer]

I agree with Dave (he knows I share his views on most things Pandora).

I always just wanted zip files with a text file in them for the info.

Even I don't understand all this PXML reinventing the wheel stuff.

Making PNDs zips instead of iso/squashfs does seem like it would make everyone happy.
People who want unified directories could extract them easily, and people who don't could leave them alone.

I seem to remember skeezix saying something like it could support ZIPs in future?
Or is there a good reason this can't be done?

 

[RobertJ]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Everything has to be XML now. It's the law.

But on a more serious note, you'd have to be a pretty terrible coder to not handle or understand this PND thing. GUI to edit the XML? lol?

 

[juniorm33]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Everything has to be XML now. It's the law.

But on a more serious note, you'd have to be a pretty terrible coder to not handle or understand this PND thing. GUI to edit the XML? lol?

Like you said it's 2010, why should people have to use a text editor.

Some people aren't coders, but they want the ability to change the default behaviour, from what I remember a lot of things are user configurable. I don't see why they should have to learn the PXML standard, and mess about with xml files etc.

 

[Aninhumer]

Like you said it's 2010, why should people have to use a text editor.

Some people aren't coders, but they want the ability to change the default behaviour, from what I remember a lot of things are user configurable. I don't see why they should have to learn the PXML standard, and mess about with xml files etc.

That's why dflemstr has said he's working on an annotated file to simplify this. (Thanks for that! )
It's not hard to go through a file with comments and follow its instructions to change things.

If people still have complaints I'll make a massive zenity script that asks all the same questions but in a GUI.
(I just found a zenity port for windows too!)
EDIT: Oh wait, but it would still need windows to have a proper shell :/

 

[craigix]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Yes and because it's 2010 everyone has had over a decade to get used to Zip files. Even my grandad can uncompress zip files and understands how they work.

 

[cosam]

I'm going to create a canonical PXML.xml file with sane defaults filled in, and with comments that say exactly where everything belongs etc. In return, I would like this file to be used *everywhere* as much as possible, including already uploaded PND files (Replace the PXML, please!), and that people don't try to "push the limits of the standard" too much after that.

Deal?

Good idea. I would probably use the annotated file as a template for future work, depending on how it works out. I'm not planning to replace all (AFAIK completely valid) PXML files in my packages though.

However: any template, however good it may be, isn't going to detect and/or fix errors, whether they be deliberate or accidental. I'd still like to see a simple tool which can be used to validate PXML files (or maybe even whole PNDs).

 

[ste_167]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Yes and because it's 2010 everyone has had over a decade to get used to Zip files. Even my grandad can uncompress zip files and understands how they work.

I've actually been very impressed by the PND system! I downloaded the Commander Keen engine last night and found everything very logical.

• I placed the PND file in the pandora/menu folder
• The documentation automatically appeared in Documentation in the main menu
• The game automatically appeared in the Games > Arcade
• I then downloaded the game data files and put them in the Commander Keen appdata folder

 

[craigix]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Yes and because it's 2010 everyone has had over a decade to get used to Zip files. Even my grandad can uncompress zip files and understands how they work.

I've actually been very impressed by the PND system! I downloaded the Commander Keen engine last night and found everything very logical.

• I placed the PND file in the pandora/menu folder
• The documentation automatically appeared in Documentation in the main menu
• The game automatically appeared in the Games > Arcade
• I then downloaded the game data files and put them in the Commander Keen appdata folder

Yes, it works, and a Zip file would do the same. I doubt what I want, or what Dave wants will happen. People like things complex these days.

 

[ste_167]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Yes and because it's 2010 everyone has had over a decade to get used to Zip files. Even my grandad can uncompress zip files and understands how they work.

I've actually been very impressed by the PND system! I downloaded the Commander Keen engine last night and found everything very logical.

• I placed the PND file in the pandora/menu folder
• The documentation automatically appeared in Documentation in the main menu
• The game automatically appeared in the Games > Arcade
• I then downloaded the game data files and put them in the Commander Keen appdata folder

Yes, it works, and a Zip file would do the same. I doubt what I want, or what Dave wants will happen. People like things complex these days.

Just to get it clear, how would the zip solved the appdata folder situation? Would you add your extra data files to the archive?

 

[cosam]

How about a "PND installer?" It's just an ISO (or SquashFS) image, really, right? Mount it, copy over to a directory and run from there. Everything is already set up to write to $PWD so you'd have no appdata to worry about.

 

[craigix]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Yes and because it's 2010 everyone has had over a decade to get used to Zip files. Even my grandad can uncompress zip files and understands how they work.

I've actually been very impressed by the PND system! I downloaded the Commander Keen engine last night and found everything very logical.

• I placed the PND file in the pandora/menu folder
• The documentation automatically appeared in Documentation in the main menu
• The game automatically appeared in the Games > Arcade
• I then downloaded the game data files and put them in the Commander Keen appdata folder

Yes, it works, and a Zip file would do the same. I doubt what I want, or what Dave wants will happen. People like things complex these days.

Just to get it clear, how would the zip solved the appdata folder situation? Would you add your extra data files to the archive?

My suggestion, in the distant past when I argued for the zip system, was that it would make a folder with the same name as the zip (in the same dir as the zip too) so it was easily identified and deleted.

 

[Monk]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Yes and because it's 2010 everyone has had over a decade to get used to Zip files. Even my grandad can uncompress zip files and understands how they work.

Is your grandad likely to be writing new games or even porting over old ones for the Pandora?

 

[craigix]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Yes and because it's 2010 everyone has had over a decade to get used to Zip files. Even my grandad can uncompress zip files and understands how they work.

Is your grandad likely to be writing new games or even porting over old ones for the Pandora?

Is DaveC? This is about making it easy to understand how the Pandora is working for normal users.

 

[Bosbeetle]

Here is a way in which the appdata directory seems very handy

Try deleting the Exaile-folder from the appdata-directory (I think it's called exaile.pickle)
Maybe there's some wrong setting that prevents it from loading.

If you want to help us debug, you can also zip that directory up and send it to me

 

[juniorm33]

Like you said it's 2010, why should people have to use a text editor.

Some people aren't coders, but they want the ability to change the default behaviour, from what I remember a lot of things are user configurable. I don't see why they should have to learn the PXML standard, and mess about with xml files etc.

That's why dflemstr has said he's working on an annotated file to simplify this. (Thanks for that! )
It's not hard to go through a file with comments and follow its instructions to change things.

If people still have complaints I'll make a massive zenity script that asks all the same questions but in a GUI.
(I just found a zenity port for windows too!)
EDIT: Oh wait, but it would still need windows to have a proper shell :/

I agree with dflemstr, and I think what he's doing will be very useful for the people who are creating PMD's.

I'm actually talking about end users. People who doesn't have a clue about xml files, etc. For them it is hard, and not the way they feel they should have to configure things.
They just want to be able to open a gui and change a couple settings under the configure/basic user tab.
Oh, and I'm not talking about now, this is stuff that I think would be useful for the future. The bit that is useful right away is what dflemstr is doing, and/or a validation script.

We can do pretty much everything via text editors, it doesn't mean we should be making end users do it.

But this is possibly getting away from the files layout discussion.

 

[j6cubic]

I also find the PND format to be a bit overengineered. NeXT/Apple built a whole system around nothing more than plain old directories (calles "bundles" in this context) and it works very well. Configuration is XML but very generic and easy to understand. Things can be that easy.

Of course now we have PND/PXML and will have to live with it. A decent set of tools as well as example files will mitigate much of the complexity, though. Maybe also convenience scripts... Perhaps we can extend Thunar so that one can right-click on a PND and get a "show application data folder" menu entry. Stuff like that.

 

[Monk]

Zip files with text docs in them? It's 2010!!!!!

Yes and because it's 2010 everyone has had over a decade to get used to Zip files. Even my grandad can uncompress zip files and understands how they work.

Is your grandad likely to be writing new games or even porting over old ones for the Pandora?

Is DaveC? This is about making it easy to understand how the Pandora is working for normal users.

Oh, sorry - I got caught up in the whole "people aren't using the PXML files properly and THAT is what is causing the mess - make your PNDs properly and it'll all be groovy" side of the thread. In which case it seemed to me that anyone who couldn't understand how to make the PND files probalby shouldn't need to make them - just use them.

Using stuff that's made right is always easier than using stuff that's made wrong. Having said which, I haven't bothered to wrap my head around PND intricasies (so I can't say it's a good thing or a bad thing) and a friendly user interface is always better than a poor (or no) user interface.

 

[ste_167]

My suggestion, in the distant past when I argued for the zip system, was that it would make a folder with the same name as the zip (in the same dir as the zip too) so it was easily identified and deleted.

Ahh I see, sounds good. It's never good having a build up of unused folders, that's all very Windows-like. What would the advantages be of having a zip rather than a pnd system that worked in the same way?

 

[BaDToaD]

This is about making it easy to understand how the Pandora is working for normal users.

I think you are missing the main point of the pnd system. For the average non nerd, seeing an icon pop up on the screen and being able to just click it is about as easy as it gets. As for the majority of us we can always manage the files ourselves if the need arises.

Once the pnd system has matured a little I believe it will be excellent.