OpenPandora Main OS

Built-in keyboard input is a central thing on the Pandora, as it concerns almost all user interfaced apps!
I realized that I myself and also others submitted quite many reports concerning this issue.
Hence this meta issue is intended as an overview/accumulation/aid for those devs who are willing to overwork the whole issue.
If you realize new related issues, feel free to add them here.
If this my effort is contradicting the OpenPandora workflow, then pardon me, and instruct me, how else to handle issues of that kind. Thanks!

Keyboard low level: Driver, keyboard layout, post processing (hotkeys, input support, etc)
FS#138 FS#227 FS#242  FS#259 

Keyboard mid level: Application interfacing
 FS#102  FS#123 FS#238

Keyboard application internal level
 FS#157  (dupe:  FS#249 ) FS#243 FS#256

The appdata folder was corrupted on my SD card from an unclean eject this made the folder read only until i ran a repaired it. MiniMenu still displayed all my PND files.

When clicking to launch the app would try to load crash and then return to MiniMenu without any visible error. This was pretty confusing and i thought it might be a good fix for a troubleshooting guide.

Hi there,

Many games depend on sdl-perl. Perl and sdl are part of the base OS, but not not the connection between the two.

Cheers,
sebt3

When I have received my Pandora, I got an SD Card but it was not formated. I didn't have any card reader so I didn't now what was wrong (the Pandora or the SD Card).

When an unformated SD Card is inserted in the Pandora, it should be nice to ask if we want to format it.

That still need to be configurable, but chris_c does a good job I'ld like to see integraded in the main image :
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/topic/58794-a-script-to-shutdown-after-charging/
and :
http://chrisc.bedroomcoders.co.uk/?p=77

http://www.wader-project.org
http://trac.wader-project.org
http://trac.wader-project.org/wiki/Developers

this would be really usefull to monitor reception/network of mobile broadband dongle and it also counts ur mobile data usage (for those that have limits).

It'll have to be in the SKEL.
/etc/skel/Applications/Settings/Thunar/uca.xml

People can replace the contents of their current uca.xml file with the following to gain this functionality now.
/home/[USERNAME]/Applications/Settings/Thunar/uca.xml

<?xml encoding="UTF-8" version="1.0"?>
<actions>
<action>
<icon>Terminal</icon>
<name>Open Terminal Here</name>
<command>exo-open --working-directory %f --launch TerminalEmulator</command>
<description>Example for a custom action</description>
<patterns>*</patterns>
<directories/>
</action>
<action>
<icon>emblem-symbolic-link</icon>
<name>Mount PND</name>
<command>/usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh -p %f -m &amp;&amp; thunar /mnt/utmp/</command>
<description></description>
<patterns>*.pnd;*.PND</patterns>
<other-files/>
<text-files/>
</action>
<action>
<icon>gtk-jump-to-rtl</icon>
<name>Unmount PND</name>
<command>/usr/pandora/scripts/pnd_run.sh -p %f -u</command>
<description></description>
<patterns>*.pnd;*.PND</patterns>
<other-files/>
<text-files/>
</action>
</actions>

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION: In many GUI dialogues the default action button (OK, ACCEPT, YES, …) cannot be triggered with a simple key press. Pressing ENTER triggers the element which has focus (usually the first dialogue element), but not the default action, as most computer users would expect!

MY WORKAROUND MEANWHILE: Press ALT plus the underlined letter of your desired action. But that's not very convenient as the underlined letter needs to be looked upon first, as the button label can differ from situation to situation (ACCEPT, OK, YES, …) and then 2 keys need to be pressed.

SUGGESTED SOLUTION: The custom of many operating systems should be adapted on the OpenPandora as well. SPACE triggers the currently focused element (whatever that may be: list item, radio button, checkbox, etc), and ENTER triggers the default action of that dialogue.
Or even better use the Pandora specific A/B/Y/X keys cleverly in those dialogues/selections. I don't know whether there is a standard functionality assignment within this key-group, in MiniMenu "B" is start/confirm, I do not know of any other standard assignments yet.

I am suggesting the new option "Grid stop horizontal" for MiniMenu with the following possible settings and their effect.

Yes -> If the boundary is reached the focus remains there.
No -> If the boundary is reached the focus starts at the opposite side again.
Jump to next/prev line -> If the boundary is reached the focus jumps to the next/previous line and the opposite side.

If you set MiniMenu's option "Live (not exit) on app run?" to YES, and you quit an application and return to the still running MiniMenu, it runs in windowed mode, and takes about 2 seconds until it goes into full screen mode again.

This delay should at best be not noticeable at all, at most 0-1 seconds.

ISSUE ENVIRONMENT:

If you hold your Pandora in your hands, you only have your thumbs for typing, hence your typing abilities are quite limited.

It is hard to press more than 2 keys, and hard to press 2 keys on the same side, as your second thumb does not reach the opposite side all too easy (except you have a basketball player's hands).

The modifier keys Start/ALT Select/CTRL Pandora/(META, I guess?) are in the middle of the keyboard, hence the can easily pressed together with another key. But SHIFT lies at an ergonomically problematic side (left boundary). Hence hard to press with other left side keys.

SUGGESTED SOLUTION:

I suggest that Pandora OS offers an optional and configurable input help.

[1|2|3 presses | hold for duration x] SHIFT [timeout y] [modifier key 2] [timeout z] key

Produces the same result like SHIFT + modkey2 + key

Very likely modifier key 2 and timeout z are not necessary, as you can trigger the SHIFT hold (by your defined action), and then press the modifier key 2 and the other key at once, as the other modifier keys are laid at a central (ergonomically better) position.

Imagine this tab content:
Nubs, Pandora Input, PNDstore.

CURRENT BEHAVIOR:

Pressing "P" and "N" is succession jumps to "Nubs" eventually, as it first jumps to the first "P" item ("Pandora Input"), then to the first "N" item, "Nubs".

DESIRED BEHAVIOR:

That it acts like in most Linux file browsers or the Mac OS X Finder.

In detail: Pressing "P" and "N" within a certain time limit should combine them to the string "PN" and jump to the first item which starts with that string, i.e. "PNDStore". If no item matches, reduce the combination string by one character, try to match again, if that doesn't match, try matching again with one character less, ... , until only one character is left, and if that one doesn't match jump to the nearest previous lexicographical character, which matches.

The command line environment of the default OS does not include the command "man" and the respective manpages of the installed programs.
I personally often use manpages, as I hardly remember the syntax/arguments of all programs I use.
Having them would be very convenient!

EVALUATING NEEDED STORAGE AMOUNT

Some may argue that storage space is quite limited on the NAND.

Yes I agree. Hence the number of included programs is limited too. Hence it would not be all too many manpages.

When I press TAB into an empty Terminal prompt, I get 1406 possibilities, which is about the amount of available commands/programs if we ignore aliases, etc.

Multiply that with an average of 20 kb per manpage, and you get about 30 MB in total. With compression this could possibly be brought down to 15-20 MB.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

A) Store into the NAND the manpages of core OS CLI programs only, and not all the library/system/etc documentation.

B) Include only the man command into the core OS, and compile/configure it in such a fashion, that it finds the manpages within non-NAND media (SD card, USB volume, etc).
b1) Specify that it simply looks into a certain path within the /media/*/pandora/ structure.
b2) Or offer PND packages like man-core.pnd, man-extended.pnd,... you get the idea or even man-custom.pnd (which would look into its appdata or a certain path for custom added manpages, to somehow get the b1 approach within the PND approach).

a) Host multiple volumes at once.
b) Select one for hosting first, later host additional ones. (I guess this scenario is more complicated)

If only 2 GUIs are available, skip the user selection and switch right into the only other GUI. What else would the user want?! Right!

If more than 2, already set the focus in the GUI list to the next possible item.

Since the default inputrc doesn't contain any functionality (simple cli movements like ctrl-left or crtrl-right to skip words don't work) this diff may be useful to add to the cli-experience. I've also been trying to get the delete-key to work, but this is apparently already a known issue (see FS#227). I can remove this from the diff if you want. (I couldn't attach a file to the task somehow)

31,32c31,33
< # "\e[3~": delete-char
< # "\e[2~": quoted-insert
---
> #"\e[3~": delete-char
> "\e[^?": delete-char
> "\e[2~": quoted-insert
44,47c45,50
< # "\e[5C": forward-word
< # "\e[5D": backward-word
< # "\e\e[C": forward-word
< # "\e\e[D": backward-word
---
> "\e[1;5C": forward-word
> "\e[1;5D": backward-word
> "\e[5C": forward-word
> "\e[5D": backward-word
> "\e\e[C": forward-word
> "\e\e[D": backward-word

When thee Pandora is shutting down because its almost out of power, it should check to make sure that the nub inputs are set to the default mode (which is mouse movement for the left nub and mouse buttons for the right nub). If not, it should change them to be like that.

Right now. the XFCE menu handles right clicks like left clicks. It would be more logical to either not do anything on a right click, or open a context menu that e.g. lets the user generate a link to an application on the desktop.

FAAD2 appears to not be compiled with fixed point decoding. My version of libfaad compiled with fixed point used 2-3x less cpu than the provided one. It's not enough to provide the switch to the configure script. the file libfaad/common.h has to be edited and a define uncommented. Line 68 in the v2.7 source.

/* COMPILE TIME DEFINITIONS */

/* use double precision */
/* #define USE_DOUBLE_PRECISION */
/* use fixed point reals */
//#define FIXED_POINT <<<<<------------

Battery remaining percentage in MiniMenu does not update unless you change tabs back and forth.

This is only really an issue when leaving the unit charging and not using it. It gives the appearance that it is not charging until you swap tabs around.

I added:
iface usb0 inet dhcp

And ran:
ifup usb0

But dhclient simply prints usage.

When the Pandora runs out of memory and the Out-Of-Memory killer fires, the Applications/Settings/xfce4/panel/panels.xml loses the entries for the menu button and the power monitor.

cat >/etc/ld.so.conf<<END
/lib
/usr/lib
END

ldconfig

When a X window which is displaying GLES2 render output is:
- Either dragged out of the visibile screen region (?)
- Is made larger than it was at the creation time of the GLES2 context
then:
- The performance will drop significantly as the EGL buffer swaps won't occur as fast as before,
- The render output will be corrupted and flicker
- In rare occasions crashes the application or locks up the entire system (which forces you to remove the battery)

The problem can not be solved without restarting the application (Possibly forcing players to complete the same goals again as they were unable to reach a savepoint or similar things).

This was confirmed in Mupen64Plus and the PowerVR GLES Samples and some of my own projects (which are, however, based on the PowerVR samples).
As I didn't see any other reports about this problems (but had it confirmed by other Pandora users too) I would expect that it can be fixed by using a newer X, kernel or combination of them as other OMAP users would be effected too.

On OS Zaxon (hotfix 3).

With "xfconf-query", the resolution is 800x480@60 Hz.
But with the tool in the menu "Settings" -> "Display", the resolution is 800x480@0 Hz.

With Java (opensdk-6-jre 6b18-1.8),

GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment().getDefaultScreenDevice().getDisplayModes()

return 1 display mode that is 800x480@0 Hz with a BPP of -1.

It seems to be the reason that GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment().getDefaultScreenDevice().getDisplayMode() return null
and when closing a java application that goes in fullscreen mode to throw an exception (invalid display mode).