Future Built In Wps Code

[redblade8]

Say you worked hours on coding one wps in one WPS code in the old standard way of using the character | instead of the newer way of using ( , & ) . Now lets say you upgrade to the newest rockbox. It uses the newer wps way of using the characters ( , & ) . All of your work now is down the drain because your wps, fms and other themes for different screens do not work simply because it is in a different wps format. Now you have to wait a couple days to get back onto the computer and downgrade back to the older rockbox. What if we were to have built-in integration of both the old wps coding way, and the newer wps coding way in the future? This would cause much less headache. Especially for the people who code straight on rockbox itself ( you code on rockbox and see which wps syntax takes more time than the other and see which one is better  ).

- This is like how if all browsers were using html , and then newer and better browsers come along , but they use only css. Now your site you did in html does not work in these newer browsers if you choose to upgrade to the newest browsers.  Suddenly, if you want these newer, better and faster browsers, you have to re-code everything on your site to css for it to work. Which will cause you many hours of a headache converting it. It only makes sense for browsers to support both html and css. It is almost the same to say that newer versions of rockbox could also support both old & new wps syntaxes. Or that windows 7 should support all older windows 98 16bit programs for people that still use them, or just want to play a nice, retro game.

[saratoga]

Say you worked hours on coding one wps in one WPS code in the old standard way of using the character | instead of the newer way of using ( , & ) . Now lets say you upgrade to the newest rockbox. It uses the newer wps way of using the characters ( , & ) . All of your work now is down the drain because your wps, fms and other themes for different screens do not work simply because it is in a different wps format.

Its not down the drain, you just have to update the syntax.

This is like how if all browsers were using html , and then newer and better browsers come along , but they use only css. Now your site you did in html does not work in these newer browsers if you choose to upgrade to the newest browsers.  Suddenly, if you want these newer, better and faster browsers, you have to re-code everything on your site to css for it to work. Which will cause you many hours of a headache converting it. It only makes sense for browsers to support both html and css. It is almost the same to say that newer versions of rockbox could also support both old & new wps syntaxes. Or that windows 7 should support all older windows 98 16bit programs for people that still use them, or just want to play a nice, retro game.

Perhaps I was unclear the last time you asked.  We're not going to do this.  You have limited resources on each player, so when reasonable people avoid breaking WPS compatibility, and when not reasonable, it gets broken. 


_{SOAP EDIT:  Fixed broken quote tag}

[redblade8]

'Its not down the drain, you just have to update the syntax.'

Without access to a computer, this would take many hours perhaps days to do on rockbox itself.

This is like how if all browsers were using html , and then newer and better browsers come along , but they use only css. Now your site you did in html does not work in these newer browsers if you choose to upgrade to the newest browsers.  Suddenly, if you want these newer, better and faster browsers, you have to re-code everything on your site to css for it to work. Which will cause you many hours of a headache converting it. It only makes sense for browsers to support both html and css. It is almost the same to say that newer versions of rockbox could also support both old & new wps syntaxes. Or that windows 7 should support all older windows 98 16bit programs for people that still use them, or just want to play a nice, retro game.

'Perhaps I was unclear the last time you asked.  We're not going to do this.  You have limited resources on each player, so when reasonable people avoid breaking WPS compatibility, and when not reasonable, it gets broken.'  


Yes, I did read your 'no' wrong, I read it as no, this is not off-topic, you are welcome to post about this .

Yes,sorry, I am just ranting here about something that would be VERY useful, but never going to happen. Don't really have to listen to me about it though  
It would however, be fairly easier to impliment than most things.

'so when reasonable people avoid breaking WPS compatibility, and when not reasonable, it gets broken.  '
Nami? Sorry, could you be more clear on that please? Thankyou.


_{SOAP EDIT:  Fixed broken quote tag.}

[saratoga]

Sorry, could you be more clear on that please? Thankyou.

Not off hand, but the discussions about previous changes are all in the mailing list and IRC logs if you want to dig for them. 

[redblade8]

Ah, is that what you were saying? I am still unsure what exactly I would be reading up on if I were to search up on the matter. I was confused on the part of 'avoid breaking WPS compatibility, and when not reasonable, it gets broken. ' and what that meant.
Thankyou For Your Help Though.

[pixelma]

The WPS syntax was changed because the old one using | in places with different "meanings" was ambiguous and Rockbox had to take further measures to interpret the WPS correctly. E.g. it was possible to use the progressbar in a conditional, it was also possible to use the progressbar with or without further parameters, so - is a | after the %pb tag in a conditional a "parameter separator" or the "conditional separator"? Things got worse when other things got "bar tag" versions, like the current volume (%pv) and I actually had a WPS that failed after %pv became a bar tag.

It would be pretty silly allowing both code styles as it would reintroduce this ambiguity and would even make it worse! And as already been said - Rockbox runs on limited devices and you can't compare the players to a PC.

Converting a theme to the new syntax is easy, there's even a helper tool available which you just need to run on your files and which converts them automatically. Of course that would happen on your PC but you would only need to do it once and if you start coding your new themes with the new syntax you won't see the problem again.

There are other ways how to deal with your* situation and I have a few suggestions: (1) maybe you could write such a theme converter as a plugin that runs on the device, (2) you could write a theme editor plugin that makes it easier for you to access all the tags and already gives you additional characters that go along with it or more. Finally suggestion (3) would be quite simple to do and is the most realistic: create a loadable keyboard layout that is optimised for the new theme syntax - characters you need most in an easy to reach spot etc. I don't think it would be much more hassle than the old syntax then.

*) offtopic: as I think you are in a small minority of people coding themes on the player

[redblade8]

Thankyou for this. You have explained everything very logically. Yes, I am one of the very small minority of people who codes on their mp3 =P If I could have time on the computer to code a wps, then I probably wouldn't of complained about this in the 1st place. It's really only a problem when you code on rockbox.

Your suggestions are very good too, I cannot think of any other solution.

1) I was going to suggest on here a theme converter plugin that can run on rockbox, but I don't see why I can't just learn how to code myself and create one. I would have to print out a 'how to' kind of guide to get started, and code it on my mp3 at home.
 ...Although, if someone were to get to this before me ,(which is alot likely),  it would be very helpful. 

2) This is an interesting idea,it sounds kind of like spell check, which is cool.

3) This would work, but suggestion 1 is the best to take care of things =P
...Although suggestion #3 is the most practical.

[[Saint]]

I would have to print out a 'how to' kind of guide to get started, and code it on my mp3 at home.

Sorry, but this simply isn't possible.

You would drive yourself insane before you managed to type out all the code needed to make a working plugin to achieve this task on the virtual keyboard, and even if you did manage to do so you would still need to move it off the device and compile it into a build using a working development environment on your PC.

It's not possible to compile Rockbox, on a Rockboxed device...and even if it were possible to do so even the fastest available Rockbox target would probably take days (a week even?) to complete this task.

There's simply no other way.

Hmmmmm....perhaps (big perhaps) you could code it in LUA and run it from the device, but using the virtual keyboard to do this on device would simply be insane, and I say that in the nicest possible way.

...Although, if someone were to get to this before me ,(which is alot likely),  it would be very helpful.

Actually, I don't see that as being very likely at all...

In a short ammount of time Rockbox 3.7 will be released and there will not be a supported version of Rockbox using the old (3.6 and lower) theme syntax. So such a plugin would be completely useless.

The effort required to make such a plugin, combined with the fact that a command line tool already exists to convert old syntax to new, and the fact that the old syntax will very shortly be completely out of date leads me to believe that it is incredibly unlikely that this plugin would ever be created.



[St.]

[AlexP]

Just go and use a library computer for half an hour so, convert your theme, and stop worrying about it.

[redblade8]

Thanks For All The Help.

To solve this:
- I will create a virtual keyboard layout to support future coding of WPS's.
- I will have to learn the new syntax anyways because everyone will be using it , and I will not have any clue what someone was talking about anyways if they were to post something about the new wps syntax because I am still using the old syntax.
- I will do what Alex said to do and convert the couple wps's I made to the new format.

'You would drive yourself insane before you managed to type out all the code needed to make a working plugin to achieve this task on the virtual keyboard'

Haha, I was already doing this just coding a wps on my mp3, just adding the different characters for the new wps syntax would of made it even crazier, so this is the reason for my post =P

Hmmmmm....perhaps (big perhaps) you could code it in LUA and run it from the device, but using the virtual keyboard to do this on device would simply be insane, and I say that in the nicest possible way.

No offence taken, it is insane