Pandora Quick Tips


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Hi! I just wanted to dedicate a thread to people that are new to the pandora so that they can have some simple solutions to little problems. I hope this helps make things more accessible.


The first and most important example of this would be:


The nand only hass 100 MB of free space and some change, so deleting large amounts of data from an sd card can seem impossible to do without the help of another computer to connect to.


-To permanently delete data from your SD card instead of moving it to the trash simply right click the file as you normally would and hold down the left shoulder button when you click delete. Say yes when you are prompted about permanently deleting the data.


That way you will never get that error saying that there is no space for the file you were trying to just delete anyways.


Another problem some people seem to have is playing youtube videos fullscreen. This is also easy. First of all you need to download Firefox 11 for the pandora. It is the only browser I know of that supports flash and youtube on the pandora (besides fennec 4.0 but that is pretty slow I think). The first thing you'll notice when you set up firefox is that the screen is cramped. An easy fix for now is to right click the menu bar and uncheck the box labeled "menu bar". Now there is slightly more room. You can still access the menu functions through the small button labeled firefox on the far left next to the tabs. More about the browser in a minute. It's a nice browser.


Anyways, go to youtube.com and pick a video. You will notice it plays. nice. You will also notice that it appears slow usually. This is probably a RAM issue because it occurs no matter how fast the wifi is. Simply select 240p resolution in the youtube video box. The pandoras screen is small enough that it will still look nice and it runs full speed this way. (note that I have a new pandora with 512MB of ram). Anyways, if you press the fullscreen button in the video box you will notice that the screen will go black but sound will play. press esc (Fn+q) on your keyboard to go back if you get stuck there.


NOTE that you have to press ALT+TAB (start+Fn+space) or hold down the pandora superbutton for 5 seconds to either close or get away from the video because pressing F11 will not put it back into window mode.


- To make the video play full screen simply right click the video box and select "pop out". the video will play in an independent window. While in that window pres F11 (Fn+o) on your keyboard. It is now fullscreen. And it looks nice.


Speaking of F11, you can press it when browsing the internet on firefox to browse in fulscreen mode. This opens up the whole screen for internet goodness. Feel the power. You can aso put the browser in high contrast mode by going to PREFERENCES>CONTENT in the menu and selecting "colors" A window will pop up with various color options, but also check boxes. Uncheck the box labeled "allow pages to choose their own colors". This puts the browser in high contrast mode and is really nice if you want to simplify a page or if you are in harsh lighting conditions (it is primarily white). Anyways, there are two other ways to free up space in your firefox browser for comfortable web browsing. The first is the ability to zoom in and out.


-To zoom in and out in Firefox simply hold down the right shoulder button and press - (Fn+d) on your keyboard to zoom out, + (Fn+f) to zoom in. Use the arrow buttons to maneuver slowly. Use the game pad button "Y" to scroll up fast, "X" to scroll down fast. Use The gamepad "A" button to go to the top of the page, "B" to go to the bottom.


The second is using a program called "ABMOUSE". Download it. To activate it go to the start menu and select system. Click Ab mouse and the A and B buttons will act as alternate mouse buttons (A being left click, B being right). This is good I find for long browsing sessions because the nub can get annoying with prolonged usage. However, there is a catch. Games and other programs that use the A and B game pad buttons will not recognize them when you push them. Luckily you can go to START MENU>SYSTEM and select "NORMAL MOUSE" to make it normal again. I put these buttons on a task bar for ease of access but more on that later.


If you find organizing programs difficult, the FIRST program you should download is PNDMANAGER. It is a full screen suite for pnd management and makes it easy to both add and remove pnds. From what I can tell it also removes the appdata files as well when it removes a program. Note that the program is almost entirely touchscreen, so use your finger or the stylus and dont panic or catch fire when you dont see a mouse. (Ok, that one seemed extremely simple but I managed to crash the program when I first started it, so dont judge me). The only catch is that it also lists programs that are still being beta tested from repo.openpandora.org so some programs may still have problems. You should always find out more information in the boards when getting a program that either doesnt work or that you dont know a whole lot about. There are almost always already solutions made by other people when you get there.


I have more quick tips that i will post later but my number one piece of advice to new users is BE PATIENT. The pandora is a fast and powerul device but if it slows down occasionally it has a good reason for doing so. Especially when browsing the internet or using five programs at once.


Obviously this thread is dedicated to people that are not only new to the pandora but that have also had an extremely user friendly experience with computers. I think this actually makes up a good percentage of people interested in getting a pandora from a distance and things like this should help draw those people closer, as well as help new users and people that are just frustrated by the interface.
 
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Thanks mate. Good read, helps me a fair bit, only just received my pandora a few days ago. It's a steep learning curve that's for sure.


I look forward to your other tips that you have. I think that the next part should include SWAP. Just an idea, otherwise, I like it! Keep it up!
 
Me again. I just want to start by correcting myself on one thing from my first post.


-You actually CAN close or revert a fullscreen youtube video to windowed mode without using alt+tab or holding down the pandora button for 5 seconds. Press ALT+SPACE (START+SPACE) on your keyboard to bring up the window menu on any fullscreen program.


Also want to clarify two small things that I skimmed over in my first post.


-ALT+TAB cycles through open applications (a commonly known computer trick, I know, but some people arent aware of i still).


- As demonstrated eariler, holding down the pandora superbutton (located under the START and SELECT buttons on your keyboard) brings up the kill program menu. Tapping it opens the start menu.


Ok, now that is out of the way, lets talk more tips. I haven't used SWAP yet but I havent really had a need for it yet. I think it's used to either create a common directory between users (which doesnt make sense on the pandora) or to create a swap partition possibly used for caching data to make you pandora faster. I don't know but I can look into it later. It's more likely someone else would be a better source of information on this.


Anyways, LETS TALK ESSENTIALS.


Sometimes new pandora owners seem to forget to download the community codec pack. Because of this they can't play music, movies and all that good stuff. In order for programs to read mp3, avi, and other licensed codecs you need to download the community codec pack found here: http://openpandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=199&Itemid=40&lang=en


Download it to the same place you put your programs on your sd card. Once it's done go to START MENU>SYSTEM>Community Codec Pack. select it and say yes when prompted. It will install. It will tell you afterwards that you may remove the community codec pack, but I personally prefer to hold onto it to avoid future redownloads in the event that I have to reflash the firmware. More on that in a minute.


That page I gave you the link to also contains a link to two firmwares for the pandora. The first is the latest firmware, the second is the most recent STABLE version. Now, I personally prefer having the most recent firmware, including BETA releases. There are different bugs with each new beta firmware but in my (albeit short) experience the number of improvements always outnumber the number of bugs. If you don't know what firmware you have You can find out by restating your pandora and reading the top right of the splashscreen when it boots. As f this postmy pandora reads "BETA 4" with "BOOTING KERNEL 3.2" in yellow below it. On the bottom of the screen it says SUPERZAXXON. That means my firmware is SUPERZAXXON BETA 4, which uses the 3.2 kernel. If your Pandora says superzaxxon then do not reflash it to anything below whatever version of superzaxxon you have. Whenever I first got my pandora I reflashed it to hotfix 5 (because I did not know what version my pandora was and if it was the latest) and some programs, namely super geometry dust, did not start up. I assume this is because of some remaining code of some kind but I wont go into trying to figure that out.


Instructions on how to reflash your firmware can be found on the thread in which the firmware you are downloading was released. The latest firmware (released today I think) is SUPERZAXXON BETA 5 and instructions on how to download it can be found here.


New users that actually need to read this thread probably are not booting from an sd card so ignore those instructions. Especially if you dont know what that even means.


IF YOU SKIPPED PAST ALL THAT STUFF TO GET TO THE MORE PRACTICAL INFORMATION THEN STOP HERE.


Lets talk about the desktop.


- You can get rid of the home, trash, and removable media icons by right clicking the desktop, selecting "desktop setting" and choosing the ICONS tab. uncheck the boxes indicating the home, trash, removable media and filesystem icons.


This cleans up the desktop for your own shortcuts. But if you already have programs on the desktop then you might notice that they are scattered or arranged in a way you dont want them to be. We can fix that.


-To move an icon on your desktop simply drag it with the mouse while holding the left shoulder button. Note that you have to click the icon before holding the left shoulder button. This is also easier done with the stylus because the nub mouse sometimes is stubborn about dragging and dropping. Alternatively, abmouse comes in handy here as well.


Do you want a quick way to make your desktop look cool? Go to STARTMENU>SETTINGS>DESKTOP>APPEARANCE


There you can select a color theme that you like. What, you need more? WILL YOUR THIRST FOR BASIC CUSTOMIZATION EVER CEASE? Well you can change window themes by going to STARTMENU>SETTINGS>DESKTOP>WINDOW EDITOR.


Choose a sexy window frame for your windows. Still not satisfied? How about some sexy transparencies?


Go to STARTMENU>SETTING>DESKTOP>WINDOW MANAGER TWEAKS


Select the COMPOSITOR tab. Check the box labeled "enable display compositing" then toy with the shadow and transparency options to your hearts content.


(note that while I have not experienced slowdown of any kind of using this optin I imagine the old pandoras with the old RAM might. I cant confirm or deny this).


-If you want to add a custom icon for a prgram to your task bar simply right click it and select "ADD NEW ITEMS". It will show a list of preset icons and an option titles "launcher". Select that. Type in the name of the new launcher and choose an icon for it.


Now heres where people without immediate knowledge of launch cammands run into a wrinkle. You cant just select what program to use. Instead, here is a workaround to find out what the launch cammand is for the program you want to launch.


- to find a launch cammand for a program. go to STARTMENU>ACCESSORIES>APPLICATION FINDER. Type in the name of the application you want after starting application finder. An icon for it should show up in the window. Drag and drop it onto the desktop. Close application finder. Right click the newly created shortcut on your desktop and select "properties". Select the LAUNCHER tab and copy the text in the box labeled "COMMAND". Note that using this method you no longer have to put programs in the APPS folder on your SD card to put it on the desktop.


-To finish making your custom task bar launcher, right click it and select properties. Paste the cammand into the box labeled "command". The launcher should work now.


Now you can customize your task bar to the max! Oh wait, no, there is one more thing. You can create more panels if you find that you need more space for icons. Go to STARTMENU>SETTINGS>DESKTOP>PANEL. You can make a new panel and select where on the screen it should reside. Now if youre thinking that this takes up more screen space youd be right. Thats why you can check the box marked "autohide". That way when your mouse is away from the new bar you created it slides out of view. simply hover your mouse over it to brng it back into view.


NOTE!!


If you plan on reflashing and upgrading your firmware you should know that all of your settings, namely your taskbar and window settings, will be reset. There is apparently a way to back up these settings, but I don't know what it is. When I find out I will tell you.


USEFUL PROGRAMS TO DOWNLOAD


Here is a short list of useful downloads that I will add onto as time goes by.


PND_Utils


This program installs a few useful tools to help make pnds more accessibe. For one it allows pnds to be recognized as an executable file and can be activated by clicking the file directly in THUNAR (the name of the native file manager n the pandora, n case you were wondering). It also allows you to associate music files to be automatically played by panplayer when clicked but I do not use this function because I do not like panplayer. Speaking of music programs...


GMU Player


when you download and install the community codec pack you will notice that a program called GNOME player is also installed. It's a basic music and video player and a damn good one at that, but it is a bit slow as far as playlist management goes and it doesnt save its own settings because it is installed on the NAND (which is the proper name for the pandoras internal memory, in case you were wondering) and does not have permission to do so. GMU player is the music player designed for the GP2x (a less versatile, even more gaming oriented relative to to the pandora) and features simple controls with easy onscreen instructions, a fullscreen mode, a lock mode (so that the shouler buttons dont cause your music to skip about when the pandora is in your pocket) and it takes very little power to run because it can use low cpu settings. The practical upshot of this program compared to the next program I will mention is that you can listen to music while doingother things on the pandora and not have to worry about anything crashing or slowing down.


ROCKBOX


Rockbox is like GMU player in that it is simple to use and takes up very little power. The difference is that ROCKBOX is beefier and more pwerful. It has a built in database function (meaning it searches your entire pandora for music and memorizes that) as well as the file index search methodz It also has full bass, treble, and volume adjustment tools, equalizers, basically everything a great music player needs. It has two real downsides. It is fullscreen only and it lacks a lock feature (meaning your music may skip around while the pandora is in your pocket. Now for me it is pretty easy to get around both problems. I use GMU player instead when I wanr to listen to music while doing other stuff and I arrange my pandora in my pocket so that it doesnt rest on the shoulder buttons. Honestly, ausio wise, ROCKBOX is better. Oh, and to access the menu, file browser, and play options when music is playing you have to use the touch screen. You press SELECT on your keyboard to quit ROCKBOX. If, for whatever reason, you need to reset your daabase in rockbox, just delete the appdata and when you start the program again it will need to build the database again. Also. the database automatically updates when new music is added.


CATLOOKING WRITER


This is a text editor that wont kill your eyes. This is not a wordprocessor so you cant edit docs or RTF files. It just looks nice. It's a fullscreen text editor with a minimalist design and various paper and color backdrops that are pleasing to type on. If you want to use the pandora for txt based text editing then this is the program to do it on.


TRASMISSION


Really nice bit torrent client. slim, works, customizable. If you dont know what bittorrent is then ignore this one.


SNAP SNAP


This one is important I feel. it is a simple screenshot program that, when installed, allows you to take a picture of your screen by pressing F10 (Fn+0) on your keyboard. Note that I have yet to get this to work when in minimenu. Anyways, I think this is very important because it allows you to take an actual picture of whatever it is you may be having problems with on your pandora so that you can upload it to the forums when you ask for help with something. This could help people identify the problem when you have trouble explaining it.


PIDGIN


Note that there is at least one other program like this out there that I know of that may or may not be better than pidgin. Pidgin is an instant messemger chat client. it allows you to chat using aim, facebook, google talk and others without using a browser.


FENNEC 3.0


I mentioned last time that Fennec 4.0 is a bit slow. it is. fennec 3 is more stable. Fennec is a smaller. touchscreen version of firefox designed for smartphones. It works nicely on the pandora. It is small, fast, and you can use the touchscreen to scroll. Note that when you are not using the touchscreen you have to use the mouse to drag the page. You can also use the arrows. Double tapping o double clicking allows you to zoom in and out. I use this when I jsut want to check something quickly online. Note that it doesnt support flash. It does, for whatever reason, allow you to go to google mail, where firefox 11 doesnt (i dont know why it doesnt).


I think that's going to do it for me today. If anyone has any questions please ask. And more importantly, if anyone has any quick tips feel free to add them here.
 
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I second your recomendation of ABMouse and PNDManager. Very useful programs.


Though I was a bit astonished to read that you describe it as fully touchscreen driven. I haven't touched the screen once. In my opinion it is best used with the help of the game controls (as indicated by the icons).


Best Regards


A2000
 
What A2000 said. Also, There are two more things I need to clarify. This is getting to be a bad habit, I know, but bear with me.


-In ROCKBOX you have to go to SETTINGS>DATABASE to activate autoupdating the database. You can also reset the database from there.


- I upgraded to SUPERZAXXONB5 last night and it now supports the HOLD function when the power switch is moved all the way to the left. This solves the problem in rockbox of the shoulder buttons activating in your pocket.


Also, If you upgrade to SUPERZAXXON BETA 5 and the pandora seems unresponsive, That is why, Just unclick the hold button.


This change was a bit jarring for me because I had up until now used that switch as a sort of safety switch so that it doesnt accidentally go into low power mode (which is what I have my power switch set to do). That hasnt happened since the power/hold switch is conveniently inside a shallow groove and is therefore hard to acidentally knock, so that is not a real problem.


I am basically going through this thread and posting what I needed to figure out when I first got my pandora. So I figured I would cover the MINIMENU today.


The minimenu is the last thing I had attempted to customize because most of it's configuration menus are kind of hidden. Easy to find once you know where they are. The first ste is the easiest because it tell you this at the bottom of the screen. "Press SELECT for options". That's a bout it really, juat press select and the options menu will pop up. Here you can find pretty much everything you need, notably the ability to create custom categories. Note that once you create a category it will not show up. You have to add programs to it. More on that later... Go three spaces down in the options menu to select CONFIGURE MINIMENU. I mention the number of spaces because the color difference between selected and unselected text is very small and can sometimes be difficult to tell. Once in the configuration menu you can browse the options. There you can change what programs are shown/hidden, what categories to show/hide, whether the minimenu shows lists or icons, and more. But thereare some things you cant find there.


-To configure various options for specific program icons, select the icon with the cursor and press SPACE on your keyboard. A menu will pop up with more specific options like what cpu speed the program should start at, what notes the program should have in the description window, and, notably, what category you want it to show up in.


-To create a custom category press SELECT in the minimenu and select REGISTER CUSTOM CATEGORY. Type in the name of your new category. Confirm it when prompted.


- To Recategorize a program simply select it in the program with the cursor and press SPACE. Select the RECATEGORIZE option. Select your category.


You can also download and install new skins for the minimenu. I don't know if there is a convenient place to download from a database of skins, so as an example you can download a new skin from here:


Now, you need to create a folder called "skins" in (YOUR SD CARD)/pandora/minimenu/. Download the zip file from the link above to that folder. Unzip it once it's finished downloading and extract the contents into the same folder. The default zip tool for the pandora is "squeeze", so use that if you havent downloaded an alternative. You'll notice that all the files in the zip file are in a folder. Extract the contents of that folder instead of the folder itself or else the extracted files will have that folder inside another folder of the same name and the minimenu wont recognize it. Alternatively just move the contents of that folder into the first folder.


Youre done. Kind of. To finish the rest you need to go to the minimenu.


- once in the minimenu, To activat a new skin simply press SELECT and choose the option labeled "choose a minimenu skin". Select the skin you want to choose.


The minimenu should restart with the new skin you installed.


So that basically covers minimenu.


- If for whatever reason your mouse nubs seem unresponsive (but everyhing else seems to work fine, including touch screen) just select the nub configuration menu in STARTMENU>SETTING>NUB CONFIGURATION. Check the box marked "mouse movement" for the left nub and "mouse butons" for the right one. Click "write settings" located at the bottom right of the window.


If those boxes were already activated but your mouse still didnt work, or if the nub controls just feel weird, click the option market "rest nub settings" located at the bottom left of the window.


If the problem persists then I dont know what to tell you.


-To create keyboard shortcuts go to STARTMENU>SETTINGS>DESKTOP>KEYBOARD. You can add custom launcher keys there in the same way that you can as described earlier when creating custom task bar launchers (i.e. copying the command from the desktop shortcut and pasting it in the launcher command box).


This is useful if you want an extremely minimalist experience on the pandora without the need of desktop or taskbar icons. If you want to remember the key combinations that you make, anyways.


That's it for today. Short, I know, but I promise to come back with more later. And remember, ASK. If you are having trouble with a particular function or program just ask and if its something I can workaround or have worked around then I will tell you.
 
YouTube isn't a RAM issue, it's a processor speed issue (i.e. it isn't any better on the 512MB RAM units).


It's also worth mentioning that you can only pick 240p with the Flash video player; the HTML5 player only goes as low as 360p, so if you're unable to get to 240p, that's why. To get the Flash player, you need to go to youtube.com/html5 and make sure you're not a part of the HTML5 trial.
 
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Hello all. I just wanted to check in to see what it is that other new users actually need help with. I just want to know so that the useful information in this thread doesn't get lost in any irrelevant information I may have just thrown in here. Keep me posted!
 
I would like to know in more details how you can backup your data before reflashing your hardware... any links?

Hello all. I just wanted to check in to see what it is that other new users actually need help with. I just want to know so that the useful information in this thread doesn't get lost in any irrelevant information I may have just thrown in here. Keep me posted!
 
This is a great write up, and it has been helping me a ton.
 
I would like to know in more details how you can backup your data before reflashing your hardware... any links?

Hello all. I just wanted to check in to see what it is that other new users actually need help with. I just want to know so that the useful information in this thread doesn't get lost in any irrelevant information I may have just thrown in here. Keep me posted!



There isn't a real way to do this yet, but I heard skeezix might make a program.

This stuff belongs in the wiki, I'll eventually get around to copying it in.

Anything I can do to help?

This is a great write up, and it has been helping me a ton.

No problem! Just be sure to let me know if anything is needed.
 
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