Understanding New Users Questions - Please Read if you have questions!

[Steven]

I have been reading these forums, and i see MANY simple questions in which that have been answered, but 95% of the time new users to rockbox do not read the free manuals posted here and in which developers get upset and ether dont answer or say answers which seem not to be acceptable to a new user (developers are not evil lol, i understand them, they develop programs which take hours and then post a manual which takes just about the same amount of time and new users DEMAND to know why so or so dont work even though it been answered), and new users most of the time do not read anything that is more then a page long. so then they post questions which have been answered.

I might consider making a system in which a user just types the question and will get a easy to understand answer which pictures and such.

I would like to in the future create tools which make rockbox easier to create themes and plugins (i wish to someday make a Basic (programming language) to c converter so new users can make plugins way easier and faster. But i cant not do that now due to my current projects.


Rockbox is a very nice and fun platform, it gets me upset not seeing alot of interesting topics on here - this community could be so much more.

[saratoga]

I have been reading these forums, and i see MANY simple questions in which that have been answered, but 95% of the time new users to rockbox do not read the free manuals posted here

Are you asking about development?  We don't have that in the manuals, and generally most people discuss it on IRC, not the forums.

(i wish to someday make a Basic (programming language) to c converter so new users can make plugins way easier and faster. But i cant not do that now due to my current projects.

Well first of all, you wouldn't make a 'basic to c converter', you'd just setup a basic environment that produced binaries directly, or else did interpretation like our LUA plugins do now.  The c step is unnecessary.

But second, I don't see why having basic would really help.  Basic is a pretty obscure programming language, and not very many people (if any) are likely to use it at this point. 

Rockbox is a very nice and fun platform, it gets me upset not seeing alot of interesting topics on here - this community could be so much more.

We don't really use the forums for development.  Thats all done on IRC. 

[Steven]

I have been reading these forums, and i see MANY simple questions in which that have been answered, but 95% of the time new users to rockbox do not read the free manuals posted here

Are you asking about development?  We don't have that in the manuals, and generally most people discuss it on IRC, not the forums.

---- No i meant regular manuals about how to use the mp3 players with rockbox.

(i wish to someday make a Basic (programming language) to c converter so new users can make plugins way easier and faster. But i cant not do that now due to my current projects.

Well first of all, you wouldn't make a 'basic to c converter', you'd just setup a basic environment that produced binaries directly, or else did interpretation like our LUA plugins do now.  The c step is unnecessary.

--- Sorry i meant basic to c translator as in on a windows or linux computer that will take a basic like language which will output a rockbox compatiable c code - then the user can take the c code and output a .rock file. I did not mean a onboard basic to c translator on rockbox itself, although it would be possiable but it would be hard to input the basic on a rockbox player itself.

But second, I don't see why having basic would really help.  Basic is a pretty obscure programming language, and not very many people (if any) are likely to use it at this point.

--- Basic is a decent language, especially if they have no knowledge of any language - basic would be a good starting point. Basic has evolved there are basic to machine code compilers in which basic is not only a interpreter language.

Rockbox is a very nice and fun platform, it gets me upset not seeing alot of interesting topics on here - this community could be so much more.

We don't really use the forums for development.  Thats all done on IRC.

When i go on IRC its basically dead, the forums would be a better spot lol, but yea your choice.

[saratoga]

^^ Please fix your post, its hard to understand you like that. 

[[Saint]]

I really don't understand this...

"Learn and code in a(n often obscure variant of a) language that basically no one uses, to save learning a language that is widely adopted"

This makes very little sense to me. We already have an LUA interpreter in core, which beginners would likely find easier to step into, with the added benefit of it actually being a (reasonably) useful language to learn. True BASIC, or one of the various bastardizations thereof, notsomuch.

And even if I were to agree that such a thing is useful or productive work, I certainly wouldn't agree that it could take a useful or productive form as a plugin on a DAP. In Rockbox, with the exception of targets where we run as a guest application as opposed to the host OS, text input is a nightmare. I will personally avoid doing anything much more complicated than naming a playlist on the device itself, writing a full plugin in BASIC with the virtual keyboard is something I would consider to be a great recipe for a mental breakdown.

There are already BASIC(ish)-to-C converters that exist out there (BaCon and BCX spring to mind) that run in a real shell, on a real computer, with a real keyboard, with a CPU and RAM almost certainly vastly superior to anything your DAP has to offer, capable of running an actual compiler.... etc.

I'm certainly not saying "Don't do it"...of course not, go for your life if you want to. What I am saying "It will be very difficult and of incredibly limited use, and tools to do this already exist on much better suited platforms".


[Saint]

[wodz]

And even if I were to agree that such a thing is useful or productive work, I certainly wouldn't agree that it could take a useful or productive form as a plugin on a DAP. In Rockbox, with the exception of targets where we run as a guest application as opposed to the host OS, text input is a nightmare. I will personally avoid doing anything much more complicated than naming a playlist on the device itself, writing a full plugin in BASIC with the virtual keyboard is something I would consider to be a great recipe for a mental breakdown.

Unless you treat such usage as opportunity to learn morse code :-)