Courserian [New Pandora Use]


Some feature suggestions for future versions:    , choose exactly which lesson to download, etc) A nicer interface in general, especially for the course library.
 

Ok, so let me answer a little about the features suggestion. 

Ability to choose the download directory, and to load courses not only from the app data folder (so you can have a SD card only for courses)
Ok, so technically this is possible, but I avoided this in the first version to avoid a major headache. What is people suddenly want to have a different folder for each course they download ? what if that folder is on a separate SD Card (and what if that folder cannot be found at launch ?) ? This creates major complexities to deal with all of this, and this will cause failures sooner or later. Let me think about it. I'll try to have some option there for you at least. 

Download/Update in the background (while watching some of your courses)
That should be no problem. I think. 

Better management for downloads (limit the speed, pause/resume
That is going to be difficult, because the backend I use (coursera-dl) does not support these functions. :(

A nicer interface in general, especially for the course library.
WHat do you have in mind, for example ? 

Otherwise thanks a lot for testing and for the comments :) Glad it is helpful for someone else :)

I will release a quick update later today (with a few fixes not related to the features you are asking for). 

If you have some time please rate the app in the repo as well :)
 
Quote A nicer interface in general, especially for the course library. WHat do you have in mind, for example ?
I'm thinking of something close to the "Your Courses" page on Coursera. With the course thumb, and knowing the ending dates of the course would help so you can remember to do the quizzes and course activities o time.
 
Quote A nicer interface in general, especially for the course library. WHat do you have in mind, for example ?
 
I'm thinking of something close to the "Your Courses" page on Coursera. With the course thumb, and knowing the ending dates of the course would help so you can remember to do the quizzes and course activities o time.
thats probably possible but dont expect this by the competition deadline :)
 
My Pandora's are repaired so big cheers to ED! I registered for a course and tried courserian.

Some comments:

- The smplayerplayerlocation.txt file is empty also after doing the find smplayer in 'extras' so I can only manually open the movies.

- It takes ages on my Pandora to download a course and during that time my connection breaks sometimes. Would it be possible to adjust the program so it can be used on my linux desktop too? Then I could start a Python script from command line from the sd card - in appdata/courserian - download the updates with my desktop and use the same sd card on my P1.

That will help folks with bad wifi connection without sacrificing too much convenience. 
 
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Thank you for bringing this to Pandora ekianjo, and the nice write up on your excellent blog to explain about it all. Had never heard of this but it sounds incredibly useful and coupled with the Anki pnd and other tools in the repo the Pandora has yet more strings of hope to her bow now.
 
Video playback is not perfect, even with SMPlayer 2
Are you on 1Ghz or Rebirth ? On my 1Ghz the videos work fine with SMPlayer 2, with some minor tearing now and then.
I found the problem, I have to setup SMPlayer 2 as default everytime I use it. Don't know exactly why... Is that working right on your side?

I'm on 1Ghz.
Currently I didn't set up SMPlayer2 to be used by default EVERY time you start Courserian, but that's an easy fix :) Will do that.
 
- It takes ages on my Pandora to download a course and during that time my connection breaks sometimes. Would it be possible to adjust the program so it can be used on my linux desktop too? Then I could start a Python script from command line from the sd card - in appdata/courserian - download the updates with my desktop and use the same sd card on my P1.
I will release the source code on github soon (i need to clean it up), along with a Linux version (I just need a couple of adjustments for the desktop one) so yeah, you will have the possibility to use the desktop version to download the courses if you want.

Sorry I can't do these kind of things immediately, I have things I need to do every day, and my time is limited currently. Give me a week or so :)
 
- It takes ages on my Pandora to download a course and during that time my connection breaks sometimes. Would it be possible to adjust the program so it can be used on my linux desktop too?
I have been thinking at your problem and there are maybe other solutions for your Pandora as well :

- did you update to the latest 1.60 firmware? I believe the Pandora team did some fixes on the wifi side to improve things a little, so maybe you will get something better if you upgrade your OS.

- connect your Pandora USB Host a LAN adapter, so you can connect to the net with a direct line instead of Wifi. you would get much higher download speeds this way.

Please try if possible :)  
 
- connect your Pandora USB Host a LAN adapter, so you can connect to the net with a direct line instead of Wifi. you would get much higher download speeds this way.

Please try if possible :)
Good suggestion, thanks! I totally forgot that I have a USB-Lan adapter. Tried it out and works like a charm. Downloaded a new week of content without any problems.

Tried the last version. Still not possible to open video from the gui. I also tried the extra method again and the app crashed. Of course I installed SMPlayer2. Is there something I missed, because I see others being able to open the videos.

One additional request - if possible have a message or another visual feedback that the last video of the queue is downloaded.
 
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- connect your Pandora USB Host a LAN adapter, so you can connect to the net with a direct line instead of Wifi. you would get much higher download speeds this way.


Please try if possible :)
 
Good suggestion, thanks! I totally forgot that I have a USB-Lan adapter. Tried it out and works like a charm. Downloaded a new week of content without any problems.


Tried the last version. Still not possible to open video from the gui. I also tried the extra method again and the app crashed. Of course I installed SMPlayer2. Is there something I missed, because I see others being able to open the videos.


One additional request - if possible have a message or another visual feedback that the last video of the queue is downloaded.
can you give me the contents of your pnd out in tmp directory? i cannot identify why it crashes just from the info you give me. please also mention which firmware and pandora type you use.


as for the last video downloaded, i will try to do somethong soon.
 
See below the pnd.out. It didn't crash this time though.. 

Tried it on my 3 Pandora's and all the same result:

Firmware 1.60 Classic

Firmware 1.55 Classic

Firmware 1.52 Rebirth

*EDIT*

---------------

solved it: apparently courserian doesn't like smplayer to be installed on the 2nd SD card. Based on below I already noticed the app wasn't found. smplayerplayerlocation.txt had location mmcblk1p1 for the pnd. Moved the pnd to mmcblk0p1 and it worked. - also manually adjusted smplayerplayerlocation.txt to mmcblk0p1

---------------

Code:
=======================================================================================
PND             : /media/mmcblk0p1/pandora/apps/Courserian.pnd
PND_FSTYPE      : Squashfs
APPDATADIR      : /media/mmcblk0p1/pandora/appdata/courserian
APPDD_FSTYPE    : vfat
PND_CPUSPEED    : <unset>
EXENAME         : run.sh
ARGUMENTS       : <unset>
=======================================================================================
[ START ]--- Mount the PND ----------
Mounting : mount -t squashfs -o ro "/dev/loop0" "/mnt/utmp/courserian"
Mounting the Union FS : mount -t aufs -o exec,noplink,dirs="/media/mmcblk0p1/pandora/appdata/courserian=rw+nolwh":"/mnt/pnd/courserian=rr" none "/mnt/utmp/courserian"
[SUCCESS]--- Mount the PND ----------
[ START ]--- Starting the application ( run.sh  ) ----------
ERROR: pnd file provided (-p)
Usage:
  pnd_run.sh -p file.pnd -e cmd [-a args] [-b pndid] [-s path] [-c speed] [-d [path]] [-x] [-m] [-u] [-- more_args]
    -p file.pnd	: Specify the pnd file to execute
    -e cmd	: Command to run
    -a args	: Arguments to the command
    -b pndid	: name of the directory mount-point (/mnt/utmp/pndid) (Default: name of the pnd file)
    -s path	: Directory in the union to start the command from
    -o speed	: Set the CPU speed
    -d [path]	: Use path as source of the overlay. (Default: pandora/appdata/pndid)
    -x		: Stop X before starting the apps
    -m		: Only mount the pnd, dont run it (-e become optional)
    -u		: Only umount the pnd, dont run it (-e become optional)

  If '--' is specified, all subsequent arguments are passed through to the command
  (useful if you want to pass quotes and weird chars to the command)

thinkagain-003

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Browse your courses

thinkagain-003 / 01 Week 1 - How to Spot an Argument
05_Lecture_1-5_-_What_Else_are_Arguments_Used_For_Explanation.mp4
./run.sh: line 465:  : command not found
./run.sh: line 466: COURSES/thinkagain-003/01_Week_1_-_How_to_Spot_an_Argument: is a directory
./run.sh: line 467: /mnt/utmp/smplayer/bin/mplayer: No such file or directory
thinkagain-003 / 01 Week 1 - How to Spot an Argument


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Extras
./run.sh: line 202: : command not found
/media/hdd/
find: `/media/hdd/pandora': No such file or directory
/media/mmcblk0p1/
/media/mmcblk1p1/
find: `/media/mmcblk1p1/pandora': No such file or directory
/media/ram/
find: `/media/ram/pandora': No such file or directory
 
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