Scale - A Pandora shell


I really like the latest version. But I was wondering if there will be an option to turn off/replace the sounds because they are slightly annoying
My suggestions: Shorter start up sound, softer category switching sounds
 
I just picked some of Sharp's sounds in his thread, just to have something for testing. Hopefully he'll make some more suitable ones.

Sound toggle and replacing should be no problem.
 
I agree with everyone that it looks slick. The smooth animations are great. However, I have concerns about performance. I downclocked my pc as far as I could(down to 800Mhz) and while switching categories, it pretty much pegged the cpu. The same with scrolling. Also taking up about 20MB of RAM in windows... Anyway, I know it's early on, but as I hadn't seen any mention of such items, I thought I'd bring it up.
 
codertimt said:
I agree with everyone that it looks slick. The smooth animations are great. However, I have concerns about performance. I downclocked my pc as far as I could(down to 800Mhz) and while switching categories, it pretty much pegged the cpu. The same with scrolling. Also taking up about 20MB of RAM in windows... Anyway, I know it's early on, but as I hadn't seen any mention of such items, I thought I'd bring it up.
Click to expand...

X86 and arm are vastly different. I'm not terribly worried.
 
The ARM Cortex should be more efficient than a standard x86 processor.
As long as you're writing your code in decent C/C++, it should work without problems.
 
Zoxc said:
I just picked some of Sharp's sounds in his thread, just to have something for testing. Hopefully he'll make some more suitable ones.

Sound toggle and replacing should be no problem.
Click to expand...

Yep, should get this done the weekend.
I would have had this done sooner only I got caught for a ton of work in my Day job.

Regards.
Sharp.
 
I've just tried it on the devboard, and it ran rather slow. The category switching animation only shows 3-4 frames, instead of maybe 50 it is showing on PC. It will definitely need optimized, hardware accelerated SDL port to be usable (I tried it on quickly compiled SDL with fbcon video driver). The optimized SDL is not yet available, and might only appear some time after Padora's release.

BTW I needed these changes to cross-compile and statically link successfully (-l order does matter):
Code: 
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 #leave blank to use normal compiler
 CROSS_COMPILE =
+CROSS_BIN = /home/notaz/dev/pnd/libroot/bin/
 CPP = $(CROSS_COMPILE)g++
 LD = $(CROSS_COMPILE)ld
 STRIP = $(CROSS_COMPILE)strip
-CFLAGS += -Wall `sdl-config --cflags` -I./Framework -O2
-LDFLAGS += -lSDL_ttf -lSDL_image -lSDL_mixer
+CFLAGS += -Wall `$(CROSS_BIN)sdl-config --cflags` -I./Framework -O2
 
 TARGET = ./bin/scale
 BUILDDIR = ./obj
@@ -14,12 +14,14 @@ ifeq ($(DEBUG), 1)
 CFLAGS += -ggdb
 endif
 
+LDFLAGS += -lSDL_ttf -lSDL_image -lSDL_mixer -lfreetype -lpng -lz
 #activate static binaries with `STATIC=1 make`
 ifeq ($(STATIC), 1)
-LDFLAGS += -static `sdl-config --static-libs`
+LDFLAGS += -static `$(CROSS_BIN)sdl-config --static-libs`
 else
-LDFLAGS += `sdl-config --libs`
+LDFLAGS += `$(CROSS_BIN)sdl-config --libs`
 endif
+LDFLAGS += -ldl
 
 
 SRCS = $(wildcard *.cpp Framework/*.cpp)
@@ -31,7 +33,7 @@ objdir:
        mkdir -p $(BUILDDIR)/Framework
 
 $(TARGET): $(OBJS)
-       $(CPP) $(CFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $(OBJS)
+       $(CPP) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $(OBJS) $(LDFLAGS)
 ifneq ($(DEBUG), 1)
        $(STRIP) $@
 endif
 
The category switching slowdown is mostly Graphics::ApplyAlpha which needs optimizing. Also make sure Graphics::CreateSurface creates the surfaces in the same format as the screen. It's currently BGRA.

If you uncomment the two defines in Options.hpp you get FPS count, but it eats all the cpu.

I might have to resort to OpenGL ES to get smooth scaling of previews or icons for the task switching.

How is the loading times? (Menu.Allocate() should eat some time)
 
I found, with a quick search, a libSDL package patched for OpenGL ES (made for the Maemo, specifically). There's also GLUT patched for OpenGL ES. Those are apparently quickly patched versions but should be enough to test Scale (the dude also talks about the SDL needing full OpenGL library to compile).
Below is the link to the repository containing the source package, if anyone is interested.
http://muksuluuri.ath.cx/maemo/dists/bora/main/source/
Also, the dude's page:
http://unrealvoodoo.org/hiteck/blog/gra ... for-maemo/
notaz said:
I've just tried it on the devboard, and it ran rather slow. The category switching animation only shows 3-4 frames, instead of maybe 50 it is showing on PC. It will definitely need optimized, hardware accelerated SDL port to be usable (I tried it on quickly compiled SDL with fbcon video driver). The optimized SDL is not yet available, and might only appear some time after Padora's release.

BTW I needed these changes to cross-compile and statically link successfully (-l order does matter):
Code: 
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 #leave blank to use normal compiler
 CROSS_COMPILE =
+CROSS_BIN = /home/notaz/dev/pnd/libroot/bin/
 CPP = $(CROSS_COMPILE)g++
 LD = $(CROSS_COMPILE)ld
 STRIP = $(CROSS_COMPILE)strip
-CFLAGS += -Wall `sdl-config --cflags` -I./Framework -O2
-LDFLAGS += -lSDL_ttf -lSDL_image -lSDL_mixer
+CFLAGS += -Wall `$(CROSS_BIN)sdl-config --cflags` -I./Framework -O2
 
 TARGET = ./bin/scale
 BUILDDIR = ./obj
@@ -14,12 +14,14 @@ ifeq ($(DEBUG), 1)
 CFLAGS += -ggdb
 endif
 
+LDFLAGS += -lSDL_ttf -lSDL_image -lSDL_mixer -lfreetype -lpng -lz
 #activate static binaries with `STATIC=1 make`
 ifeq ($(STATIC), 1)
-LDFLAGS += -static `sdl-config --static-libs`
+LDFLAGS += -static `$(CROSS_BIN)sdl-config --static-libs`
 else
-LDFLAGS += `sdl-config --libs`
+LDFLAGS += `$(CROSS_BIN)sdl-config --libs`
 endif
+LDFLAGS += -ldl
 
 
 SRCS = $(wildcard *.cpp Framework/*.cpp)
@@ -31,7 +33,7 @@ objdir:
        mkdir -p $(BUILDDIR)/Framework
 
 $(TARGET): $(OBJS)
-       $(CPP) $(CFLAGS) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $(OBJS)
+       $(CPP) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $(OBJS) $(LDFLAGS)
 ifneq ($(DEBUG), 1)
        $(STRIP) $@
 endif
Click to expand...
 
Good work :)

I think my GUI needs to get more white modern glossy plastic to match those sounds. They are quite warm, but that might be dampered by Pandora's poor frequency response. The shutdown sound is a bit intense. It's usually a slow process, so hitting you with alot of sound a while after you hit the off button is not too suitable. That will depend on the length of the shutdown process, so we'll see.

The startup sound is nice and has a good length :)

Nr. 14 seems to lack a fadeout in the end. Nr. 3 might be slightly long as a click sound. We don't want people to get too annoyed with the sounds, maybe an actual click might be nice? Nr. 21-24 also lacks a fadeout. The rest of the sounds I feel is suitable for an annoying AOL client :D

Can you give them in a lossless format so I woundn't get the tiny transcoding loss from mp3 to some open format?

Who know about a screen recorder with sound, to get a video with some sounds on YouTube and an ALSA Windows wrapper?
 
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