Pandora PNDManager

[ptitSeb]

_wb_: good to know. I could work with that. I haven't really looked into the code::blocks PND (I assume that's what you mean?), but that sounds promising. I could try to compile some of my C++11 stuff with it to see if it fits the bill.

Getting Qt to compile (at least in the later 4.8.x versions, using ivanovic's toolchain because yactfeau had old gcc) for pandora has been a huge PITA (to get right), though I guess it would be somewhat simpler if using an actual environment instead of cross compiling. It would take a lot of time, possibly days, to compile though . Distcc would probably be an ideal solution here. With a good workflow (normal: dev on desktop, git pull to pandora, compile, test -or- bug hunt/release testing: ssh/scp to pandora, tweak, test, patch git + create PND + release) I'd probably be less hesitant to do stuff on it. That wouldn't mean fulfilling all hopes and wishes and spending all available dev time on it, but at least the small stuff and bug fixes.

Regarding Qt5 I actually think Panorama and PNDManager would benefit from it a lot. The new graphics system should be quite a bit more performant and actually threaded (less UI hangups). The more modular design should allow for a more fine-grained cherry-picking of Qt libraries resulting in smaller PND size -> shorter loading time. Moving Panorama and the UIs (PNDManager for one) to Qt5's QML2 and SceneGraph would be quite a bit of work, but it's work I'd actually be willing and interested to do . Optimally I'd like to see Qt5 in the firmware. There's a good reason some of the latest mobile platforms like sailfish and ubuntu touch have picked it.

I confirm compile QT 4.8.4 on the Pandora takes time. A day (or 2, I don't remember). But this kind of compilation time are just for a few monsters, for normal program, compiling on the Pandora is fast, and as you said, it's easier than cross-compile.

QT5, I haven't look at that at all. QT4 & QT5 can cohabit?

 

[bzar]

Qt4 and Qt5 cohabit in at least arch and ubuntu already. Not sure how it's handled regarding headers, but at least the .so files are of different name because of versioning.

 

[Mr_Loon]

I've got a slightly strange issue with PNDManager when downloading updates / new apps.

I'm using an edimax mini wifi stick and get a maximum download speed of 176KB/s for any individual download.

i.e. I can have 4 PNDs downloading at once and each max's out at 176KB/s or if just downloading 1 PND the maximum speed is still 176KB/s.

Is there a hard limit on download speed in place anywhere? Is there a way a user can increase this limit? It can be a little 'painful' when updating/installing big files like Wesnoth.

Originally mentioned this here & it appears that others also experience this limit.

 

[bzar]

^ Answered in that thread

 

[Mr_Loon]

^ Answered in that thread

Oops, missed that.


Would it be possible to add an option to PNDManager to toggle between max download speed and good UI performance?

 

[bzar]

Possible yes. Given a day or so of dev time for a developer that has everything ready to go.

 

[Neelix]

Personally I'd settle for having the sleep time being configurable via the config file,  though I must admit I do like the idea of having it adjustable within the program.  

- Neelix

 

[bzar]

Coming here soon: new beta.

 

[bzar]

1.3.0.1 beta available at http://bzar.fi/files/pndmanager.pnd, mirror at http://cloudef.eu/pnd/pndmanager.pnd

New stuff:

• NEON-optimized Qt 4.8.5 build
• Raised download speed limit ~tenfold
• Latest libpndman
  bzipped package list transfers
• several bugfixes

EDIT: Some future plans include switching to Qt5 (SceneGraph based Panorama being a big attraction), support for commercial apps (downloading, not purchasing), better error handling, some previously suggested UI fixes and stuff.

 

[Mr_Loon]

...

• Raised download speed limit ~tenfold

...

Many thanks for this


Just a quick note to potential testers, there seem to be some issues with the repo at the moment, it might be worth checking things are working normally with the current version of PNDManager before reporting issues with the BETA.

 

[lingenfr]

This already works much better for me. The sync completed quickly rather than timing out and crashing. I'll see how it performs on my next upgrade. Thanks.

 

[_jr_]

The beta release works fine for me. Very smooth and full download speed. Haven't yet tested all functions, but many thanks for working on this.


The following are already present in the old version, but it would be nice to have them fixed too:


1. please use 'maintainer' or something as label instead of 'author' (like the repo webpage does)


2. PNDManager/libpndman hangs (or perhaps has a very long timeout, haven't waited long if the server doesn't respond; when sending ratings or comments the only choice is to quit the program

 

[PokeParadox]

Beta working fine here - not had any problems so far. Already had downloads speeds of approx 500k

 

[bzar]

Just released, see software news for an announcement. Thanks to all who tested!

 

[PowerGod]

I still have the old version, but I have a problem, I see with PNDStore that I have 6 PNDs to update, but PNDManager doesn't show them as upgradable...

I deleted all the libpndman dir in both my SD and the pndmanager dir, but still it shows me only PNDManager as updatable...

What am I missing to do ?

 

[pmprog]

If you update PNDManager and restart, suddenly all my EmuEx emus were out of date (they weren't before). Don't know about FBA, because I manually updated that.

But yeah, I've seen a few instances of this. OpenXCOM was another that didn't show as updatable after there was a new release

 

[Ian J]

One of my PND's needed updating after installing the new PNDManager but the revision numbers were the same.

Other than that this new version works very well, downloads are around 700-800k/s compared to 175k/s before.

Sync is much quicker too.

 

[bzar]

Yup, the old version had a serious bug in detecting updates, which prompted me to start working on a release after Cloudef had found and fixed it in pndman

 

[PowerGod]

Updated and yeah, worked also for me, dowloaded all of them at a speed that was changing from 600Kb to 50Kb but visibly faster than the previous version

 

[milkshake]

@B-ZaR, you should update the screen shots since they show an older looking menu (icons at bottom of screen)