Standards

[Loon]

How about a little community project to keep us busy before the November release?

Hardly the most glamorous subject, but what I thought would be highly useful for the Pandora developers and community would be to get together a set of agreed standards. Things such as how to exit an application, how to change controls for left and right handed users, how standard keyboard short cuts such as copy and paste are generated etc.

Evil Dragon has made some suggestions relating to 'PXML File Format definitions' this has lead to some good debate and interesting counter suggestions, however I can't see how the suggestions and counter suggestions will be resolved or a final approved standard will be reached.

Here is what I think we need to decide :

1) An agreed method on how to propose standards - My suggestion is that proposed standards are posted on this forum with the post title being 'Standard Proposal - Brief description of proposed standard' such as 'Standard Proposal - Exit Application'

2) A method for debating then deciding on a particular standard - How about debate and counter suggestions on the standard proposal thread then a poll in a new thread based upon the proposal thread, this could be posted as 'Standard Poll - Exit Application'. I'd also be fine with an 'expert comittee' having the final say based on the poll & debate.

3) A place to record agreed standards - The Wiki would seem a logical place for this.

It is appreciated that it will be up to individual developers to follow the standards only if they want to, my guess is most would choose to do so if we set up a logical and sensible set of standards. It is also understood that ported apps would not follow the standards without extra work.

Any thoughts?

 

[Zarneth]

Standards are always good. And a lack of standards can really kill things. But you'd want to make sure a standard doesn't already exist. If we follow existing standards where possible that means existing linux apps can easily be recompiled for arm and will work no problems.

 

[Trip]

You'll need to see how Craig and co. are already implementing certain things before you start, because you need to make sure nothing conflicts with the choices they've already made. Once the systems fully released, you will see what things can be added to or maybe even replaced altogether with an improved version.

Unlike the 2X Standards though, it should be a lot easier getting useful standards implemented into the official firmware

Good Luck

 

[socket]

I really like the idea of having development standards on the wiki. Maybe "Craig and co." can get something started at some point before apps start coming out without any kind of uniformity. i.e. emulators and their directories, etc.

 

[Game_over]

I do like the idea of having development standards for description and UI integration purposes. However that is as far as I would go for standards. Another thing for standards should probably be with the suite of software to include in the sdk.

Something like:

All libraries are included in every unit/must be installed:
*SDL
*PyGame
*Fenix
*Ruby
*Minimal Lib/ MMU Hack (if necessary)
*Compression tools
*Open GL based optimization tool
*PowerVR SDK
*etc


Not saying all system have to include all those things, but a basic tools suite should help allot of people just getting into this.

 

[AireTamStorm]

I think some basic standards should be established:
-Standards for game and Pandora-specific application binaries to report things back to a UI
When called with "--help" or "--etc", like TV-support, if it requires an argument, and what type of files the program can use
-Standards at an api level for playing music
An external program can shut off a game's music to play its own (in-game media, basically)
-Network standards for chat amongst Pandora owners, and online gaming
libpurple + a Pandora Jabber host = Pandora Online Network for chat. For games, you could throw connection negotiation or a middleman server IP and establish online multiplayer this way.

I think the online aspect is much more important an endeavor than most people probably know. Handhelds from LARGE companies haven't been able to do this yet, and it is achievable. I have a game, an application, and a network library I'm currently planning, and the network library comes first . Portable Online Retro = completely doable and all of you know it.

 

[Trip]

Portable Online Retro = completely doable and all of you know it.

Couldn't agree more. Why the bigger companies haven't tried doing this yet is beyond me??

Might need a standard for swapping programs to the foreground/background (Alt+Tab style) too. I think Craig and co. are all ready on that one though?

 

[kloplop321]

not sure about that, I think that would stay with the "Ångström" OS that is planned to go on it already has it. They are working more on hardware API/drivers., last I know of.

 

[geo12]

I think a control standard is necessary. On the GP2x it's frustrating that "A" can mean back, accept, or quit, depending on the program.

 

[kloplop321]

in the PSP, the "enter" and "cancel/back" button is held in the registry, so yeah, standards would be nice.

 

[Loon]

Thought I'd give this a little bump as I'll be making a proposal or two over the next few days.

 

[Svartalf]

not sure about that, I think that would stay with the "Ångström" OS that is planned to go on it already has it. They are working more on hardware API/drivers., last I know of.

That would be correct.

 

[sindbad]

Something like Python's PEP system might be a good way to propose and amend standards.

 

[Sphinxter]

Typically you would issue an RFC, a request for comment, next everybody throws rocks and spits on your rfc, then you amend it according to the comments and when everybody votes aye it's a standard.