Beta Pndstore

[HackModford]

Will do later tonight...

 

[HackModford]

Now I"m confused... I just did it and it worked fine...

Got a list
I even checked for a new app that I recently installed (which is on the repo) and sure enough it was there and marked as the current version...

Weird...

 

[Tempel]

Maybe just a one-time issue. Temporary network trouble or SD read problem, perhaps. Thanks for checking; if it happens again, then post the out file.

 

[Esn]

Tempel, I have another suggestion:

Make the default download location "menu", not "apps".

With the amount of software most of us have downloaded, that's where we're keeping most of it, with only a few programs on the desktop.

 

[CPUnltd]

better still, give the option of selecting your download location... offers utmost flexibility (especially if PNDstore can update the PND in place vs moving it to the default download location or anything of that nature)... I'm not worried about the desktop clutter so much at this point... would love a way to turn off all icons on the desktop so I could just enjoy the image there like on my desktop and laptop... icons and menus are all around the edges on my standard systems, would like to do the same on Pandora... but I digress...

 

[Tempel]

Tempel, I have another suggestion:

Make the default download location "menu", not "apps".

With the amount of software most of us have downloaded, that's where we're keeping most of it, with only a few programs on the desktop.

That's a good suggestion, but a bit of trouble to implement. The install locations are pulled directly from libpnd at runtime, so I'll need to futz with them to put them in order. It starts getting hairy once you realize that those directories and the output locations are configurable. Still, I imagine a large majority will stick with the default configs, so I should be able to make something vaguely sensible.

If you don't use "apps" at all, you can just remove the directory as a stopgap measure. Only directories that exist will be shown as install locations.

better still, give the option of selecting your download location... offers utmost flexibility (especially if PNDstore can update the PND in place vs moving it to the default download location or anything of that nature)...

You have that option when installing. Upgrades are installed to the same directory as older versions. I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting here, but I think it's already covered.

 

[Esn]

Tempel, out of curiosity, what happens if the Repo and my Pandora have the same application, but on my Pandora the PND has a different name?

 

[Tempel]

Esn, there'll be no problems. All PNDs are identified by package/application IDs, so it still knows when to upgrade it. When upgrading, though, the old PND is removed, and the new one is downloaded with the filename defined by the repo. So if you rename a PND, upgrades will revert it to a default name.

 

[Esn]

Thanks. I asked because I usually download from the Repo with Links2, and for some reason all PNDs are automatically named "download.pnd", so I have to manually give them names.

Also, what do you make of this? I don't understand the technical side of this, but is Craig saying that PNDStore can already be made to work with his Pandora Apps site?

 

[thatgui]

Thanks. I asked because I usually download from the Repo with Links2, and for some reason all PNDs are automatically named "download.pnd", so I have to manually give them names.

Also, what do you make of this? I don't understand the technical side of this, but is Craig saying that PNDStore can already be made to work with his Pandora Apps site?

No, as far as I did understand his post, he has the opinion that the repo is unnecessary technical mumbo jumbo, and anyone that want's to make a client should simply parse the html files (= the page that you see when manually clicking on a pnd - entry on apps.openpandora.org) that he is generating.

 

[Tempel]

Also, what do you make of this? I don't understand the technical side of this, but is Craig saying that PNDStore can already be made to work with his Pandora Apps site?

I just posted a response. As I understood, he was saying that an updater could just parse the webpage to find the version number. It's possible, but I don't think it's very practical, and it's certainly nowhere close to the same as the repo spec. Implementing it in PNDstore would pretty much require a rewrite, while not being very robust (it would stop working if the layout of his site ever slightly changed). Furthermore, I try to make PNDstore entirely site-agnostic, so there's no special consideration for any site; if it implements the repo spec, it works, else it doesn't. So in conclusion, no, PNDstore won't work with Craig's app store until he implements the repo spec.

 

[Tempel]

I've just posted a beta of version 0.3 on my own site. There are only two new features (I've been busy):

1. Checkboxes alongside upgrades allow you to select which to skip.
2. Basic GUI threading.

Threading allows the GUI to remain responsive while it's performing a long-running task like downloading a PND. The current action will be shown in the statusbar; progress bars haven't yet been implemented. If any errors are detected, they will also be shown in the taskbar for a short time, rather than making a popup. Only one action can happen at a time; if you try to trigger a second action while the first is running, the GUI will become unresponsive until the first action completes and the second action starts.

Let me know if it fails and what you think of the new behaviour. Thanks guys!

 

[CPUnltd]

cool, will check it out soon...

 

[fusion_power]

I've also installed PNDstore onto my new Pandora. I am not a linux user so the whole repo-thing is still new for me. But I managed to update a pogram with PNDstore, and it was PNDstore itself so I guess it works.
But I miss some important functions, like sorting the list. Or does this already work? I would sort for installed apps or for available updates and so on. There also is no status of the Download progress, more feedback of what the tool is doing would be great.
Sometimes the store doesn't show the current repository version of an installed program, the installed version however is shown.
Another beginner question: does "upgrade packages" upgrades all installed programs?

 

[Tempel]

But I miss some important functions, like sorting the list. Or does this already work? I would sort for installed apps or for available updates and so on. There also is no status of the Download progress, more feedback of what the tool is doing would be great.

These are both in the todo pile. I think sorting will be the next feature on which I work.

Sometimes the store doesn't show the current repository version of an installed program, the installed version however is shown.

That indicates that that program isn't available from the repository. Not everything gets uploaded there.

Another beginner question: does "upgrade packages" upgrades all installed programs?

All programs that have a newer version in the repository, yes. The beta for version 0.3 lets you select which to download.

 

[Schnatterplatsch]

Tempel, what are your plans for a more extended UI?
Could you maybe show them off or hasn't there been too much planning yet?


...anyway, thanks for what happened until now!

 

[Tempel]

Hasn't been too much planning yet. I figure I'll include a pane on the right side of the window that gives extra information on the selected package, but I haven't thought about it too much; I'm still slowly hammering out basic usability stuff. I could always remake the GUI entirely from scratch.

 

[Esn]

Yeah, sorting would be great. I'd like it if it worked like the sorting on the wiki lists; click on the top column, and it sorts by that column (so it either sorts alphabetically, or by what the icon is on the very left). Also, please make it so that it sorts alphabetically by letter, and ignores whether that letter is uppercase or lowercase. That's one of the things I find most annoying about Linux - it always sorts things alphabetically twice. Seems utterly ridiculous to me.

I know you already have a "search" function (if you press a keyboard key while you have something selected), but it doesn't always work. There have been some programs that were on the list, yet when I searched for their names, it didn't find them (for example "Super Geometry Dust" can't be found through the search function).

As for future features, I kinda wonder how much info from PNDs you could pull. For example, it would be neat if you could press a button while over a program, and pull up a window of information about it (the same kind as on its page on the Repo, so description, category, and so on). Maybe you could even do sorting by category, like on the Repo, so you could just see all "Graphics" apps for example, and choose what to install from that list.

 

[CPUnltd]

I have to admit, Esn, there is one area that I think totally validates the separation of lower and capitols in the Linux alphabet... the ability to have a few thousand hard disks recognized (while windows is still stuck at 26). Linux does this in 52's... all uppercase and all lowercase, followed by double uppercase (sdAA0) and double lowercase(sdaa0)... I think it goes all the way to sdzzz before you start getting errors (at least that's what I've read) which I'm pretty sure is in the 1000's... Sometimes, it helps for sorting files as well, but very rarely. I do agree that case insensitivity would be a nice feature for something like this... I agree that sorting by category would be a great feature... it's one I use when doing fresh installs. Using the same example... if I'm building a certain type of system for someone, I wanna get specific office programs, specific graphic software, look through all the games without trying to remember all the names, etc... It's a VERY valuable feature!

 

[Esn]

I have to admit, Esn, there is one area that I think totally validates the separation of lower and capitols in the Linux alphabet... the ability to have a few thousand hard disks recognized (while windows is still stuck at 26). Linux does this in 52's... all uppercase and all lowercase, followed by double uppercase (sdAA0) and double lowercase(sdaa0)... I think it goes all the way to sdzzz before you start getting errors (at least that's what I've read) which I'm pretty sure is in the 1000's... Sometimes, it helps for sorting files as well, but very rarely.

I don't know anyone who needs 26 hard disks, let alone thousands of them... but even if we assume that you need thousands of hard disks, the sorting could've been handled like this:
A a B b C c
rather than like this:
A B C a b c

Or even better, upper/lowercase could've been ignored entirely for the purposes of sorting. Or there could've been an option in Xfce to change the way things are sorted. Lots of ways to do things, and the current way is the silliest.

It sabotages any "search" function, as well, or quick-skip-to-alphabet-letter features such as in Minimenu (because you actually have two different spots where programs starting with letter X begin, depending on whether it's upper-case or lower-case).

It goes against all historical precedent. Is there any library that sorts books in a different place depending on whether the title starts with an upper-case letter or not?