Explorer for Kindle

[diba]

Is there the chance getting an explorer for Kindle running on the Kindle? Could find nothing even about it.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by diba

Is there the chance getting an explorer for Kindle running on the Kindle? Could find nothing even about it.

Explorer? What sort of explorer?
Kindle? Any particular model and/or version?

An explorer for the Internet (as in: "Internet Explorer")?
There are Kindle models with an experimental version of a web browser.
Are you asking for an alternative web browser?

An explorer for the file system (a "Kindle Explorer" as in: "Windows Explorer")?
Midnight commander should port and run, but I haven't read that anyone has done that. Which may only mean I didn't look in the correct place.

Note:
The key to getting a specific answer here or on any forum is to ask a specific question.

[diba]

I meant a File Explorer for Touch, because I think it would be even more difficult for non-touch models.

For internet the experimental browser is ok.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by diba

I meant a File Explorer for Touch, because I think it would be even more difficult for non-touch models.

For internet the experimental browser is ok.

See if you can google up anything on an Kindle/ARM port of Midnight Commander then.

Ah, you might want to try out Midnight Commander on a non-Kindle device first and see if it would fit your requirements.
You should be able to google up a binary of it for about anything that uses electrons to run.

Edit:
You should be able to run a copy of Midnight Commander installed on your Kindle from an SSH command line terminal (maybe even from a telnet connection to the Kindle).
I.E: In addition to or instead of running it from the Kindle's display.

It would look like this:
http://www.gnu.org/software/mc/images/mc-panels.png
And its home web site is the second hit in a google search.

[diba]

thx so far, will have a lock at later. Should give the possibility to update i.e. hacks from the kindle independent from a computer.

[geekmaster]

There are threads here showing how to use mc in myts. Myts is not working on a K5 yet though (keyboard dependencies).

[knc1]

On building a static linked mc:
http://namelythehedgehog.wordpress.c...ght-commander/

Note that author did not know about the DESTDIR= build variable, using it would have avoided his packaging problem. You might have to ask Google, but the quick hints:

mkdir /tmp/new_name
make DESTDIR=/tmp/new_name install

Now go to /tmp/new_name and the tree below that directory is relative to the root directory of the system on which the software is to be installed.

For a static build, you should only find the single application file.
For a dynamicly linked build, you will find one or more files.
Works for any Autotools package, not just mc.
Ref:
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/ht...e/DESTDIR.html

[Ehhh]

WinSCP ( windows platforms )

Originally Posted by diba

I meant a File Explorer for Touch, because I think it would be even more difficult for non-touch models.

For internet the experimental browser is ok.

[drauger]

There is no need to look for ARM port of Midnight Commander, because it is already exists in Optware. I can run mc on my K4 via ssh. The problem is that mc works in terminal emulator only, which is absent on K4 and KT. So, the real necessity for us is not file explorer (or text editor, applications launcher, etc) but terminal emulator.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by drauger

There is no need to look for ARM port of Midnight Commander, because it is already exists in Optware.

If you are willing to accept the rather large overhead of having Optware installed (or any other distribution that supports ARM).
But I suspect that it will be very rare that you can find a pre-built copy of mc that isn't built for dynamic linking (which would require installing the matching libraries).

Originally Posted by drauger

I can run mc on my K4 via ssh. The problem is that mc works in terminal emulator only, which is absent on K4 and KT. So, the real necessity for us is not file explorer (or text editor, applications launcher, etc) but terminal emulator.

Which was not part of the question.
The question implied using the K5 touch screen;
GM pointed out that myts works on everything except the K5.

So the proper place to take requests for a K5 terminal emulator would be one of the terminal emulator threads.

Let us just keep this thread on the topic of finding or making a "Kindle Explorer" that uses the native K5 display and input device(s).

At this point in the thread, we do not yet know if mc will satisfy the O.P.'s requirements, still waiting on the O.P.'s review on that matter.

[diba]

Friends,
I had not the time to go deeper in knc1's proposal.

But I think I have to express my point more clearly, even if knc1 got it in his last post exactly.

What I am looking for is a file explorer which could be used ON the Kindle itself, independent from a Computer or ssh. If I have these around, there would be no need for the file explorer.

So one could have the most important hacks for oneself on the Kindle in a folder i.e. "hacks". In case of need, one could copy around the install or uninstall.bin or anything else and put the Kindle in the status one needs.

The issue came up for me because I use ixtabs fonthack which needs the devcerts. I have also 2 different Amazon accounts and logging in/out causes that the devcert are not "active" any more.
Since yesterday evening this special case is not valid any more because ixtab updated his jbpatcher and included the updating of the devcerts automatically while starting fonthack.

Nevertheless I think a file explorer, independent from another computer, could be helpful in the one or other case.

I think I should have written this already in my first post, but I did this on my Kindle Fire and so I just threw in the short question, what is bad behaviour, I admit.

diba

[drauger]

Originally Posted by knc1

If you are willing to accept the rather large overhead of having Optware installed (or any other distribution that supports ARM).

This is quite ambiguous issue. I've defined 128 MB space for optware, and it is free by half.

Originally Posted by knc1

GM pointed out that myts works on everything except the K5.

No, he has only written that myts doesn't work on K5. It doesn't work on K4 as well on the same reason - no keyboard.

Originally Posted by knc1

At this point in the thread, we do not yet know if mc will satisfy the O.P.'s requirements, still waiting on the O.P.'s review on that matter.

Originally Posted by diba

Friends,
What I am looking for is a file explorer which could be used ON the Kindle itself, independent from a Computer or ssh. If I have these around, there would be no need for the file explorer.

This is exactly what I would want from terminal emulator - the ability to manage my kindle without PC.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by diba

Friends,
I had not the time to go deeper in knc1's proposal.

But I think I have to express my point more clearly, even if knc1 got it in his last post exactly.

What I am looking for is a file explorer which could be used ON the Kindle itself, independent from a Computer or ssh. If I have these around, there would be no need for the file explorer.
- - - -
diba

Of course, the first thing to learn is if mc will meet your requirements.

Best that you install a copy of mc on whatever non-Kindle machine you have and give it a try (maybe for a few days - it has a lot of features).

But for the readers here not well versed in the internals of the "mc type" applications...

The lack of a keyboard on the K5 as the input device is obvious.

But the display - ah, the display (K5 or any e-ink device) - that is what gets interesting.

To make mc use the Kindle display would require an e-ink driver for ncurses.

But once an e-ink driver for ncurses existed (perhaps as an artifact of this project), then the entire world full of "ncurses output" applications is opened up to the Kindle and other e-ink devices.
There are thousands of applications that would work on a e-ink display system - if the ncurses driver existed.

But first things first - let us see if mc meets the O.P.'s requirements.

- - - -

If not, then we can re-start this thread, only next looking for something qt or qt-embedded based (rather than ncurses based).
Edit 1:
I haven't built mc for a long time - it might well build for a qt interface - I will check into that while the O.P. does the usability review.
Edit 2:
Does not build with qt and it was "impoved" by removing the Gnome interface.
Default build uses Slang, but it will build against "ncurses > 4.1"
Q: Does that include ncurses 5.9? A: Will just have to try it.
Ref: http://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/
Hmm... I wonder if tic is powerful enough to handle an e-ink display and touch screen input without any coding changes? Another "just have to try it" thing.

[geekmaster]

We have been able to display text for awhile now (see "titty" in the "eink algorithmic art scripts" thread. The holdup is a touchscreen keyboard, and I was working on mine again last night.

I finally have a satisfactory keyboard (with transparency) that I can overlay on video without causing the eink display updates to switch to a slower mode that causes too many update artifacts in the video.

Also, in the new 5.1.0 firmware with broken eink structures, although I was successful getting full-screen updates working in my newest gmplay release, everything I tried (so far) cannot get region (partial screen) updates working on 5.1.0, and they were important for fast text updates in myts on the K3. On the K5 they may not be as important though because the updates are asynchronous (ioctl() returns before the update is complete).

[knc1]

That may be a "speed bump" in the ncurses plan.

Although it is a character (rather than graphic) display, ncurses internals depend on only needing to refresh a minimum amount of the display (as in: direct character addressing).

Another entry for the: "to be researched" list.

Edit:
Perhaps just an ANSI sequence "overlay" for the e-ink display and touch screen input would do the job.
Anyone up to writing a VT100 ANSI sequence to e-ink display layer?
ncurses will run on __anything__ that understands VT100 ANSI character control sequences.