DaveC said:
B-ZaR said:
Hey, I've been arguing
for the current implementation here, I just entertained the idea. His idea was to have all data, both pnd and the appdata under one subdirectory like so:
Code:
pandora/
pandora/apps/
pandora/apps/Quake/
pandora/apps/Quake/quake.pnd
pandora/apps/Quake/appdata/
pandora/apps/Quake/appdata/pak1.pak
pandora/apps/Supertux/
pandora/apps/Supertux/supertux.pnd
pandora/apps/Supertux/appdata/
pandora/apps/Supertux/appdata/customlevel.level (or something)
So not just the pnd, but application-specific data directories too.
EDIT: emphasis on quote
That is what I was trying to say. With the above structure EVERYTHING related to an app can be in one subdir and not scattered into different directories in other spots. So everything Quake related would be in the Quake directory including PAKs and appdata. Want to delete or move Quake just drag the Quake folder to a new card or whatever and you are done. No need to hunt through a huge pile of directorectories which can be HUNDREDS of appdata folders in another spot to find PAKs etc. then go to a separate appdata folder make an appdata folder on the new card, move the quake appdata into the new folder appdata. It is just a waste of time and for nothing, it adds no benefit.
Well, this is exactly what I don't want.
If my SD card is full and I want to temporarily remove stuff, I open up the directory with all the apps in there, mark all PNDs I don't like and delete them.
Done. My settings, saves, configs (don't need much space) stay there.
Easy.
With a directory structure like above, I'd have to go into each subdir to find out how big the PND is, delete it manually, etc.
This takes WAY longer.
BTW: you can define your folders in a config file.
If you want the subdirs within the same folder as the PNDs, simply change the config file and you're set.
Another huge issue with this pnd thing is how apps are put into menus. They are put into the menus that the CODER wants them to be in. This takes the control out of the user's hands and puts it into the coders. So now you have YOUR system arranged how THEY want and not how YOU want it.
For example one coder wants Doom to show up in PORTS, the Wolf 3D coder wants it to be in SHOOTERS, the coder of Hexen wants it in GAMES, and the coder of Descent wants it is FPS.
Now you will have all of these games which are a similar genre scattered around in different menu spots. What if the USER wants all of these to go into a GAMES catagory in a menu? They can't do it. Now the user lost control of his own machine. I think this whole pnd idea is looking pretty bad honestly from a user's standpoint. I know the idea was to "dumb it down" so anyone could install an app but the user loses too much flexibility and control with this. I don't like that. I want my apps organized how I want not how someone else thinks they should be.
Nobody takes your control. The devs just define the default category.
Don't like it? Then ORGANIZE them as you want
We have included an override function for PXML. Don't like the category? Well, you can simply override it (someone could code a menu editor where you can simply move your PNDs around with drag and drop and it will change the categories to where you want them).
Those overrides will be saved, so if you remove the PND and put it back later on the card, it will still use the category YOU decided.
Such tool to change the categories and move the files around as you like is not yet coded - we'd rather have a working OS first than adding all the features that could be needed.
The base structure is set - all that's left is the little tool and you can move them whereever you like.
And if you don't want to use the PND system - nobody forces you to use the menu. You can also manually place the PNDs whereever you like on your card, open up your file manager and doubleclick them to start.
Like on the GP2X. Just that you don't start a .gpe, but a .pnd.
But that is one thing that pissed me off the most on my GP2X:
I once had a broken card so I had to re-setup everything again. So I downloaded 100 games, extracted them (they all were zipped up differently), put them into various folders and subfolders... and if I were using gmenu2x, I also had to manually put them into the categories myself.
This did take hours, and as I wasn't in the mood doing that, I didn't use my GP2X much after that anymore.
With the PND system, this is easy:
Download them, put them on the card and that's it.
If you want, you can keep a copy of the config files (and PXML overrides) on your PC, as it doesn't take much space.
Then when you lose everything on the card, simply put the PND files back, put your backup of the config files back, and it's exactly sorted the way you did it.
