Pxml Application Installation

[Vorporeal]

Just curious if ED or another dev working on the GUI (wesbrown?) has any info on whether or not there's any progress on adding applications to matchbox using PXML files.

 

[skeezix]

We're working on it; mostly, Christmas is in the way (for me at least.)

ie: I'm developing a library that I'm hoping will be useful to many applications, and will include many utility functions. Its hard to say how far we can go with it (as just one guy, I can only go so far, but I'm hopefully others will join in once I get a moment to throw it up in CVS

So far the library includes such base but important things like locating and inhaling config files in search paths, and using configured search paths to locate PXML applications and enumating them. ie: It knows to look in canonicle places, but anyone can edit configs and put applications in any old place and it'll be fine. The code is in place but not tested to launch applications (including various compressed formats we're working on) and manage user data in sane ways (this is a group effort, thsanks to wesbrown, vimacs, and others). Ryo is working with us as well so hopefuly gmenu will tie into the same mechanisms as matchbox, for a common experience.

I'm also hoping to build in cpu clock setting and other pandora-specific stuff into the lib, so that apps can have a one stop shop for pandora-device calls. Its straight plain C, so that bindings for other languages will be easier to make.

I'm working on the auto-notify right now, so that once an SD is ejected or inserted, the application-list can auto-update with the fresh current list of apps, with no installation at all needed. (In theory, we're all just scratching the surface of where we want to, and can, go.)

wesbrown I think might take on ther actual matchbox plugin, but we're all strapped for time, but progress is pretty steady. (ie: wb is doing matchbox, I've got this backend lib coming together, we just need one of us or something to work on the middleground plugin

Good times.. Squidge is working on some tools as well, and I Think ED and wesbrown might be working on themes already. I know wesbrown already has some pretty attractive options hes demoed already

jeff

 

[PSyMastR]

Suggestion:

Have a pause_program() function that when you bring up the apps menu it calls this in the program?

 

[Brockway]

That one Pandora theme MDave made looks pretty good. Its got my vote for default Matchbox theme.

 

[Trip]

Suggestion:

Have a pause_program() function that when you bring up the apps menu it calls this in the program?

I've been asking for this as well. It will soon start to get annoying if you have to pause a game every time you want to check out a walk though etc. while playing

 

[PSyMastR]

Suggestion:

Have a pause_program() function that when you bring up the apps menu it calls this in the program?

I've been asking for this as well. It will soon start to get annoying if you have to pause a game every time you want to check out a walk though etc. while playing

Yeah, I was thinking like the Xbox 360, when you goto the system menu, it either temp pauses the game, or just goes to the pause screen.

 

[GoaLitiuM]

Suggestion:

Have a pause_program() function that when you bring up the apps menu it calls this in the program?

I've been asking for this as well. It will soon start to get annoying if you have to pause a game every time you want to check out a walk though etc. while playing

Isn't that supposed to be application's programmer's duty? If you mean making the menu detection, that's another story.

 

[Squidge]

Have a pause_program() function that when you bring up the apps menu it calls this in the program?

I see two ways how that can be implemented:

The menu could spawn the application, and the menu would of have to stay resident in memory to catch the pause command. Then the menu could use the STOP and CONT signals to suspend and resume the application before showing menu options/etc.

Or, the code could be implemented in the program framework, and so all applications automatically get the functionality and deal with it themselves. This would mean however that anyone who doesn't use the framework doesn't get the functionality.

Another function that may be handle for the menu (if we go down that route) would be allowing save states. If you decided to freeze a process, the process could optionally be saved to disk and reloaded at another time. I'm thinking Cryopid here.

 

[PokeParadox]

Some great little features and ideas!
:S I actually dreamt I was using a Pandora last night... :lol:

 

[javaJake]

ie: I'm developing a library that I'm hoping will be useful to many applications, and will include many utility functions. Its hard to say how far we can go with it (as just one guy, I can only go so far, but I'm hopefully others will join in once I get a moment to throw it up in CVS

The sooner you put it up the sooner this gets done.

 

[Vorporeal]

Have a pause_program() function that when you bring up the apps menu it calls this in the program?

I see two ways how that can be implemented:

The menu could spawn the application, and the menu would of have to stay resident in memory to catch the pause command. Then the menu could use the STOP and CONT signals to suspend and resume the application before showing menu options/etc.

This is what I was thinking about when people brought this up a while ago. We might want to have some sort of toggle for this in PXML, as some programs should be allowed to run in the background (chat clients, Firefox, etc), whereas games would/might want to be paused.

 

[Eniko]

This is what I was thinking about when people brought this up a while ago. We might want to have some sort of toggle for this in PXML, as some programs should be allowed to run in the background (chat clients, Firefox, etc), whereas games would/might want to be paused.

Should definitely be optional. What happens when my MMO gets paused cause you switched to a different task?

 

[Vorporeal]

This is what I was thinking about when people brought this up a while ago. We might want to have some sort of toggle for this in PXML, as some programs should be allowed to run in the background (chat clients, Firefox, etc), whereas games would/might want to be paused.

Should definitely be optional. What happens when my MMO gets paused cause you switched to a different task?


Per-program would probably be a better choice than a one-size-fits-all option.

EDIT: Just wanted to clarify, as some people could get confused by simply "optional".

 

[mali]

It would be best, if the default was pause, with an exception the program triggers if necessary, like Eniko's MMO and Mp3 player etc.

 

[Squidge]

Should definitely be optional. What happens when my MMO gets paused cause you switched to a different task?

If something like this does get implemented, I think the default will be that switching tasks does not pause the task, as in a normal X-windows environment.

However, you would be able to tell if the user has changed tasks, and pause yourself if necessary.

 

[Eniko]

That'd probably be best.

I'm actually curious to find out if you could even get a Python game to pause with this system. I'm not sure how this works in a non Windows environment but extrapolating from my experiences there, I assume some sort of pause message would be sent to the process from the OS?

Which for Python applications means that the interpreter is fed a message which it won't do anything with. Unless of course you do all the dirty work of pausing a process outside of the process itself, but then obviously it can't be customized.

 

[Vorporeal]

My assumption is that when a program gets a stop command, it ceases to get CPU time. A continue command puts it back in the list of threads to receive CPU time.

 

[sindbad]

You can do stuff when you get a signal without any weird trickery. Look at signal module.

 

[Squidge]

Which for Python applications means that the interpreter is fed a message which it won't do anything with.
http://docs.python.org/library/signal.html

 

[Eniko]

Which for Python applications means that the interpreter is fed a message which it won't do anything with.
http://docs.python.org/library/signal.html

Ah thanks, I'll make sure to put that in my project's notes so I don't forget about this if I ever find I need it.