Panorama

[crow_riot]

Update: I got my pandora yesterday and will spend the next few days getting a dev environment running. After I get this compiled for a pandora, I intend to create a preview PND for people to try out. Probably silence until then

congrats! looking forward to your pnd to try out

 

[CPUnltd]

looking forward to it!

 

[bzar]

Ok, no port yet as I'm still struggling to get a good dev environment up, but while my pandora is downloading stuff from opkg I took the time to do a quick video on my Panorama UI called "Tabbed". This is WIP, so it's just a taste . Enjoy!

 

[CPUnltd]

Definitely lovin that!!! looking forward to the pnd!

 

[DaveC]

Ok, no port yet as I'm still struggling to get a good dev environment up, but while my pandora is downloading stuff from opkg I took the time to do a quick video on my Panorama UI called "Tabbed". This is WIP, so it's just a taste . Enjoy!

Basically this looks like minimenu with the categories on the side instead of the top. Also mouse pointer controls are pretty cumbersome on a handheld.

What makes this so much better?

 

[bzar]

Basically this looks like minimenu with the categories on the side instead of the top. Also mouse pointer controls are pretty cumbersome on a handheld.

What makes this so much better?

Well, the one on the video is just one UI. Panorama makes it easy to create any kind of UI you want. In his original post dflemstr showed off a few other UIs. The power of panorama comes from the fact that the UI is completely separated from the actual code. This means that creating a new UI doesn't require any Qt/C++ coding, but only a QML definition (and if necessary, a little javascript). The core code offers functionality, such as application lists and filtering (more planned) for the UI script. This makes it extremely easy to create the UI you want, be it simple or flashy, or customize any of the readily made ones. For example, here's the "simplicity" UI's entire QML code. The UI concept goes beyond theming, as _everything_ is customizable.

The biggest plus here in my opinion is the low barrier of creating a UI and the expressive power and eyecandy that comes with QML.

Also you don't have to use a mouse. At least the Tabbed UI works fine with just a keyboard (+ game controls for pandora).

 

[bzar]

False alarm! Check my post below

Pandora build is postponed for now. I've been trying to get it to work for three days now, but can't get it to. The problem is that panorama depends on Qt 4.7 while Pandora OS Zaxxon provides 4.6.

First I tried using sebt3's build of Qt 4.7, but it seems it was a bad build for some reason and had some weird linker errors (I'll try this one more time to get the output for those interested).

I tried compiling Qt 4.7 myself, but ran into this error (after resolving a whole host of others):

/usr/local/angstrom/arm/libexec/gcc/arm-angstrom-linux-gnueabi/4.3.3/cc1plus: symbol lookup error: /usr/local/angstrom/arm/libexec/gcc/arm-angstrom-linux-gnueabi/4.3.3/cc1plus: undefined symbol: mpfr_init2

Then I tried using a build provided by Ångström's "next" repository. This one would've been peaches, but it depends on a newer glibc than what's available in Zaxxon. I tried getting the new glibc and linking against it, but due to other dependencies being dependant on Zaxxon's version of glibc, I was out of luck.

I'm open to suggestions, but if nothing comes up, I'll do a build when I either get a Qt 4.7 build that works on Zaxxon or the next version of pandora's OS, "Yars revenge", comes to some kind of developer alpha. For now I think my time is better spent working on panorama instead of trying to hack it into Zaxxon.

 

[CPUnltd]

understood and respected on my behalf, B-Zar.... hopefully there will be some info updates on Yar's sometime soon... Haven't read anything in my typical channels just yet...

 

[bzar]

How nice

I went to get the error message I got from using sebt3's Qt build, but noticed an error in the makefile while doing so! After a few moments of intensive suspense, I now have a working build of panorama running on a pandora! I'll post a video to show how it runs once I find out why the keyboard/gamepad input events are not reaching the UI. Happy days!

 

[bzar]

There's an alpha preview PND at r.o.o. At least one user has reported just a grey screen, which implies not loading the QML files from the right place. It works for me though.

Read the "Additional info" on the page first!

Enjoy

 

[thatgui]

How nice

I went to get the error message I got from using sebt3's Qt build, but noticed an error in the makefile while doing so! After a few moments of intensive suspense, I now have a working build of panorama running on a pandora! I'll post a video to show how it runs once I find out why the keyboard/gamepad input events are not reaching the UI. Happy days!

This is very nice. Simplicity is my favourite one, and could replace minimenu for me quickly. Do you see any possibility that the loading time could be reduced in the future ?

Out of personal lazyness an me trying to do my part on concentrating everything pandora related to the official boards: I'd like to invite you to make a thread about this on the official board's beta section.

PS.: Either Colors or trying different UIs in a row seemed to have crashed my system. Even after restarting the Pandora Panorama hangs with a gray screen when I try to load panorama with the Colors UI.

 

[bzar]

Loading time: depends. I agree that it's way too long, and if it can't be brought down there at least should be a loading screen to let you know stuff is happening.
Thread: I'll put one up after work today. There's already a thread in the offical forums dev section though.
Crashes: Hmm. I wonder why it crashes. Colors seems to work fine for me. It's too bad the output files are put to /tmp, because otherwise I could ask you for a log. I'll look into this.

 

[Magic Sam]

Hi !

Don't have time today to say much, but this is AWESOME !!!

Simplicity UI rocks !!!

p.s: some apps start, but without sound, like greyout for example...

Bye and many thanks B-ZaR

Magic Sam

 

[bzar]

Added a beta an alpha test thread

 

[dflemstr]

I'll work on the startup time, I know what the reason for it is.

 

[bzar]

Awesome! On another note, some games (eg. Greyout, Pandora Panic) are missing sound when launched from panorama. The common variable (by process of elimination) seems to be SDL_Mixer. If the games are launched from outside panorama while it's running the sound works nicely. Any ideas on this?

EDIT: unnecessary quote

 

[thatgui]

I'll work on the startup time, I know what the reason for it is.

You Rock .. Rock

Welcome Back :lol:

 

[dflemstr]

Massive changes are in my Git now.

That panorama conflicts with SDL_Mixer is probably related to panorama connecting to Phonon (it *could potentially* be playing sound, therefore the library is loaded). This is an issue with the Pandora's sound mixing system (Don't you guys use PulseAudio? Doesn't the ALSA mixer work?) and not with panorama, although Phonon could probably be unloaded as a workaround.

I'll work on an UI that isn't just for showcasing panorama when I have some spare time.

B-ZaR, please do also pull my pandora-libraries changes, and delete the settings.cfg file, as I changed the format.

 

[CPUnltd]

whatever Pandora is using for sound, it's an odd mix of ALSA and OSS... there IS currently no Pulseaudio (unfortunately)... just wanted to cover that part of the topic.

 

[dflemstr]

it's an odd mix of ALSA and OSS...

Not a mix. It's called Phonon. Provided that either OSS or ALSA mixing works, Phonon should work, too.