Release Pandafe 0.3.0

[Kumaki]

OK, so I tried putting pandafe on card in slot 2.

It showed up as a desktop icon, but would not launch.

It DID create an appdata folder, though, on card 2.

Does not do me any good if it won't launch, though.

So I have it on card 1 again.

Going to try launching only, but no scans...

It launched now.  I immediately quit out.

Now what is the next step...so that I don't screw things again?

When I had the undeleteable folder last time...it would not even let me replace the folder with another folder...it wanted me to merge the folders.

I do not want to have to re-format my card again.  So how am I working this so it does not screw up?

I know enough to pick a system and tell it where to scan for the roms.  But, like I said, when I try this, I end up with the thing NEVER finishing the scan.  so HOW LONG should it really take?  Just to scan for the roms from one system...when it is directed straight to the correct folder?

 

[Kumaki]

Now, when I set it up to scan for Atari Lynx, I have it looking here:

media/CARDLABEK/pandora/appdata/handy/ROMS

This would be a NORMAL file path for the roms.

There are about 20 roms to find.  How long should it take to scan this?

 

[nuhrin]

Hi Kumaki -- lets take this to PMs please, to avoid overwhelming this thread with verbose details from your specific situation (PM sent).

 

[Kumaki]

PM sent.

And now, of course, I am having NOTHING BUT TROUBLE with Pandafe.

Now, the damn thing starts up...lists Atari, Nintendo, etc...and when you select any of them it says NO ITEMS.  Instead of before under Atari it would then say  Atari 2600, Atari Lynx.  Now it just says NO ITEMS.

This thing is driving me out of my freaking mind.

 

[nuhrin]

For the benefit of others who may be reading along, the "it says NO ITEMS" thing is not a bug in itself -- just means no roms were found for a given platform. There may be a lower level bug in the rom scanning that is triggered in an unusual situation, and Kumaki is trying to gather more information to help me reproduce the issue.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

PM sent.

And now, of course, I am having NOTHING BUT TROUBLE with Pandafe.

Now, the damn thing starts up...lists Atari, Nintendo, etc...and when you select any of them it says NO ITEMS.  Instead of before under Atari it would then say  Atari 2600, Atari Lynx.  Now it just says NO ITEMS.

This thing is driving me out of my freaking mind.

What you need to do is delete the Pandafe appdata and rerun Pandafe.  Now, pick your platform then carefully browse to the rom folder for that particular platform and choose "select this folder" or something like that (I don't have my Panda now).  If you pick it the wrong folder, you have to delete the Pandafe appdata again and rerun then reselect the rom folder.  Somehow, for now, Pandafe doesn't let you re-pick/re-choose the rom folder once you've selected it for a particular platform.  So the first time you run pandafe, you have to becareful to pick the correct rom folder for each and every platform.  After that padafe remembers them so you don't have to do this again.

 

[nuhrin]

Thanks for your support Shenmue.

Somehow, for now, Pandafe doesn't let you re-pick/re-choose the rom folder once you've selected it for a particular platform. So the first time you run pandafe, you have to becareful to pick the correct rom folder for each and every platform. After that padafe remembers them so you don't have to do this again.

Actually, you can change the rom folder again without too much trouble via the context menu (Space). When you have a game selected, press Space then choose Platform -> Edit. When you have a platform selected (or are in a Platform with "(no items)", press Space, then choose Edit. On the Platform edit menu, choose Rom Folder Root, change it to whatever different path you want, the choose Save.

For those of you surprised by this functionality, you might try reading the control mappings in the included documentation.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Ah!  RTFM .  Forgot about that!  

 

[nuhrin]

Just noticing an issue which I can raise on your issue list, though wonder if anyone else can confirm getting this too... When editing a theme, I'm in the 'Game Browser Appearance' edit screen... Under the 'List' screen... Under the 'Font' screen... The fonts are a bit mumbo jumbo... ...one moment Bitwise font is showing correct, then select another and go back to Bitwise and it shows as one of the different fonts. They all do this. Can still pick what I want as get previews anyway but I know these fonts and can see they getting mixed up and seems to be random too, as if you keep switching fonts they jumble up each time. Not just me is it?

Hey FZERO, thanks for the report!

I was able to recreate the issue, assuming I am understanding you correctly.

What it looks like is happening is that when you change the game browser -> list -> font, the sdl surfaces for the list items are updated but the list surface is not rebuilt and/or displayed properly at that time. When you choose another font, what you see is the result of your previous font selection. As you continue to make new font selections, the list continues to be one font selection behind. If you select the same font twice in a row, you'll get the expected result.

The same issue appears to be present for the font size and item color fields on the game browser -> list menu, which gives me a pretty good idea about which bits of code are to blame.

This doesn't appear to happen for any appearance area apart from the game browser list. It also doesn't happen if you don't change views in the browser before editing the list appearance, which is presumably why I didn't notice this during development. :rolleyes:

I'll try to get a fix out as soon as I'm able. In the meantime, since you seem keen on playing with it, try doing your appearance editing immediately after starting Pandafe, before you've changed browser views.

Thanks again for the heads up, let me know if you hit any other bugs or confusions.

[added to github: https://github.com/nuhrin/pandafe/issues/30]

Just uploaded a new pnd (0.3.0.2-b464) with this bug fixed.

It also includes a fix for issue #17 ("Fix the category in the pxml'). That adds a pxml subcategory of "Utility" (so category is now Game/Utility). That makes the XFCE menu file Pandafe under Accessories. It doesn't affect MiniMenu, which still files it under Game (doesn't respect 'custom" subcategories unless they are done via .ovr files, for my version at least).

 

[Fzero]

Excellent, I'll d/l that version later today thanks

 

[A2000]

Just tried Pandafe yesterday evening and it worked very well. Customizing seems easy enough but I'd like to have some more systems in the top menu (strange that there's Atari but not Commodore )


Yes, font looks a bit weird, will try to change that.


Good work, thanks for the program!

 

[Kumaki]

PM sent.

And now, of course, I am having NOTHING BUT TROUBLE with Pandafe.

Now, the damn thing starts up...lists Atari, Nintendo, etc...and when you select any of them it says NO ITEMS.  Instead of before under Atari it would then say  Atari 2600, Atari Lynx.  Now it just says NO ITEMS.

This thing is driving me out of my freaking mind.

What you need to do is delete the Pandafe appdata and rerun Pandafe.  Now, pick your platform then carefully browse to the rom folder for that particular platform and choose "select this folder" or something like that (I don't have my Panda now).  If you pick it the wrong folder, you have to delete the Pandafe appdata again and rerun then reselect the rom folder.  Somehow, for now, Pandafe doesn't let you re-pick/re-choose the rom folder once you've selected it for a particular platform.  So the first time you run pandafe, you have to becareful to pick the correct rom folder for each and every platform.  After that padafe remembers them so you don't have to do this again.

For the benefit of others who may be reading along, the "it says NO ITEMS" thing is not a bug in itself -- just means no roms were found for a given platform. There may be a lower level bug in the rom scanning that is triggered in an unusual situation, and Kumaki is trying to gather more information to help me reproduce the issue.

PM sent.

And now, of course, I am having NOTHING BUT TROUBLE with Pandafe.

Now, the damn thing starts up...lists Atari, Nintendo, etc...and when you select any of them it says NO ITEMS.  Instead of before under Atari it would then say  Atari 2600, Atari Lynx.  Now it just says NO ITEMS.

This thing is driving me out of my freaking mind.

What you need to do is delete the Pandafe appdata and rerun Pandafe.  Now, pick your platform then carefully browse to the rom folder for that particular platform and choose "select this folder" or something like that (I don't have my Panda now).  If you pick it the wrong folder, you have to delete the Pandafe appdata again and rerun then reselect the rom folder.  Somehow, for now, Pandafe doesn't let you re-pick/re-choose the rom folder once you've selected it for a particular platform.  So the first time you run pandafe, you have to becareful to pick the correct rom folder for each and every platform.  After that padafe remembers them so you don't have to do this again.

Shenmue, I TRIED that.

It does not work.

In FACT...the problem I am having...where it says "No Items" is where I SHOULD be able to pick a platform!

I WISH I could make anyone understand where my problem is...and even completely uninstalling Pandafe and it's appdata folder and starting with a fresh copy...does not resolve the issue.

The issue is this:

I fire up PanDafe.

I get the initial menu that says

Atari

Nintendo

etc

etc

etc

Pandora

Now, when I select Atari...

I SHOULD get

Atari 2600

Atari Lynx

THIS, however, is where I am getting "NO ITEMS"

The PLATFORMS THEMSELVES are now gone!

And I can't scan them, since I can't select them, since they are not there.

And, as I mentioned...even completely removing PanDafe and it's appdata folder...and starting with a fresh copy of PanDafe does not resolve this issue.

IN FACT...I had been doing this on a "clean" card - meaning it had nothing but PanDafe on it.

Meanwhile, my "working card" or the card I normally use...had PanDafe on it...but I had not used it to scan any platforms yet.

After I had problems with PanDafe on the "clean" card...I then put in my "working card"

When I fired up Pandafe THERE...I got the same problem as I was having using the clean card.

Prior to the problem, THAT copy of Pandafe, on my "working card" had listed the platforms.

NOW...it doesn't.  Just "No Items."

And nothing I can do gets me the Platforms back.

It is almost as if Pandafe itself fouled up something in my internal NAND - I don't know if that's even possible, but I can think of no other way to explain what I am experiencing!  Because the copy on the "working card" HAD listed the platforms...until I had problems on my clean card.  Now, even the working card lists "No Items" where it should be listing the platforms!

I so badly wish anyone else could get the same problem as I am having, so that you would know the frustration I am experiencing!

 

[b_o_b]

I so badly wish anyone else could get the same problem as I am having, so that you would know the frustration I am experiencing!

Even if I was having the same issues, it was raining, I missed a train and just realized I lost my wallet even then.. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t be THAT frustrated    

 

[b_o_b]

Tried the last version - or probably the one before that - of Pandafe and it is very nice. More features and more pre-configured emulators and stable - from what I have seen until now. I love the speed, amazing how fast it can add thousands of roms.

I agree there can be some improvements with the menu structure, but it is not that hard when you take the time to experiment and read the release threads.

1 suggestion: I would include one example how to create a new emulator entry in the readme. I considered the explanation you provided here very helpful

1 request: could you add the help / readme file in Pandafe itself? Now I needed to switch to minimenu to read the Pandafe readme

I support one of the requests from ekianjo: it would be very nice to have the battery level and time in Pandafe even if it is only in the main menu. 

 

[nuhrin]

I so badly wish anyone else could get the same problem as I am having, so that you would know the frustration I am experiencing!

I am continuing to respond to your messages in our PM thread, though I'm quite busy and can't promise immediate responses. Just sent another. Keep with it!

1 suggestion: I would include one example how to create a new emulator entry in the readme. I considered the explanation you provided here very helpful

I actually put that same link into the README in 0.3.0.

1 request: could you add the help / readme file in Pandafe itself? Now I needed to switch to minimenu to read the Pandafe readme

Good idea! Now that you've suggested it seems like a sort of obvious omission. I'll add an item to the main menu, and maybe also trigger it on F1 just in case. Added to github.

I support one of the requests from ekianjo: it would be very nice to have the battery level and time in Pandafe even if it is only in the main menu.

The "even if it is only in the main menu' bit gives a short term solution to outstanding UI/behavior questions about how that would fit/work on the main UI. Another good idea, thanks!

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Is there a way to assign separate CPU clock speed to each emulator in Pandafe?  For example, on my Rebirth, I'd like to run Panmame at overclocked speed of 1.065 GHz, Drastic at 1.030 GHz ('cause Drastic crashed at 1.065GHz), and so on.  Maybe I'm lazy, but it's a pain (or not as convenient) to change cpu setting each time for each emulator.  Some emulators have this built in so it's not an issue (i.e., PCSX-ReArmed, FBA-Capex allow users to select cpu MHz).  So it would be nice to have custom-speed for each emulator.  Thanks.

 

[nuhrin]

Is there a way to assign separate CPU clock speed to each emulator in Pandafe?  For example, on my Rebirth, I'd like to run Panmame at overclocked speed of 1.065 GHz, Drastic at 1.030 GHz ('cause Drastic crashed at 1.065GHz), and so on.  Maybe I'm lazy, but it's a pain (or not as convenient) to change cpu setting each time for each emulator.  Some emulators have this built in so it's not an issue (i.e., PCSX-ReArmed, FBA-Capex allow users to select cpu MHz).  So it would be nice to have custom-speed for each emulator.  Thanks.

Yes, you can do this by modifying the Program definition. To do this:

* via Pandafe: bring up the context menu for a game, choose Program -> Edit -> Default Settings, change the clockspeed to your desired one, choose save (on each menu)

* edit directly: edit appdata/pandafe/Program/[name] (yaml file), and look for clockspeed under the default-settings mapping. Change it to whatever (integer, in mhz) and save.

Rereading your post, I see a problem though. I'm afraid I might have a hard-coded max cpu of 1000MHz. Seemed like a good idea at the time (ages ago). I suppose I need to change that.

In any case, unless I'm wrong and you can set cpu > 1000 via the program definition, you might need to use .ovr files for you emulators in order to achieve this.

You can do this via Pandafe, but the default config ignores the Game/Emulator subcategory. To change this, either:

* manually edit appdata/pandafe/native_platform, remove the "excluded-subcategories:\n - Emulator" lines, restart pandafe and rescan pnds

* edit the Pandora platform within Pandafe and use menus to do the same (minus the restart)

Now to set the default cpu via.ovr you can:

* go to the Pandora platform

* select the emulator

* bring up the context menu

* choose Manage App -> Edit OVR

* change the clock speed and save

BTW, any suggestions for a better theoretical max cpu speed? I can easily change the constant, but I don't want to make it unbounded.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Whoa!  You're awesome!  But yeah it only allows me to go 1000MHz.  I will try the manual way.  But hopefully next update will have all of this incorporated

Edit:  The theoretical max cpu speed for my Rebirth would be 1100MHz.  For my GigaHz Pandora would be 1260MHz.  Don't know what other wild Pandas out there are though

 

[Kumaki]

OK, now this is weird:

I tried to fire up Pandafe, in order to follow instructions nuhrin kindly gave me over PM...and it would not launch at all!

Other programs on my desktop did.

So I re-started my Pandora.

THIS time, Pandafe started up...AND the platforms were back in where they should be!

Crazy.

I am trying again, to scan folders.

This time, I'm going to use my working card, because the only place I ran into problems was when I tried to scan PNDs...so I am simply not going to do that for now...until someone can assure me that that works right.

 

[Kumaki]

One other thing...

Is there a way you can make it so that PanDafe recognizes ".A26" as a valid extension for roms for Atari 2600?

Or is there a way to force it?