Website Update - Help welcome :)

[Binky]

I suggest the following as food for better ideas:


down the centre column:

• FAQ
  
• tech specs
  
• about the project
  
• more info
  
• what users say
  
• wiki
  
• gps
  
• media player
  

the two main images:

• images highlighted when corresponding line of text is mouseovered
  
• and vice versa
  
• a click expands that chunk
  

centre column links:

• column moves to left
  
• stuff to right
  

bar and frame at bottom:

• cycles between latest forum posts
  
• latest news
  
• latest software
  
• featured projects/sticky forum threads
  

Main homepage:





then:


or


generic page:

 

[Darkknight512]

I like your general idea but a moving link bar would drive me insane. It takes away from the flow of the site.

 

[Binky]

Shame, I like the symmetrical quality of this: (showing the two sides of the pandora)

but I don't think much of the website could be split effectively, could it?


maybe it could be general, static information on one side, and live community driven aspects on the other.


e.g

• things about open source games on the right
  
• development news and reviews of supertux or super Geom dust etc on the left
  

this would demonstrate how community driven it is

 

[Caine]

I like your general idea but a moving link bar would drive me insane. It takes away from the flow of the site.

I agree.


Also, for a front-page I think that would become a rather busy page. I would recommended something less filled.


I tend to classify the Pandora's capabilities into four distinct groups, each of which is either grouped into entertainment or business activities. Perhaps such applications can be highlighted on the main page, each with their own more detailed pages.

| Entertainment   | Business         |

|-----------------+------------------|

| Gaming handheld | Portable desktop |

| Media player    | Organizer        |

While my initial interest in the Pandora was mainly as a Gaming handheld and secondly as a portable desktop, these days I tend to utilize it most as a Media Player and sometimes as organizer.

• Entertainment
  Pandora - the gaming handheld
  
  
  Spoiler

  Screen images (cycle):
  - Launcher: mini-menu app launcher (display wide range of emulators on screen)
  - 3D gaming: Quake 3
  - Game engines: Scummvm game
  - Emulation: Mario 64
  - Linux classics: Battle for Wesnoth
  - Homebrew: Super Geometry Dust
  - Dosbox: stunts (everybody loves stunts)
  
  Features:
  - Excellent gaming controls (d-pad, start/select, L/R, ABXY, dual analog)
  - Powerful stereo sound
  - Touchscreen & querty keyboard, great for classic adventure games
  - 10 hour battery life under heavy load
  - ...
• Pandora - the media player
  
  
  Spoiler

  Screen images (cycle)
  - Movie player: VLC playing a video
  - Music player: DeaDBeeF with a playlist
  - EBook reader: FBReader displaying a book
  - Comic reader: Comix displaying a comic/manga
  - Media Center: XBMC home menu
  (show on Pandora screen and cloned on big tv through TV-out)
  
  Features
  - Wide variety of software (Video, Audio, Documents, Image viewers)
  - TV-out support (composite/svideo) for large screen display
  - 10 hours battery life
  - ...

[*]Business

• Pandora - the portable computer / pocketable desktop
  
  
  Spoiler

  Screen images (cycle)
  - XFCE Desktop
  - Internet: Email, Calendar & Address book, Browser
  - Multitasking: Abiword, GNumeric, PDF viewer, Image viewer
  - Development: Shell w/ c Compiler, Dia (class diagrams), an IDE and perhaps some documentation
  
  Features
  - Angstrom linux, full desktop environment
  - Full QWERTY keyboard
  - mouse control w/ touchscreen or analog nubs
  - WiFi, Bluetooth, USB 2.0
  - Dual full-size SDHC card slots
  - 10 hour battery life
  - weight 320g, the ideal travel companion
• Pandora - the organizer
  
  
  Spoiler

  Screen images (cycle)
  - Agenda
  - Calculator & currency converter
  - Todo-lists/notes: Zim desktop wiki
  - Dictionary & Thesaurus
  - Navigation software (* requires 3rd party GPS dongle *)
  - Email & contact list (bluetooth tethering / WiFi)
  
  Features
  - Touchscreen & keyboard
  - Dual full-size SDHC slots
  - Use as voice recorder w/ audacity
  - ...

 

[Binky]

So the front page needs these key points

• pandora logo
  
• picture of the pandora
  
• gaming machine
  
• micro laptop
  
• media player
  
• pda
  
• community driven
  
• link bar
  

in what interesting ways could these be layed out/combined?

 

[fusion_power]

Ok, I see. The Focus really could go more in the informative direction than in the "BUY THIS THING RIGHT NOW!" direction.


Each Programm/game mentioned or sown on the Homepage should link to the Repo, so you can easily download it and/or get more Infos about. The Repo should be closer connected to the Homepage so the People can see all the stuff that is already available for the Pandora. Of Course we also should move more of the PNDs from the Archive to the Repo because you shouldn't advertise with the pretty messy Pandora Software Archive imho. ^^""

 

[Binky]

Is it worth making it clear about how simple installing pnds is?


who are we aiming for?

 

[Caine]

Is it worth making it clear about how simple installing pnds is?


who are we aiming for?

There certainly should be a page on software installation. It ought to describe how to utilize PNDstore (when connected) and how to perform such tasks manually (when offline). This could be handled by either a link to the wiki or by a page of its own.

 

[Binky]

Idea for main page:

• big picture of pandora on white background
  
• logo on screen
  
• link bars along top and bottom of pandora screen
  
• mouse over various parts brings up labels giving information about hardware;
  
• while,at the same time an (unrelated(?)) screenshot is temporarily displayed on the virtual pandora screen with a tag talking about the software
  

 

[gadgetoid]

It's a waste of time hard-selling the Pandora on the website, it's not a mass market device by any stretch of the imagination. The theory goes that if you show that the community and software is decent, by collating it all under a single, organised portal site, the Pandora will sell itself.


Fusion_Power has the right idea.


I could probably do sexy things with HTML5/CSS3, the Pandora and onscreen images.

 

[Binky]

Surely we are aiming at people who saw someone had one at work, or read a snippet about it in a magazine.


They think "portable emulator thing! Some of those old games were really good. what was it called? oh yeah pandora... googles for it"


we need to convince those people that its better than a phone.

 

[gadgetoid]

A small proof of concept: http://www.gadgetoid.com/pandora/screen/pandora.html


(screen images loaded straight from Milkshakes repo, so credit to him and...err.. sorry for flagrant bandwidth theft, but it's to prove it can be done)


(pandora image nicked from the photobucket (http://gs113.photobucket.com/groups/n213/I0S2J7KION/?action=view&current=p1020131.jpg) image credit techmoan)


The images are loaded straight from the repo, centered on an 800*480 canvas, and then transformed to the shape of the Pandora's screen in 3D space. The Pandora photo is a PNG with a screen glare overlay, plus a slight shadow around the edge of the screen. The transformed images are loaded behind.


It may or may not work as desired on your browser, it's pretty cutting edge CSS3 stuff.

 

[fusion_power]

great Idea to use the Repo preview pix and project them onto the screen. But I really recommend to just use a simple Pandora front view, no Image deforming or stretching at all. This just looks confusing.

There certainly should be a page on software installation. It ought to describe how to utilize PNDstore (when connected) and how to perform such tasks manually (when offline). This could be handled by either a link to the wiki or by a page of its own.

The Install process could be a good advertising for the Pandora because it can be so easy. I imagine 3 simple pix in the way like:


Step 1: download PND from the Repo


Step 2: put PND to the desired folder like menu or desktop


Step 3: choose programm and run it.

 

[gadgetoid]

great Idea to use the Repo preview pix and project them onto the screen. But I really recommend to just use a Pandora front view, no Image deforming at all. This just looks confusing.

Pffft... where's the hours of fun figuring out deform transformations in that?

 

[Darkknight512]

I like the angle it is at, it would make it kinda look like 2 Padoras battling when faceing eachother, that picture of the Pandora looks too blue though.

 

[Wootson]

The specifications of the Pandora have been transcended by modern smartphones in the same price category. So, it's not a very smart thing to sell the Pandora based on just specifications of the hardware. In my opinion the old review site of Craigix for the GP2X F-100 was a pretty good example of how people can get to know more about the software side of things. It featured the highest quality software, together with a short story about what the software could do. For example an emulator and saying how it could run certain games from a specific gaming era. Several screenshots included.


If I was a newbie to the Pandora I would really like to see what I could do with the device. Bluetooth and WiFi only tell me certain possibilities, and OMAP3 with Mhz-something really tells me nothing at all. Plus, if people want a state of the art device, they will not even bother with the Pandora.


The selling point of the Pandora that will always stay until the very end, is the openness of the software side of things. Make use of this! Tell the people what stuff is already out, and what is to be expected in the near future. This is what ultimately got me into the GP2X F-100 and made me stay until this very moment.

 

[fusion_power]

I like the angle it is at, it would make it kinda look like 2 Padoras battling when faceing eachother, that picture of the Pandora looks too blue though.

It does not work on every Browser (actualy, it doesn't work on my PC browsers like Firefox 7 or latest Opera at all) and the angle would be still wrong. The question is if new Pandora interested Users would like this effect.

 

[Darkknight512]

I like the angle it is at, it would make it kinda look like 2 Padoras battling when faceing eachother, that picture of the Pandora looks too blue though.

It does not work on every Browser (actualy, it doesn't work on my PC browsers like Firefox 7 or latest Opera at all) and the angle would be still wrong. The question is if new Pandora interested Users would like this effect.

It's working for me in Firefox 10.0a1 (latest Nightly alpha), maybe another alternative is to do that, but generate a GIF file so it works with all browsers?


I'm not sure other users would like it, but it is at least much less borring then flat. I like the idea, maybe a different effect would be better.

 

[Neelix]

While I like the idea, we do need to take into consideration that a part of the target market won't be using the latest nightlies of the browser. I'd highly recommend something which doesn't require the cutting edge.


-Neelix

 

[Binky]

Yes, however as the fading works in FF7, why not pre-transform the images with something gimpish?