Pandora Directory Structure Question


I am not well known for praising the OP team but I would just like to say that I think the PND system is 100% right. Any 'issues' that have come up in this and other threads just aren't issues.

The Doom/Quake issue is the only one that holds and credit and as, has been said before, this can be fixed by the person responsible for porting having a little script that checks for the presence of the WAD/PAK before running the game, and if it's not found popping up a message saying "please place doom/wad in appdata/doom".

DaveC's assumption that minimal launchers won't support over rides is ridiculous to say the least. There will be plenty of launchers out there so just make sure the launcher you choose DOES support this feature. Otherwise is it not possible to simply edit the .pxml file directly?
 
@skeezix, DaveC: Boys, I don't read really carefully, apologize me if I say something that mention someone before.

As I understand how it's work, then when "PND need" to store so data (saves, settings,...) than it goes to subdir in /AppData directory with the same name as PND file without extension (.pnd stripped). So if /AppData is based on user setting (Skeezix code it :) ), then user can set ./ instead of /AppData and then it will do, what DaveC want it to do. I guess. Everybody will be happy and celebrating. :)
 
Would it be possible to have a selectbox pop up when you delete a PND? It could ask you wether you wanted to keep your settings/saves like it does when deinstalling most pc games.

Would that render most of the previous discussion unnecessary? I hope so.
 
I'd just like to throw my $0.02 in here. The PND system sounds (and looks from the videos) amazing. The only problem people are complaining about that has any merit at all is the fact that if they have a game like Quake which requires the installation of external data due to licensing issues then it will continue to take up space on their SD card if they delete the game.

Two things will fix that that have already been mentioned.

1) Add a script to check to make sure the data is there with an easy to follow wizard for non-techy people.
2) Someone will inevitably (heck maybe I'll do it!) write a cleanup program that you can run that can easily show you what appdata is using all your space with an option to remove it. Kind of like AppZapper for Mac.

Most of the time you're not going to _need_ to store the giant data sets for games due to licensing issues so it won't be an issue to have (even 100) small save game files stored on your 8GB SD card.

I just want people to stop beating a dead horse here since as skeezix has said, this has been explained numerous times and people keep complaining about the same "problems" that aren't actually problems over and over.

Just my $0.02 anyway.
 
MDave said:
One good way of alleviating the problem is including instructions on how to install the game data in the appstore, before they click the download button :p but as we all know, most people will skip things like that and just want to go straight to downloading it. Or they forget about the instructions after the downloaded and closed the appstore :p

My God this is genius, inform the user of a program's additional requirements before he downloads and installs it, problem solved. Any suggestions for world peace?
 
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Sphinxter said:
MDave said:
One good way of alleviating the problem is including instructions on how to install the game data in the appstore, before they click the download button :p but as we all know, most people will skip things like that and just want to go straight to downloading it. Or they forget about the instructions after the downloaded and closed the appstore :p

My God this is genius, inform the user of a program's additional requirements before he downloads and installs it, problem solved. Any suggestions for world peace?

If only it was so easy, eh?

It just doesn't work out like that.

If you've any experience with customer support, you will find out that most problems reported are by user error, not following or reading instructions.

Probably not going to get it as much here because it's a niche device and because of the market it's targeted towards, but it will get worse as it gets more known.

I'm sorry for caring.
 
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MDave said:
Sphinxter said:
MDave said:
One good way of alleviating the problem is including instructions on how to install the game data in the appstore, before they click the download button :p but as we all know, most people will skip things like that and just want to go straight to downloading it. Or they forget about the instructions after the downloaded and closed the appstore :p

My God this is genius, inform the user of a program's additional requirements before he downloads and installs it, problem solved. Any suggestions for world peace?

If only it was so easy, eh?

It just doesn't work out like that.

If you've any experience with customer support, you will find out that most problems reported are by user error, not following or reading instructions.

Probably not going to get it as much here because it's a niche device and because of the market it's targeted towards, but it will get worse as it gets more known.

I'm sorry for caring.

Aye, the problem with making things idiot proof is they just keep making bigger idiots.
 
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peca said:
@skeezix, DaveC: Boys, I don't read really carefully, apologize me if I say something that mention someone before.

As I understand how it's work, then when "PND need" to store so data (saves, settings,...) than it goes to subdir in /AppData directory with the same name as PND file without extension (.pnd stripped). So if /AppData is based on user setting (Skeezix code it :) ), then user can set ./ instead of /AppData and then it will do, what DaveC want it to do. I guess. Everybody will be happy and celebrating. :)

I haven't read up on all the PND threads/info, but I like this idea - in fact, I'll make one suggestion further. Will there be be a *global* config somewhere for libPND, that can then potentially be overridden by a local config for each PND, as well? That way, DaveC can set his global config to use . for the appdata, and he won't have to manually do it for each app. Then you have the choice of whatever you want, including some kind of mix, depending on the app.
 
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It shouldn't be that hard to create a PND FAQ out of the infos in the quotes thread. There are several longer passages about PND. I'm no Linux guy, it would be awesome if an expert would have a go at it :)
 
mali said:
It shouldn't be that hard to create a PND FAQ out of the infos in the quotes thread. There are several longer passages about PND. I'm no Linux guy, it would be awesome if an expert would have a go at it :)
I'd do it if I had a list of questions to be answered...
 
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dflemstr said:
mali said:
It shouldn't be that hard to create a PND FAQ out of the infos in the quotes thread. There are several longer passages about PND. I'm no Linux guy, it would be awesome if an expert would have a go at it :)
I'd do it if I had a list of questions to be answered...
That would be great :) You could just convert the answers into questions ;) I can go through the quotes thread and collect the passages in one post later this evening, if you wish :)
 
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I'm surprised no one has started a PND FAQ yet. it'd certainly be something worth including with the Pandora when it gets boxed up.

(for the record I never complained about the PND set up I was just asking questions about how it worked to see if I understood it right, which amidst most of the chatter I dont believe I every got a full confirmation, which would make the faq really helpful from a layman's point of view.)
 
mali said:
You could just convert the answers into questions ;)
Well, the thing is that I'm not sure about what people want answered... OK, sure, obvious ones are "What is a PND?" and "Where is application data stored?" but beyond that, dunno...

EDIT: and don't bother going through the quotes; I know most of what there is to know about the PND format...
 
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^I'll start a thread tonight with infos from the quotes thread. The community can ask additional questions and maybe even Jeff chimes in.
Why not use "slow news day"-time for something productive? :)
 
mali said:
^I'll start a thread tonight with infos from the quotes thread. The community can ask additional questions and maybe even Jeff chimes in.
Why not use "slow news day"-time for something productive? :)
Well done, I couldn't come up with anything productive :lol:
 
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^ I didn't expect anything less impressive from a master-brain of the community, tbh ;) Great work :D
 
DaveC said:
Yes, one of them is that it forces you to have files scattered into separate places. I like stuff more self contained, everything for the app, data files BIOS etc in it's own folder somewhere. How many times have I deleted just the executable but left config files on the card to save space on other systems like Wiz?

Well, easy: Don't use it.
You can extract any .PND, copy it onto your SD Card and run it the same way you did on the WIZ.
Nobody forces you to use the .PND system.
I want to use it. Most casual gamers too. Most of the support things I had to reply via eMail about the WIZ or the Pandora from casual gamers was asking for help how to install games.
It was too complicated for the mass market. Now it's not.
Copy the PND to the card. Play.

A package manager which can download, install, update and remove them (including their application directories) automagically isn't a hard thing to do and will surely appear within the next months.

If I need to save space I just moved the whole folder (now with the pnd system I will have to mess with TWO folders) off of the card to my PC rather than leave some junk on the card, that is sloppy. If you REALLY have so much trouble with card space that you are doing this so much that it is an issue, my suggestion, buy a bigger SD card :rolleyes:

If you REALLY want to save space, I'd suggest using the PND format ;)
AlephOne including the three original scenarios takes 190 MB unpacked on the card and 97 MB as PND...
One game (okay, actually three), nearly 100MB saved.
That will be the case for all the other games.

The other issue is that many minimal launchers etc will detect and put the game into a catagory that the coder decided as it is imbedded in the pnd and even worse it may show up in multiple places (slop).

As said: Sort it elsewhere. You can override each setting including the category.
It just uses a default category, which is probably okay for 95% of all users. It's cool, they don't need to sort them manually as on the WIZ or GP2X.
The other 5% can do so. Nobody forces them to use the default category.
So it's not something that restricts you to do something - it is just more convenient for others.

Another issue is that you will be stuck with the icon that is embedded in the PND. It probably won't match if you are using a minimal launcher, and coders aren't known many times for their artist abilities. Users will want to make or load icons into their system to match the skin they are using.

Again, use the override feature for your own icon. Or description. Or name. Or Preview Picture. Or MHz setting...
What else do you need?

There is too much "automagic" going on here that keeps users from customising their system how THEY want.

That's wrong. There's automagic stuff that still allows customising your system like you want.

There could be an easy solution. Have the PND do a check on load for a .ini file of the same name in the same dir as the app. AppX.pnd will look for AppX.ini. If it doesn't find an .ini file then it will just use the defaults like now. So ED you would not have an .ini for your apps if you don't like it(I assume because you only want one file)and it will just do as now. When the pnd DOES find an .ini file it will use the parameters to override the defaults. With this override you can set it to load the icon you want, the catagory the app will show in and the directory path you like for appdata.

Errm - that's basically what the override feature does?

So you would have two possibilities:
Just the pnd file like now plus stuff defaulted to the appdata dir like now.
If there is an appname.ini file in the same dir (because the user put one there) as the pnd, it will detect and use the parameters in that file to override all defaults.
This way joe blow that doesn't care just places the pnd on his system and the pnd automagically makes an icon for him and he is oblivious to the appdata dir it made on his card. He doesn't know or care. Now when power user comes along and wants his own icon, wants the app to show in a certain menu catagory, and wants appdata in a spot he wants he can just make an .ini file in with his pnd and now regains control of his system.

That's what we have included and mentioned a few times in this thread already (skeezix as well as me...)?

kuru said:
Would it be possible to have a selectbox pop up when you delete a PND? It could ask you wether you wanted to keep your settings/saves like it does when deinstalling most pc games.

Not for the default file manager - but as mentioned above:
A manager that automagically downloads, removes, updates, etc. apps would easily be possible.
No big deal for a program: Use LibPND to find out the installed version, ask the server for the most recent version and download it.
As the appdata-directory is in the PXML as well, it does exactly know where the datafiles are and can therefore either delete the PND, the settings or both.

Yes, it's not yet ready, as we're mainly focusing on the basic function of the OS right now.
But everything is prepared that does make exactly all this stuff possible.
And THAT'S the most important thing.

Downgrading from an automatic customisable system to normal directories just because it might take a few weeks until an app is ready that lets you do all that stuff would be the stupidest thing to do :)

We did a big leap from the WIZ to the Pandora - and this should also be the case with the software running on it.
 
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I know I could just edit these myself, but I thought I'd raise them here:

"What is a PND file?"
Perhaps it would be better to reduce the emphasis on being able to contain multiple apps?
Not that it shouldn't be mentioned, just it might confuse people if they think that's normal?

"How does a PND store application data?":
The application data folders are located in "pandora/appdata/*" on the primary SD card of the system.
Is that last part correct? I would have thought they would always be stored on the same card as the PND?

EDIT: From dflemstr's FAQ
 
Aninhumer said:
"How does a PND store application data?":
The application data folders are located in "pandora/appdata/*" on the primary SD card of the system.
Is that last part correct? I would have thought they would always be stored on the same card as the PND?

EDIT: From dflemstr's FAQ
*walks off to check the code*

EDIT: yes you are right, the mount script finds "the mount point of the PND" and creates a folder there, so if you have a device mounted at "/mnt/whatever" and try to run "/mnt/whatever/hello.pnd", the PND's appdata will be stored in "/mnt/whatever/pandora/appdata/*"
 
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