Pandora App Store Suggestion

[Locri]

This might sound like a fairly obvious suggestion, but is there a way that install instructions could be added to apps that have additional setup? It's kind of irksome to installed things like the Heretic or Hexen PNDs, go to the card, find out what needs to be transferred in the help file, remove the card, add everything, and put the card back in.

As much as it's cool that some things are wonderfully self contained, it definitely doesn't work with everything.

 

[TimmyB]

Agreed.

Maybe mine the PXML data (or whatever it is) upon upload and make it all available on the app store page somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this is already in the works.

 

[gruso]

Hmm, that's a delicious little kink in the PND system. At least with the GP2X, you'd have the opportunity to extract your zip and read the readme before transferring to SD. I guess this will be overcome if/when we can mount the Pandora as a mass storage device.

In any case, access to the readme before download would be great.

 

[dflemstr]

The readme is inside of the (maybe compressed) archive, and it'd be too dangerous, slow and complicated to actually *mount* a PND in a server environment to get a file out of it. This is one of the issues I've been trying to fix in the PND spec, but nobody else seems to see the issue; they think that always having access to "mount -o loop -t squashfs" is a given.

My Box AppStore (currently hosted at http://dflemstr.dyndns.org:8088/) supports extracting description information from PNDs (among loads of other stuff) so if people were to write basic instructions in the description, that'd be an alternative I guess. Descriptions can be quite long, like for example in Angry Drunken Dwarves (http://dflemstr.dyndns.org:8088/applications/1/show).

Or we might also be able to convince skeezix that it'd be worthwhile to actually have installation instructions embedded in the PXML file (because extracting stuff from the PXML file is easy).

 

[gruso]

Last week I didn't see the sense in adding readme text to the PXML, but now I do. I still think there needs to be a standalone readme.txt in there, but perhaps there is a way to duplicate this in the PXML automatically as part of the PND making process?

I have new questions about The Box now. I'll catch up on your thread later today.

 

[craigix]

I'm adding a system to solve this right now. A 'detailed information' tab and a smaller install instructions part which will be on the main page for the app.

I know it's an issue and it's on the list as well as a source code tab.

 

[dflemstr]

I'm adding a system to solve this right now. A 'detailed information' tab and a smaller install instructions part which will be on the main page for the app.

I know it's an issue and it's on the list as well as a source code tab.

I dunno if decoupling even more information from the PND is such a great idea. I can tell from experience that it's a pain to keep even two files synchronized (README and PND help file for example) especially if they have different formats (you can't use a script to sync the contents of a .txt file with the contents of a .html file, and a description for a web page would have a different text formatting too...). Having 3 resources to sync, well...

I know that you've gone the route of letting the user type in the title/description/etc info multiple times already, but there are alternatives to doing that with the documentation files too, isn't there?

My suggestion would be to keep the current info tag in the PXML spec, but to allow and *encourage* external URLs to be used, so that the help file can be accessed without opening the PND file. Application management web apps would just create a link in that case, and clients could either just open a browser when help is requested or download the file locally the first time the PND is discovered (EDIT2: Or let the PND author specify a fall back file in the info tag pointing to a local file).

EDIT: "wither" → "either"

 

[grasshoppir]

my suggestion is to zip/tar everything, that way you can include the README and license

 

[dflemstr]

my suggestion is to zip/tar everything, that way you can include the README and license

Please see http://pandorawiki.org/New_PND_format for the discussion about that.

(And if you mean that everyone should upload ZIPs containing a PND and a README; that kinda kills the idea of having PNDs in the first place, namely that you shouldn't have to extract or install anything. If you use a ZIP file then why not put your raw app+data in the ZIP file while you're at it since it has to be extracted anyways, oh and let's use .desktop files too instead of PXML files since you then get a shortcut for your app automatically, and let's add a package control file for repositories to track package versions, and install scripts because install scripts don't hurt if you have to extract the file anyways, and poof, you suddenly have a reimplementation of DEBs and dpkg)

 

[grasshoppir]

my suggestion is to zip/tar everything, that way you can include the README and license

Please see http://pandorawiki.org/New_PND_format for the discussion about that.

(And if you mean that everyone should upload ZIPs containing a PND and a README; that kinda kills the idea of having PNDs in the first place, namely that you shouldn't have to extract or install anything. If you use a ZIP file then why not put your raw app+data in the ZIP file while you're at it since it has to be extracted anyways, oh and let's use .desktop files too instead of PXML files since you then get a shortcut for your app automatically, and let's add a package control file for repositories to track package versions, and install scripts because install scripts don't hurt if you have to extract the file anyways, and poof, you suddenly have a reimplementation of DEBs and dpkg)

looks great.

(i imagined something like .pnd.zip)

 

[EvilDragon]

A lot of the PNDs are quickly created right now.
Some First Run script which helps the user move the data files to the correct directory and tell you what is wrong (along with more information about the needed files within the readme of the PXML) would make things way easier.

I think the best way to go is to do it like that - and include some information in the appstore ("You need the original data files to play this game. The game will help you set it up when first run").

 

[paulguy]

Well, PNDs can have multiple "applications", right? You could just have one open the readme in whatever program is associated with text files.

I think optimally, the description or details or whatever should have very basic installation instructions, though. Not a whole readme file due to previously mentioned synchronization/duplication issues. But if the user needs more details, they can just select to load the readme "application".

 

[dflemstr]

Well, PNDs can have multiple "applications", right? You could just have one open the readme in whatever program is associated with text files.

I think optimally, the description or details or whatever should have very basic installation instructions, though. Not a whole readme file due to previously mentioned synchronization/duplication issues. But if the user needs more details, they can just select to load the readme "application".

The PXML spec already has full support for "information files" (one per app) via the "info" tag; read the spec.

(Yeah the spec is a patchwork, but I've stopped caring at this point)

 

[WizardStan]

but nobody else seems to see the issue; they think that always having access to "mount -o loop -t squashfs" is a given.

When I made this exact same suggestion, two tools were pointed out that make it easy to extract individual files from ISO and from squashFS images. No need to mount. I've since forgotten what those tools are and am too lazy to go looking right now.

 

[skeezix]

What?

Pnd files CAN have documentation right it shows up in minimenu and xfce - in xfce under the Doumentwtion link

This is in the Good Form type section of libpnd hub and all nontrivial defile should do this

So this is already covered, pnd makers just need to do it

Jeff

 

[WizardStan]

So this is already covered, pnd makers just need to do it

They are. The problem being complained about is that you can't get the documentation until you've put the PND on an SD card and plugged it into an active Pandora. At that point, you find out you need to get BIOS ROM file XYZ, or copy commercial data files, or whatever, so you pull the SD card back out and go looking for these things. Even if you're downloading it from the appstore directly onto your Pandora, you still don't know what else you need until after the PND is completely downloaded.
To get around this, there needs to be a way to read the documentation off the webpage or at the least on your desktop.

 

[craigix]

The new tab I'm planning will include the best and most simple instructions possible, and users will be able to comment if they can improve it.

I want the appstore to be a bit wiki-ish for apps in the long term.

 

[skeezix]

Ahh gotcha. I suppose pulling the built in doc(s) might be doable pretty easily, but perhaps a summary should just be put into the AppStore on creation

Craig my man - do we have upload nowadays to maintain out own suff (for updates etc.)(for hat matter I bet all previous uploads are owned by you instead of us, so hopefully updates are doable

3 more weeks of full time babysiting to go

JeffPhone

 

[craigix]

I thought I set you up and approve an account months ago. I'll have a look now.

Edit: which apps do you want control of? I can switch them to your user name.

 

[skeezix]

Offhand .. Battlejewels, snes9x4d4p, colem, hatari, angband if up, Kronos, Stella, probably about 10 others but screaming kid right now

Jeffphone