Release Pandafe 0.3.0

[Kumaki]

OK, trying to scan now...it does NOT appear to be scanning the folder I am requesting it to scan.

I go to Atari Lynx for example.

I request it to scan the roms folder within handy

File path I am specifying is :CARDLABEK/pandora/appdata/handy/roms

Then I select Choose this folder

And it tells me along the bottom that it is scanning Nintendo and all sorts of other stuff, and then hangs up on scanning Pandora.  Or maybe it does not hang, I just don't have the patience for it to finish scanning Pandora.

But it is NOT scanning where I asked it to scan!

 

[Kumaki]

Never mind...I let it finish scanning Pandora.

It went back to desktop when it did.

Then, when I opened PanDafe, my Lynx games are in the list.

But this does not LOOK like it is scanning right!

OK...now more weirdness..

Tried to scan Atari 2600 after successfully scanning Lynx.

It looked like it scanned something, and now it is frozen on the Platform selection,

I can see Atari Lynx and Atari 2600...but can't move the cursor.

It also does not appear to be scanning anything.

I am going to give it five minutes to see if it finishes whatever it is doing or not doing, and then re-boot if this is not successful.

But the Atari 2600 scan is not happening the same way the Atari Lynx scan happened.

This program really acts very strange when scanning in the first place.

Update to follow...

OK...it went back to desktop on it's own.

The seven Atari 2600 games I have with a .bin file extension are now in the list...the 29 games with .a26 file extensions are not.

Trying now to scan another platform.

Now I am having problems again.

No items again.

Tried switching views and only platform that showed was Pandora.

I dunno.

If this damn thing is gonna be this much trouble it isn't worth it.

Gonna try ONE LAST TIME to make it right...and if it doesn;t go and no one will help, then I'm through.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Pandafe has just solved two of my biggest issues:

1) The ability to place my roms anywhere I want.  For example, I can now use one rom folder for Mame, FBA, and Panmame.  Yea!  No more wasting disk space!

2) The ability to set any clockspeed I want for any emulator I want!  Yea! Nice.  but would be nicer here if can be done a little easier without having to go through lengthy manual process but still nice.  Users gotta work a little right?

Million Kudos to nuhrin!  Thanks Bro!

 

[Wally]

Gonna try ONE LAST TIME to make it right...and if it doesn;t go and no one will help, then I'm through.

Can you please stop expecting us to help whenever something doesn't work your way? We're not being paid here you know.

 

[Kumaki]

OK...somehow, and I still don't know how...I managed to make MOST of it work right.

The following systems scanned in:

NES

SNES

Gameboy

DS

Atari 2600

Lynx

SEGA Genesis

Game Gear

Neo-Geo

Neo-Geo Pocket

PanMAME

Coleco

Commodore64

Intellivision

Playstation

TurboGrafx-16

Exceptions:  Not all my atari 2600 roms got recognized and added to list - same for Playstation.

Did not attempt Nintendo 64 yet, as I have not yet tested all the roms or set up their default plugins.

GBA and MSX both did not scan right - possibly I picked the wrong folder in error.  But I don't know how to make it scan again for the platform.

I do not use Wonderswan or Scumm, any way to get rid of unused platforms?

I would like to see Atari 7800, TRS-80, FBA, MAME4ALL, MAME-EX...is there a way to add platforms?

This is getting closer for me.

One piece of weirdness...

When I select "Pandora" off the first menu, the screen goes black and it says "scanning list"

After about five minutes, the desktop appears - as it does when done scanning for a platform.

But when you pick "Pandora" again...there isn;t a list of stuff in there...instead it once again says "scanning list"

So I'm not sure what is going on there, or what is supposed to eventually show up there.

This is beginning to work out a bit better for me, but still not totally where I need it to be...some of it might be my fault - scanning wrong folder...but now I need to know how to re-scan for a specific platform...how to get rid of unused platforms...and how to add platforms, if that is all possible.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

@Kumaki:  I'm a "jackass, modern-day schoolyard/cyber bully", so you called me, with tiny brains, but I have no problem using anything on the repo.   This implies that you're opposite of me who is "smart, courteous, and a lady" but couldn't use anything devs put out eventhough they have to sit down and spoonfeed you.  You may want to trade your Pandora with my 3DS.  

 

[nuhrin]

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

Edit the Atari 2600 platform, via the context menu, and add 'A26' to the "Rom File Extensions" field.

but now I need to know how to re-scan for a specific platform

The platform context menu has a Rescan choice which does this.

how to get rid of unused platforms

Not possible at the moment, but its on my list as part of https://github.com/nuhrin/pandafe/issues/11.

how to add platforms, if that is all possible.

Take a look at this post.

Regarding your continued frustration and confusion in relation to scanning:

1) You may in fact be triggering a bug. As I've mentioned, in order to investigate that I'll need a copy of your appdata folder if I'm to understand more clearly and try to reproduce it. PM me that if you can.

2) The first platform scanned on first use will also trigger a pnd scan and update the "Pandora" platform, to support minimal functionality. That's a first use behavior only.

3) The messages you see while scanning indicate folder names which are being scanned, or pnd category names for the native platform. If you see unexpected folder names, take a look at the tree of your platform's root folder in a file manager to investigate.

 

[nuhrin]

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 [ ]

Hrrm. In the absence of a universal safe maximum, I suppose I should just make that maximum clockspeed a configurable preference. Issue added to github.

 

[Kumaki]

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

Edit the Atari 2600 platform, via the context menu, and add 'A26' to the "Rom File Extensions" field.

but now I need to know how to re-scan for a specific platform

The platform context menu has a Rescan choice which does this.

how to get rid of unused platforms

Not possible at the moment, but its on my list as part of https://github.com/nuhrin/pandafe/issues/11.

how to add platforms, if that is all possible.

Take a look at this post.

Regarding your continued frustration and confusion in relation to scanning:

1) You may in fact be triggering a bug. As I've mentioned, in order to investigate that I'll need a copy of your appdata folder if I'm to understand more clearly and try to reproduce it. PM me that if you can.

2) The first platform scanned on first use will also trigger a pnd scan and update the "Pandora" platform, to support minimal functionality. That's a first use behavior only.

3) The messages you see while scanning indicate folder names which are being scanned, or pnd category names for the native platform. If you see unexpected folder names, take a look at the tree of your platform's root folder in a file manager to investigate.

Thank you, nuhrin, for your continued patience and help.  This is a VERY COMPLICATED program!

I don't know if there is any way to make it more user-friendly for morons like me, but maybe you could.  Or at least a whole bunch in the README about what to expect behavior-wise.  And have that flash up at first use...so that people can get an idea of what to expect behavior-wise, because I had the idea my Pandora was hanging all the time during the scan process - and so I would hard re-boot out before the scan process was finished.

That, in itself, may have caused some of my earlier problems.

 

[Kumaki]

OK, due to hints, help, and looking at documentation, I WAS able to get Atari 2600 to also look for and add my .a26 files.

But, I have NO IDEA how I go about adding Atari 7800

It wanted some shell script at some point and I don't know diddly what to do there.

So I cancelled out.

I was getting along with adding the platform, until it finally asked me for something I know diddly about.

Can anyone add Atari 7800, and then post a step-by-step of exactly what you did so I can follow that?

Because I don't know what I am doing.

I'm frankly amazed I was able to get as far as getting my .a26 files to get included in Atari 2600.

 

[Kumaki]

OK, messed up....had a problem, quit out of Pandafe, removed card to add something.

Came back...son of a gun...NO ITEMS!!!

This time I just shut down Pandora thru the normal way, the Pandora menu.

When it came back up, opened Pandafe and there were all the platforms again.

This program is REALLY FUSSY.

Can anyone else duplicate what I did?  Because this is kinda the problem I was having.

 

[Klumpen]

Does not work. Crashes while scanning.

This and PND-Manager are the only apps that do not work for me and I know, that it must have something to do with the data on my SD-card,

but I haven't had got the nerve to backup and reformat it yet.

 

[Kumaki]

Klumpen...it might APPEAR to be crashing while scanning, because, when done scanning, it DOES go back to the desktop, and quits out of the program.

This also happened to me...but the platform I had scanned....did populate when I fired it up again.

This is one of the user-unfriendly things I have mentioned about PanDafe.  It does NOT do what you would normally expect it to.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Nope, it did not work like that for me.  I loaded up pandafe --> went and picked whatever platform I wanted --> it asked me to pick the rom folder (1st time only) --> and then all roms for that particular platform will automatically show up the next time.  I do this for all the emulators I have.  No crashing back to desktop.  It DOES work as you would normally expect it to.

 

[Kumaki]

Well, not for me, Shenmue.

Anyway, I have a few issues with Pandafe, now that I have gotten to play with it a bit more:

1. Arcade always launches FBA - even if you set the default program to MAME, and scan the MAME Roms.

2. Added PanMAME as a platform.  It works...sort of.  You pick a rom...and it launches PanMAME...but then you gotta pick from the internal PanMAME list, the rom you want, it does not directly launch the game you selected in PanDafe.

3. PanMAME, as a Platform...does not show up in the Other Category, where I put it...in fact, it shows up in NONE of the Categories.  But if I switch to Platform View, there it is.

4. Still no idea how to add Atari 7800.

5. SOME roms do not work, even when others do...and there isn't really a way to weed out the ones that don't work to get them out of your list...short of creating a seperate folder for your roms - only those which DO work with PanDafe.  I had this problem so far with some Coleco and some Stella roms...roms which work when selected thru the parent program...but do not work when selected from PanDafe.

6. NES is not working out at all.  It tells me no program to run the roms.  I switched to GPFCE, which is the program I'm using...still, it says no program....I think it is trying to force mednafen....which is okay, I could always GET mednafen, as still point it towards my rom folder in GPFCE....but, it still is a problem.

OK...that's it for right at the moment, PanDafe is sorta working, sorta not working...at least not to prime...but this is working out, hopefully some issues can be resolved - and perhaps someone could help me resolve some of the other issues I'm experiencing.

EDIT:  OK, forgot to mention also...

With Neo-Geo Pocket...this will NOT work with RACE, it does not even have a setting for it, I guess you HAVE to use mednafen.

Also

SEGA Game Gear...no good.  You can switch the Default Program to Dega, which is what I'm using...but it STILL launches PicoDrive.  The problem here is this:  The Dega roms...all require the use of a button to start the game...which, in PicoDrive...actually brings up the emu menu.  So the roms will load in, even in PicoDrive, but there is no way to start the Dega game.

So, for Game Gear...it has to allow for Dega to be used when it is selected, it currently does not.  Bringing up a Dega ROM in PicoDirve, as I mentioned, renders the game unplayable as the "start" button is compromised.  So there is no way to start the game.

 

[b_o_b]

Tried to add PanMame to Pandafe and it didn't seem to work. The main issue is to start Panmame from command line. 

In the terminal provided by command <custom> I just don't manage to get it working. Using ./advmame /location/and/name/of/rom.zip results in "game isn't supported". It should be, because if I use PanMame it is accepted.

Any ideas?

BTW.. the reason running it from included terminal first is to check if the emulator accepts commands from command line.

 

[_wb_]

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 [ ]

Hrrm. In the absence of a universal safe maximum, I suppose I should just make that maximum clockspeed a configurable preference. Issue added to github.

The cpu speed is clipped by the cpu_speed script anyway, to the max value the user selected (see /etc/pandora/cpu.conf). So it's not critical that you clip the value yourself.

 

[b_o_b]

Feature request:

I *really* like the most played and most recent played category. Due to testing or other reasons sometimes games / programs are added to one of those categories that I like to remove. Would be nice to be able to delete an entry from the list.

 

[Null]

Just tried out 0.3.0.2, I definitely preferred the 0.2.2.x platform folders view behaviour (selectable subfolders) vs the current behaviour (scroll through a great big list of roms to get to the folder letter you want then switch to category view).

 

[nuhrin]

Just tried out 0.3.0.2, I definitely preferred the 0.2.2.x platform folders view behaviour (selectable subfolders) vs the current behaviour (scroll through a great big list of roms to get to the folder letter you want then switch to category view).

 The new behavior was an attempt to provide a little more consistency, making the platform view more consistent with other views -- everything in one filterable list.  I don't really have a ton of insight into what behaviors and use cases are desired by the majority of users, so this change was also something of an experiment to try and gauge that through reactions (or lack thereof).

In any case, I actually left support for the old behavior in there, though its not possible to enable in via the UI.

To enable the old behavior, add this line to your preferences file:

show-platform-game-folders: true

If you or others have suggestions on the overall behavior of game lists and views, please share your thoughts.