Beta Pandora Hotfix Pack 2 For Zaxxon

[john4p]

I only care about Amiga emulation - smooth scrolling Amiga-games (at their original speed) can only be achieved with a 50Hz refresh rate (or 100/150/200 Hz...).

Watching 24Hz movies with a 60Hz-refresh rate is quite bearable on the other hand.
Usually movies don't scroll all the time...

 

[Pleng]

Surprised no one has gone serious into minimenu hacking, turned off the All category, changed the widths of the grid columns, etc I just assume everyone is using xfce

jeff

At the moment I'm using xfce out of necessity rather than preference. If hotfix 2 does indeed fix the usb0 down issue, and I'm able to connect to wifi and run Arora and Thunnar all from minimenu it'll become my default. Then I'll probably get into hacking it about a bit.

Jump to letter would be ok but that would conflict with "press A to hide"

I guess he means the A gaming button.

 

[notaz]

EvilDragon: WHERE IS snd-usb-audio.ko?!!?!?! PLEASE INCLUDE THIS IN THE HOTFIX!

It's compiler in, do you need it as a module?

 

[EvilDragon]

Hi Ed, does the hotfix address the Wifi-Usb problem?

Oh, right, it fixes the interfaces-file, too. Forgot that in the Changelog

EvilDragon: WHERE IS snd-usb-audio.ko?!!?!?! PLEASE INCLUDE THIS IN THE HOTFIX!

I'm no dev, I can't compile it. Will probably make it into the next hotfix (which will be released probably next week, got a couple more ideas for fixes )

@skeezix:
Don't make it as easy as pressing A to hide an app!
That way people will accidentally hide an app!

If you want to be really cool, include the Hide-Feature in the Overlay-File for PND-Files and add some context menu for the selected PND file (i.e. press START), where you can set those overlay settings with minimenu (Hide, Unhide, Clockspeed, Icon, Category, Name, etc.)

This would totally rock!
Then you could use MiniMenu to change the PNDs to your liking without creating those OVL files yourself, it works for both XFCE4 and MiniMenu, and a simple Select-Menu-Option where you can select "Show Hidden PNDs" would be enough to either run them or unhide them again using the context menu.

What do you guys think? I'd love it

 

[Pleng]

@skeezix:
Don't make it as easy as pressing A to hide an app!
That way people will accidentally hide an app!

Well when you press A, it could come up with a little message saying 'Do you want to hide this icon? Press SPACE to hide, any other key to cancel"

 

[torpor]

It's compiled in, do you need it as a module?

Yes please notaz, as this makes it easier to handle enumeration with some USB-MIDI devices after a firmware upload ..

 

[fearofshorts]

@skeezix:
Don't make it as easy as pressing A to hide an app!
That way people will accidentally hide an app!

If you want to be really cool, include the Hide-Feature in the Overlay-File for PND-Files and add some context menu for the selected PND file (i.e. press START), where you can set those overlay settings with minimenu (Hide, Unhide, Clockspeed, Icon, Category, Name, etc.)

This would totally rock!
Then you could use MiniMenu to change the PNDs to your liking without creating those OVL files yourself, it works for both XFCE4 and MiniMenu, and a simple Select-Menu-Option where you can select "Show Hidden PNDs" would be enough to either run them or unhide them again using the context menu.

What do you guys think? I'd love it

This is actually pretty close to my dream minimal GUI. Quick letter search selection, one button to access settings and info per file... this sounds gorgeous!

Skeezix- I love what you have done so far, and I haven't even had a chance to use it yet! You will have many fans very, very soon.

 

[Loon]

You chaps working on the hot fixes are total heroes, it's this sort of dedication that will make Pandora rock the world.

What a contrast to the GP2X (and practically every other device I've owned) where you had to wait ages for the official firmware to be updated to address known bugs and issues.

Keep up the great work and keep them fixes coming.

 

[PokeParadox]

Yup I'm, also loving the turnover for updates. This will be great when we actually have a repo to do auto updates and such.
Mini menu is pretty decent I'm thinking that I don't really need the full desktop experience so I'm nearly converted into just using mini-menu on startup. Well done skeezix!
Also I installed the hotfix2 and so far so good.

 

[paddy]

is boost software to test the mic ? ,if not can't we get a simple sound recorder like the one in just about every linux dist ,also i would like to see a small paint app or gimp pnd ,also Ed could we have a fix for orage as it keeps appearing when i cold boot or restart my pandora ,i have tried many things to get rid of it but it wont go ,i think this happened after i initialy set it up.

a sound recorder that can record at different quality so the pandora can be used as a dictaphone would be really nice !

Two or three simple screen savers would also be superb ,stars in space and picture view screensaver ,i know many woudl think a saver not needed but i don't think even a light desktop is complete without one and i really want that stars one !

you know the paint plugin for abiword ,can that be used as a simple paint app ? or does it still require gimp backend.

Nice to see more updates ,and i would like to see changes to the script for cpu speed so you can set to what ever mhz and an option to save this setting for future logins ,but do not let the user save above 800mhz incase of locks
and extra cfg settings for the keyboard ,nubs and buttons to map them to different shortcuts/keys ,like i requested before maping shoulder buttons to mouse buttons and so on.

Another thing thats really important is the nubs ,they are too sensitive in emulators/games and on the OS ,we need to change the deadzone for both these or at least offer options for the user to do this without the need of hacking in at it.

USB windows drivers needed ,i have looked into this and i am unsure there is even a driver avail ,there might not be one but it's really needed to save sd cards for sure.


An idea for the futture would be to reserve nand space ,infact do not allow the user to use nand at all ,instead fill it mostly with os features and reserve a small amount of space on nand for software and pnd's to breath ,if the user wants to use
unsupported or non included software/games and so on they must use sd or other storage ,the trash/bin should be on every mounted device/sd usb and so on and deleted via storage instead of nand ,if however a user wants to use the reserved nand or mess about with it ,then they would need to use a few security settings to get to it with warnings.





B)

 

[PokeParadox]

is boost software to test the mic ?

boost is a set of c++ "extensions" you get things like "smart pointers". It's useful libs to have on the firmware.

 

[notaz]

It's compiled in, do you need it as a module?

Yes please notaz, as this makes it easier to handle enumeration with some USB-MIDI devices after a firmware upload ..

Pushed this to git, but will only go into next hotfix I guess. If you need it badly, I can build you that kernel+module.

 

[kuru]

+1 for the press-letter-jumps-to-file idea

Could that be made string-input-lists-only-items-containing*-that-string?
*or starting-with

I am thinking of the Windows 7 search field in the start menu where I just type e.g. "xa" and hit enter to start "xampp control panel", which is first in the list and highlighted

 

[torpor]

Pushed this to git, but will only go into next hotfix I guess. If you need it badly, I can build you that kernel+module.

It would surely be useful for me if you can make it available for testing but I will see (tonight) if I can get by with my MIDI hacking using a device that doesn't need firmware uploads for now .. thanks for including it in the next hotfix, this will definitely be helpful!

 

[fusion_power]

If you want to be really cool, include the Hide-Feature in the Overlay-File for PND-Files and add some context menu for the selected PND file (i.e. press START), where you can set those overlay settings with minimenu (Hide, Unhide, Clockspeed, Icon, Category, Name, etc.)

Sounds logic. Even better to use "right click" or equal like in windows over an app or link-icon, context menu shows up ->hide this app or delete the link or entire app....done.
Messing around with config files would be...well...messy. :lol:
Or drag and drop apps in the mini menu to an "hide apps" tab or something, many possible ways and everything is better than using command lines or stress config files.

 

[john4p]

Successfully installed the package.

But in Display->Settings "Refresh rate" is 0 Hz - and it's the only selectable item in that combobox.

Can I execute this new 50/60Hz-script somewhere else to change the refresh rate?

 

[fdelapena]

Tested on zaxxon without previous hotfix 1. All components installed successfully. Backlight setting from keyboard works fine now, disabling bluetooth LED is OK, too. Evince for PDF reading rocks!

Some issue on my pandora: Evince icon pnd is ok but has gigolo name (?) and gigolo is evince.
Wireless LED does not start always. Turning down led works but turning up again won't work the LED again for me.

I'd love gvfsd-sftp for Gigolo ssh suport (not included in zaxxon), but console ssh is enough

 

[DaveC]

add some context menu for the selected PND file (i.e. press START), where you can set those overlay settings with minimenu (Hide, Unhide, Clockspeed, Icon, Category, Name, etc.)
What do you guys think? I'd love it

you mean like this:

A context menu thing may work nicer. For example when an app is highlighted you could press a certain hotkey. Then a menu would pop up in the preview area. It would have options: hide, rename (would rename title text in the override file not actual pnd), select icon (pick icon override image) , select preview override image (ok this may not be a big deal as all you do is place in the same dir as pnd, but if someone wants the images in one spot like "previews" or something then ok), edit notes (cursor would pop into the notes area so you could type), maybe even delete (so if after you try an app and it sucks you can nix it right there). That would pretty much kill two birds with one stone. You would have your hide menu plus config file "GUI". You would basically just edit in minimenu interface itself as explained. WYSIWYG style.

 

[EvilDragon]

add some context menu for the selected PND file (i.e. press START), where you can set those overlay settings with minimenu (Hide, Unhide, Clockspeed, Icon, Category, Name, etc.)
What do you guys think? I'd love it

you mean like this:

A context menu thing may work nicer. For example when an app is highlighted you could press a certain hotkey. Then a menu would pop up in the preview area. It would have options: hide, rename (would rename title text in the override file not actual pnd), select icon (pick icon override image) , select preview override image (ok this may not be a big deal as all you do is place in the same dir as pnd, but if someone wants the images in one spot like "previews" or something then ok), edit notes (cursor would pop into the notes area so you could type), maybe even delete (so if after you try an app and it sucks you can nix it right there). That would pretty much kill two birds with one stone. You would have your hide menu plus config file "GUI". You would basically just edit in minimenu interface itself as explained. WYSIWYG style.

Heh, yeah. Totally overseen tihs But good thing we had the same idea

 

[EvilDragon]

is boost software to test the mic ? ,if not can't we get a simple sound recorder like the one in just about every linux dist ,also i would like to see a small paint app or gimp pnd ,also Ed could we have a fix for orage as it keeps appearing when i cold boot or restart my pandora ,i have tried many things to get rid of it but it wont go ,i think this happened after i initialy set it up.

You can disable Orage by simply removing it from the Taskbar (Redclick) - no fix needed.
Apps like GIMP or Audio Recorders should really be released as PNDs.

a sound recorder that can record at different quality so the pandora can be used as a dictaphone would be really nice !

Well, IF there is such a tool out there that doesn't need much space, it can be included.

Two or three simple screen savers would also be superb ,stars in space and picture view screensaver ,i know many woudl think a saver not needed but i don't think even a light desktop is complete without one and i really want that stars one !

Well - you can install one yourself from the Repos - but it needs power, space, and is useless, so it doesn't make sense including them in the OS.

Nice to see more updates ,and i would like to see changes to the script for cpu speed so you can set to what ever mhz and an option to save this setting for future logins ,but do not let the user save above 800mhz incase of locks

Hm, not sure if this is really useful. You can override the specs for PXML files and therefore automatically increase the clockrate each time you start an emulator, for example.
Increasing the clockspeed on an app-based basis is much more useful than on bootup, as the desktop and MiniMenu don't need more than 500MHz.

and extra cfg settings for the keyboard ,nubs and buttons to map them to different shortcuts/keys ,like i requested before maping shoulder buttons to mouse buttons and so on.

You can remap your keyboard with a config file - however, remapping the gaming buttons will lead to game controls not working.

Another thing thats really important is the nubs ,they are too sensitive in emulators/games and on the OS ,we need to change the deadzone for both these or at least offer options for the user to do this without the need of hacking in at it.

Sensitivity for the mouse is included in the Nub settings dialogue. For games, the settings need to be in the games.

USB windows drivers needed ,i have looked into this and i am unsure there is even a driver avail ,there might not be one but it's really needed to save sd cards for sure.

Windows 7 has them included, and there should be g_ether drivers available for normal Windows, too.
That's not our job, though, as this is a standard Linux network gadget and therefore, drivers should exist.

Successfully installed the package.
But in Display->Settings "Refresh rate" is 0 Hz - and it's the only selectable item in that combobox.
Can I execute this new 50/60Hz-script somewhere else to change the refresh rate?

Ahh, it's not included in the Display settings.
It's a script in /usr/pandora/scripts/ (forgot the actual name).
So far, it is mostly meant for emulation (i.e. SNES and Genesis can call that script when running a PAL rom).
When I find some time, I might make a GUI for desktop uses, too... though I'm not sure what for

Some issue on my pandora: Evince icon pnd is ok but has gigolo name (?) and gigolo is evince.

Oh, looks like an error in the PND file then. Thanks for reporting, will fix that for official non-beta HotFix release