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[Wally]

I have tided and updated the User Guide. Taken quite a few hours but finally we have something  - Will need to add links and a new pandora picture when ED fixes the lockfile issue with uploads

http://pandorawiki.org/User_manual

 

[Binky]

^ you still need to update the bit about TV-out cables

-

"Automatic Login - Entirely up to you. Preferable off if you don't want others to use your OpenPandora without your permission"

You mean Preferably, surely?

-

"Minimenu or full Linux OS - xFCE"

XFCE... or Xfce ?

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"Mini Menu is designed to be capable of fully customised skins. "

Reword?

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"There's quite a large amount of Applications available"

"Applications" is neither a proper noun nor a non-count noun - "a large number of applications"

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</nitpick>

 

[Wally]

Binky.. Brother. Pls fix

 

[Binky]

I shall.

 

[levi]

I've already covered most of the issues, apart from the last note.

 

[Binky]

I've dealt with that last one now

 

[comradekingu]

Proposing making a "TV-out cable" page with info on where to get it, picture, what it does, specs, and what resolutions it covers.

•Display •LEDs and backlight and then "TV-out cable" Consider the name, and info to go on there. (Earlier we had "accessories" which was a bad page that got lots of traffic because nobody were able to know what it was from reading the name.)

This is relevant: (from IRC)  urjaman: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html

 

[Binky]

What do people think of replacing the "applications" section of the UM with this?

 

There is a wide variety of software available for your OpenPandora, available as following:

Firstly, as Angstrom packages from the Angstrom repository (WRONG, FIX). These are installed to the same disk as your OS (normally the built-in NAND) and require careful negotiation of dependencies. These are not recommended for the uninitiated as they can permanently damage your installation (requiring a reflash) if not handled carefully. This is also unsuitable for large packages due to the small (512MB) space on the built-in NAND memory.

Secondly, if you have a different operating system or Linux distribution (such as [http://pandorawiki.org/Software_projects/OS/Slackware Slackware]) installed on an SD card, you can use archives or packages associated with that distribution.
Repositories, package-managers and installation procedures can probably found in the same place you found the alternative OS.

Thirdly and most importantly, the Pandora's own package format; .pnd files. Latest releases are available from [http://repo.openpandora.org the OpenPandora Repo], while older ones can be found at [http://dl.openhandshelds.org/cgi-bin/pandora.cgi the Open HandHelds archive].

To install a .pnd file, you can either:

'''Download it from one of the above websites and save it to one of the locations below:'''
The application(s) or game(s) will appear on the desktop or menu as soon as your pandora has had a chance to scan the SD card.
* <SD CARD>/pandora/apps - If you want it to appear on both the Xfce Desktop and in the menu system (this is the 'both' option in PNDManager)
* <SD CARD>/pandora/desktop/ - If you only want it to appear on Xfce Desktop
* <SD CARD>/pandora/menu/ - If you only want it to appear in Pandora Menu

'''Use a native package manager:'''
You can use [http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=pndmanager-bzar PNDManager] or [http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=pndstore PNDStore] to download software from the repo and save it in the appropriate directory in one operation. PNDManager is recommended as the most user-friendly way of doing this.

It is also worth noting the <SD CARD>/pandora/appdata directory (="folder"). By default, all .pnd programs save settings and data in <SD CARD>/pandora/appdata/applicationname/ and many will create this directory automatically when first run. If an application requires additional data, this is likely to be where you need to put it.

To read more about .pnd files, click [http://pandorawiki.org/Pnd here].

 

[levi]

Can you summarise the changes you're planning here? Seems to me you're reordering the list of software sources, bringing angstrom packages to the front, and adding a section about alternative OSes. I'm not sure I agree with any of that; information about alternative oses will replace much of the information in this user manual, so probably belongs somewhere earlier on. And I'd prefer pnd's to come first.


For now I'm ignoring the fact that the first port of call for opkgs is the pandora package source - you'll need to do extra work to get default angstrom packages installed. There's a few places on the wiki where this clarification needs to be made, but I'm hoping we can reduce the number of places where that needs to be fixed before fixing it once or twice only.


The rest of your changes after 'to install a .pnd file' look grand to me though, and a definite improvement.

 

[Binky]

The reordering is simply to avoid fragmentation - people will read the paragraph about pnds, and then go on to how to install them.

That's entirely subjective though, and might be better achieved with section headings...

My thinking behind the mention of other OSes was that the section is entitled  "applications", not "PNDs" - and therefore should summarise the entire topic.

The overall aim was to rewrite the section to make it clearer and more readable :unsure:

 

[levi]

True, it isn't specific to Pandora OS, but section 8.2 is Pan OS specific, as are other parts of section 8 probably, and definitely bits of section 9.


Hmm, actually I'm not sure why section 10 (applications) isn't part of section 8 (basic use).


Any details covering alternative OSes should come before the whole of section 8, I reckon. Just a quick note directing users off to a separate page maybe, leaving the user manual to focus on the default OS.


I would prefer that if we need to cover installing opkgs in the user manual then it should be in a fairly late on section. Hence the only thing in this applications section is stuff about pnds, and hopefully your improvements to that text will make everything easy to follow.

 

[levi]

•Display •LEDs and backlight and then "TV-out cable" Consider the name, and info to go on there. (Earlier we had "accessories" which was a bad page that got lots of traffic because nobody were able to know what it was from reading the name.)

Bear in mind the LEDs and backlight page is focused at quite a different audience to the other two pages. It's only really of use for real hackers, and not even relevant for most application programmers, although of course it's likely of interest to many of us.

I'd suggest it's misnamed. Call it 'controlling LEDs and backlight' or 'hacking LEDs and backlight'.

 

[comradekingu]

That may be, but the three are related. I dont understand what LEDs and Backlight could be other than info about it and more importantly how to control it. Lets not replicate anything that the repo does.

And lets not cheat, fix the section category headline page if the section itself leaves questions unanswered. All of them need huge work.

A user knowing what to look for and finding it should be our first line of defense.

 

[levi]

Alright. I've added some documentation of the user features of the backlight on the LCDs and Backlight page to attempt to address the same audience with it. The programmatic interfaces are still documented at the end if you feel like poking around there.


FWIW, I wouldn't object if the backlight stuff was merged into the Display page, leaving the current page to just handle the LCD stuff.

 

[RMJ250]

Hi, just had a quick read through as I will hopefully own a Pandora soon. It`s looking good, very informative, but I noticed under first time use heading:


"Please the battery cover on and your OpenPandora will power up."


Should be something like replace the battery cover or something?


Keep up the great work,


J

 

[Wally]

With all honesty all I really did was make the content make more sense & update what was there.

I did remove a few things as I felt they weren't relevant but I'm sure nobody will miss them.

The rest is for people to update / add.

 

[double7]

I'm one of the remaining german wiki admins and would like to drop some notes.
At first, is that new main page intended to be displayed as new main page completely or is it a wiki editors structure overview? With EDs intention of easy first user access some things are still a bit overloaded, for example on lollas new page the PND relating things, those many are good for their own subsection for the PND system.
 
There are now two broken red links on the real main page. Please keep the main page intact even during ongoing wiki reorganization.
 
@Wally and others: Please use the preview button much more often. Save only if you know you are ready with that page for that day. The way you did with minutes between pages saves is spamming the recent changes list. Second or third "i missed a typo" saves are fine, which could be marked as "minor change". That way it's possible to filter unimportant changes from the recent change list.
 
The wind of change - is blowing forever. To keep a better overview we split the wiki discussions on the german board into its own subsection. That was a little bit too much, its own thread like "Pandorawiki 2013" had been enough. With the year tag in the topic we want to cut outdated information for next wiki generations, a summary could transfer the actual status into the next years thread.
 
The next note is multi language related. This is not an announcement nor even a pre-announcement, i just want to let you know that there are signs for a migration of the german wiki.openpandora.de into pandorawiki.org. The main advantage will  be one server to maintain instead of two, including backup and update work. We don't have the manpower to adjust our wiki structure to the re-organization, but that would be a possible option if somebody wants to contribute later. Until then, if the migration really starts, please think of the german content as its own wiki inside a wiki. Actually we are talking about ~80 pages.
 
I saw that there is discussion about another mediawiki version and some extensions, maybe that have effects for mulit-language support too? Acutally we would follow the existing structure of tagging article names like fr:main or es:main and move to de:main and on. Would it be ok if we start any time or do you think it would be much better if we wait for a milestone, like the mediawiki update, possible language support changes or the completion of the reorganization and activation to a new main page?

 

[levi]

Yes, there are far too many PND topics at the moment. One of the things on my backlog is to work through those and reorganise them into probably a few fewer topics with a lot less duplication.


I don't know what the plan with the 'new main page' is as I wasn't involved in the creation of it, but judging by the name I'd assume the plan is to replace the existing page. Some work needed first though, I'd more than agree.


Regarding multi-language support, I've not heard of any mediawiki updates coming which will impact multi-language support. Note we already have some JP pages (albeit based on old page structures, last time I checked). You're probably in a slightly better place than me on what needs to be done on internationalisation support, but I don't see any reason to wait. It may be worth checking the mediwiki revision changes. You may also want to check the list of extensions, though that list looks a hard way to go about it. Might be better to visit a wiki that has multi-language challenges already and see what extensions they used, if you think the default functionality might be lacking somehow.

 

[double7]

I've not heard of any mediawiki updates coming which will impact multi-language support.

Thanks for your answer. I tought about changes like the actual pandorawiki.org/LANGAGE concept vs. LANG.pandorawiki.org/PAGE of wikipedia. I don't expect problems from pure software updates, but an additional structure change like above could lead into avoidable additional work - in that case we should wait before adding much content.

 

[levi]

I've no idea how we'd get to a LANG.pandorawiki.org/PAGE solution - it would certainly be more complicated than slapping a new version of mediawiki with some plugins on the server.  Accordingly, I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty certain you're safe to stick with the current pw.org/LANGAGE.