Pandora PNDManager

[bzar]

I use it with SD cards formatted as ext2 and ext3, and so far no issues. There is no download prompt after selecting install medium and location, wait a few seconds in the package view it goes back to after pressing download and the progress bar should appear.


And if it doesn't check your permissions and stuff.

 

[Cloudef]

B-ZaR, it seems that PNDmanager doesn't like linux file systems for some weird reason. When the download button is pressed on an ext3 formated sd card, the screen will just pan left with out a download prompt. According to the out dump, panorama.sh has failed during this event.

Check that you have permissions to /pandora folder. (lowercase)


Also B-ZaR, you should somehow allow toggling verbose output. Might be useful until logging is implented.


I have somewhat useful strings such as these there:

static const char *IS_NOT_DIR       = "%s, is not a directory.\n";

static const char *ACCESS_FAIL      = "%s, should have write and read permissions.\n";

static const char *ROOT_FAIL        = "Could not get root device of %s absolute directory.\n";

static const char *DEVICE_INIT_FAIL = "Failed to allocate pndman_device, shit might break now.\n";

static const char *DEVICE_EXISTS    = "Device with mount %s, already exists.";

 

[bzar]

^ Added to the list

 

[Galaxis]

Small usability hints:

• Show a cursor in the search field (otherwise unsure: can I type in there now or do I need to press some key to get there?)
  
• Installing from search result could be streamlined: Select result is )B(, install on the next screen is )A(, and then to confirm the install location it's )B( again.
  

Really cool application, that's the kind of stuff where people I show my Pandora to go "WOW!".

 

[Prometheus]

^ Agreed, could a mod move posts #10 and #13 to the rebirth section thread? Thank you

Ok, I've moved the (former) posts 10 and 13 to the thread about this in the Rebirth Competition section, though I only knew about it because someone used the report system. I hope I've gotten this right - the way of moving posts seems to have changed with the recent forum upgrade (and it's much easier, now).

 

[porg]

Bug report: After upgrading to version 1.1.0.0, PNDManager starts, but shows nothing forever & is unresponsive to all key presses. Forced quit. Erased its appdata, restarted. Got a welcome screen, then it continued normally.


Related I idea: Always show welcome screen at first launch after upgrade. In that welcome screen, show the user the version number (assurance: upgrade happened!) and as already now, the functional overview / button assignment as a short reminder.


Performance/bug report: List "Installed" > Game "2H4U" > Start > Game played correct but a bit slower. On return, the PNDManager screen was white for about 70 seconds. Quite a long time, thought it had crashed, then the screen redraw. And: Now the start button did not show anymore. Returned to list. 2H4U disappeared from the list! (For comparison, a positive example: Angry Drunken Dwarfs: Played at normal speed, return to PNDManager was almost immediate (<1sec) and the Launch button was still there then, and when returning to the "Installed" list, it was still there.)


I feedback: Installed > PND detail screen > UI buttons ordered from left to right as: Launch (ENTER) | Remove (A)


The order should be: Remove (A) | Launch (ENTER), as we want to be consistent with the idea that left is back/abort/etc and right is continue/deeper/etc, both in the UI and with the button assignment. (Gets even more obvious, if you there press Remove (A). Then the button order in the overlay dialogue is exactly opposite! The user confused and insecure then.)


Performance/bug report: String filtering: Better to only refresh after ENTER (as in previous versions) and not on every key press (slow!)


UI feedback: Although I am meanwhile familiar with the icons, I always take the category-icon as the "Installed". The icon mimicking a "bullet list" gives the impression of a list (as in MY installed apps list), rather than the impression of categories. Do you have an alternative or shall I think about one?

 

[bzar]

Bug report: After upgrading to version 1.1.0.0, PNDManager starts, but shows nothing forever & is unresponsive to all key presses. Forced quit. Erased its appdata, restarted. Got a welcome screen, then it continued normally.

I think the first one could be some kind of caching problem, because it sounds like the UI did not load correctly, even though it was correct since it loaded later on. Until there's a way to repeat this I'm not convinced it's actually a bug in PNDManager or its PND.

Related I idea: Always show welcome screen at first launch after upgrade. In that welcome screen, show the user the version number (assurance: upgrade happened!) and as already now, the functional overview / button assignment as a short reminder.

This could be a bit tricky, but possible. Basically I'll have to track PNDManager version in the UI and override the showSplashScreen setting if it has changed. I'll add it to the list.

Performance/bug report: List "Installed" > Game "2H4U" > Start > Game played correct but a bit slower. On return, the PNDManager screen was white for about 70 seconds. Quite a long time, thought it had crashed, then the screen redraw. And: Now the start button did not show anymore. Returned to list. 2H4U disappeared from the list! (For comparison, a positive example: Angry Drunken Dwarfs: Played at normal speed, return to PNDManager was almost immediate (<1sec) and the Launch button was still there then, and when returning to the "Installed" list, it was still there.)

This... sounds scary. It's like some of your key presses were handled by PNDManager while playing. I tested this on various cases to make sure it would not happen, but apparently I may have missed something. I need to know more about what buttons exactly you pressed and possible combinations, since if there's some way of key presses leaking to PNDManager you may do some wild stuff while playing a game. The slowdown is because of PNDManager running in the background chewing your memory, and if key presses were being leaked your CPU as well.


I think the long white screen ws because you had pressed start at the end of the 2H4U game and it had started syncing, thus reserving the UI thread. The screen redrew itself after the sync.

I feedback: Installed > PND detail screen > UI buttons ordered from left to right as: Launch (ENTER) | Remove (A)


The order should be: Remove (A) | Launch (ENTER), as we want to be consistent with the idea that left is back/abort/etc and right is continue/deeper/etc, both in the UI and with the button assignment. (Gets even more obvious, if you there press Remove (A). Then the button order in the overlay dialogue is exactly opposite! The user confused and insecure then.)

Roger, didn't really think about this, but now that I do it's obvious . Adding to the list.

Performance/bug report: String filtering: Better to only refresh after ENTER (as in previous versions) and not on every key press (slow!)

The filtering has always been without pressing enter, but I could make it require pressing enter? I also have a few ideas to make the filtering itself faster, making the point moot if it makes it fast enough.

UI feedback: Although I am meanwhile familiar with the icons, I always take the category-icon as the "Installed". The icon mimicking a "bullet list" gives the impression of a list (as in MY installed apps list), rather than the impression of categories. Do you have an alternative or shall I think about one?

That icon is used in many mobile UIs to signify "categories" in app stores. I picked it because of familiarity.

 

[bzar]

Ffffuuuu, 2H4U leaks input to PNDManager! I wonder if there are others like it and what causes this. Any PNDs I tested with didn't. Will try to fix immediately.

 

[bzar]

Fixed, update uploading.

 

[crosspoint]

One feature request for PNDManager:


What about displaying the comments from the repo? And writing comments directly from Pandora would be nice, too!

 

[thatgui]

One feature request for PNDManager:


What about displaying the comments from the repo? And writing comments directly from Pandora would be nice, too!

Currently the repo doesn't support this, see here for the current state of integrating it

 

[fusion_power]

When updating the lists from the Repo, a progress bar or "busy" sign on the screen could help. It takes a while and it's not sure that the manager is working. (the litle arrow circle on bottom right is turning but it's very tiny).

 

[bzar]

The sync icon in the corner is supposed to be the syncing indicator. When I get threaded syncs working, it will rotate constantly during sync, not stop every once in a while like it is now. Would that be better?

 

[fusion_power]

Well, it's tiny. Blind guys like me would put in in big at the center of the screen during sync. But of course, this is just an Idea. ^^

 

[PowerGod]

I have a problem, PNDManager doesn't find anymore online material, it only show installed PNDs without icons, the appdata was empty when I installed it... is there something on the NAND that I have to delete ?


If I try to update the list it shows "Sync complete" but there's only the installed apps... and sometimes after the message it quit.


It's installed in a USB Key, and I don't have any SD with me now... anyway days ago I tried even installing it in a SD but the problem was the same


By the way, PND Store works ok


EDIT: if it can be useful, in these days I was trying different SD, and everytime it was the first application installed, and I had no problems for the first 4/5 times

 

[bzar]

Delete appdata/libpndman from each SD card.

 

[PowerGod]

I already did that many times, and I have only the USB key inserted, no SD

 

[bzar]

That's strange. Do you have write permissions and all correctly?

 

[PowerGod]

all seems ok, I even tried to create/modify/delete some files and folders, and I have no problems with all the other applications...


but, now that I think of it, I'm not sure if it has ever worked from USB.... I installed there all the apps cause I had to give away all the SD cards... and when I tried to run it, the list wasn't updated, so after some trials, I reinserted an SD and installed the pnd on it, and it wasn't working... but I think that for that try I didn't deleted the appdata dir in the USB key...


anyway for now I don't have any SD to try it on...

 

[bzar]

1. edit appdata/pndmanager/settings.cfg
   
2. change logging verbosity to 3
   
3. start pndmanager
   
4. sync
   
5. after syncing exit pndmanager
   
6. paste contents of /tmp/pndrun_pndmanager.out to pastie or similar
   
7. post link to paste