Yes, I'm well aware of Thunar, but like Maemo it brings with it a lot more dependencies than rox. Thunar doesn't suffer a non-conventional file copy procedure like rox but that should be very easy to fix up. Although there may only be a split seconds difference in loading Thunar versus rox on your desktop PC, I can guarantee you there will be a much more notable difference in their load times on the pandora. rox (magically for a GTK2 app) opens instantly on the Zaurus whilst, iirc, Thunar took more like 5/10s to load thanks to all its extra deps. I think most people would live without list view in order to get the great gain in speed and responsiveness that rox brings to low-memory Linux desktop users.
Ui Menu?
- Thread starter Game_over
- Start date
Zarneth
Member
True, but it's worth investigating when we have the pandora. Solid state can be much faster than convnetional hard drives. The eeePC proved that one.
I suspect the pandora's likely not going to get a full blown specially designed and tweaked interface/desktop till after it's released anyway. That IS half the fun for a lot of users. The GP2X really needed everything to be written from scratch. While the Pandora will support existing programs, allowing those without 1337 haxor skills to have a shot designing their own desktop.
With that in mind it may be best to keep it simple initially with ROX and maybe a gmenu2x clone for the initial release.
I suspect the pandora's likely not going to get a full blown specially designed and tweaked interface/desktop till after it's released anyway. That IS half the fun for a lot of users. The GP2X really needed everything to be written from scratch. While the Pandora will support existing programs, allowing those without 1337 haxor skills to have a shot designing their own desktop.
With that in mind it may be best to keep it simple initially with ROX and maybe a gmenu2x clone for the initial release.
Null
Snug
<offtopic>Zarneth said:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4055
Excerpt:
For those interested in the speed of the 4GB SSD, hdparm benchmarks the SSD buffered read speed at 21.78 MB/sec. For comparison, a Lenovo ThinkPad T60 with a fast 7200rpm Seagate hard drive has a buffered read speed of 54.62 MB/sec and a Toshiba Tecra A9 with standard 5400rpm hard drive has a buffered read speed of 44.87 MB/sec.
</offtopic>
+1 for an interface that is cross between the eeePC and GMenu2x interfaces.
Also, hopefully the final interface will be navigatable via both the dpad + buttons and the touch screen.
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Zarneth
Member
Lurkio said:
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Chip
[Insert Custom Title Here]
I really think that a dpad navigable UI is mandatory for a handheld device like Pandora. A multi-window interface may look nice and give Pandora more of a full-fledged PC feel, but windows are not easy to navigate with a dpad. A tabbed interface can be much more efficient. It can also be both attractive and intuitive if designed well.Lurkio said:Also, hopefully the final interface will be navigatable via both the dpad + buttons and the touch screen.
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Null
Snug
http://gizmodo.com/353324/the-macbook-air-...ch-non+existentZarneth said:
Don't know if this is just limited to the Macbook Air.
You're not wrong there.Chip said:
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efegea
Active Member
Nobody liked my design?? At least I'm actually coding it. But if nobody wants it I'll be working for nothing..
Perhaps should be a good idea a thread on developers' corner for discussing about it?
Perhaps should be a good idea a thread on developers' corner for discussing about it?
Zarneth
Member
efegea said:Nobody liked my design?? At least I'm actually coding it. But if nobody wants it I'll be working for nothing..
Perhaps should be a good idea a thread on developers' corner for discussing about it?
You mean this one?
Since you asked for an opinion
Getting some feedback and ideas (in the dev corner) is always a wise move.
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Windows may not be easy to move about with a dpad or even an analogue pad but remember pandora has a built-in touchscreen so thats that problem out of the way. Don't worry about the difficulty of clicking on a window bar to move it as you can just hold down the ALT (be it real or mapped) key then click anywhere in the window you want to move and then drag it.
I know 256MB of built-in flash mem isn't much but it certainly is more than enough to fit in both a gmenu2x-style tabbed interface (most likely as the boot default) as well as pandora-customised rox desktop (accessible via a menu or boot key-combo) and some essential apps like FF, Abiword, gimp, gqview, vlc, xpdf, gftp etc.
Apart from making the tweaks to rox that I mentioned (changing its copy method, adding those shortcuts, good font and default file associations) I feel the most important thing is to ensure that auto-mounting and ejecting of removable discs works well (matchbox-card-applet did this well under pdaXrom) and that it is easy to set up (protected) wifi. For Linux wifi I have found Mandriva's draknetconfig to be by far the best app and so I hope we'll be able to make use of that.
Most people are going to be running Linux off SD card instead of a USB2 HD on the pandora and I can't say I've ever managed to read more than about 3MB/s off SD and writing is even slower. rox is ideal for these sub-optimal storage bandwidth stricken devices. I would also highly recommend all you PC Linux users out there check out a well configured rox desktop such as the kanotix-based cpx-mini- you'll be impressed at what a difference having a really fast filemanager (unlike you nautilus and konq!) makes if you've not tried it before- you might not want to go back!
I know 256MB of built-in flash mem isn't much but it certainly is more than enough to fit in both a gmenu2x-style tabbed interface (most likely as the boot default) as well as pandora-customised rox desktop (accessible via a menu or boot key-combo) and some essential apps like FF, Abiword, gimp, gqview, vlc, xpdf, gftp etc.
Apart from making the tweaks to rox that I mentioned (changing its copy method, adding those shortcuts, good font and default file associations) I feel the most important thing is to ensure that auto-mounting and ejecting of removable discs works well (matchbox-card-applet did this well under pdaXrom) and that it is easy to set up (protected) wifi. For Linux wifi I have found Mandriva's draknetconfig to be by far the best app and so I hope we'll be able to make use of that.
Most people are going to be running Linux off SD card instead of a USB2 HD on the pandora and I can't say I've ever managed to read more than about 3MB/s off SD and writing is even slower. rox is ideal for these sub-optimal storage bandwidth stricken devices. I would also highly recommend all you PC Linux users out there check out a well configured rox desktop such as the kanotix-based cpx-mini- you'll be impressed at what a difference having a really fast filemanager (unlike you nautilus and konq!) makes if you've not tried it before- you might not want to go back!
Chip
[Insert Custom Title Here]
Of course you could use the touchscreen to navigate a windowed or tabbed interface, but with a tabbed interface you wouldn't HAVE to. Like I said, I'm all for pretty GUIs to be added later at the user's discretion. Still, I feel that the default interface should be simple and easy to use and should not force you to use one input method or the other.danboid said:
For the most part, the menu system is just that - a menu. It is not like your PC desktop where everything runs on top of it and you see it all the time. It is simply a system for selecting the program you would like to run. Most emulators / media players / homebrew games are going to use the gaming controls. It is inefficient to have to pull out the stylus every time you switch between programs that use the game inputs, then put it back when you're done.
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Chip:
Yes, of course, I agree that all the pandora ui's should be easily navigated with whatever input device the user feels most comfortable. X11 should operate like it did under xbox specific Linux distros in that you could move the mouse pointer with an xbox joypad and click with a fire button as well as using a regular USB mouse (or in the pandoras case a touchscreen or USB pointer).
A new version of pcmanfm got released today. Last time I tried it about 6 months ago it was still pretty buggy but I've just given the new version a quick go under Ubuntu on my PC and it does seem to be stabler now. People used to Thunar, Nautilus or Windows explorer will feel more at home with pcmanfm than rox. It features both 'list' and 'icon' views and, like rox, pcmanfm can also manage your desktop icons whilst being less resource hungry than Thunar and Nautilus, but I'd imagine rox would still have the edge in the speed dept. and rox I know to be very stable.
http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php/PCMan_File_Manager
Yes, of course, I agree that all the pandora ui's should be easily navigated with whatever input device the user feels most comfortable. X11 should operate like it did under xbox specific Linux distros in that you could move the mouse pointer with an xbox joypad and click with a fire button as well as using a regular USB mouse (or in the pandoras case a touchscreen or USB pointer).
A new version of pcmanfm got released today. Last time I tried it about 6 months ago it was still pretty buggy but I've just given the new version a quick go under Ubuntu on my PC and it does seem to be stabler now. People used to Thunar, Nautilus or Windows explorer will feel more at home with pcmanfm than rox. It features both 'list' and 'icon' views and, like rox, pcmanfm can also manage your desktop icons whilst being less resource hungry than Thunar and Nautilus, but I'd imagine rox would still have the edge in the speed dept. and rox I know to be very stable.
http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php/PCMan_File_Manager
Sphinxter
Says What?
Can anyone even speak factually to confirm or deny whether it will even be running a display manager and if so which one? (I do not mean a window manager, that would be the next question if the answer to the former was affirmative)
javaJake
Jacob Godserv
You'd have to get official word, and the official word is non-existent/vague on this topic.
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