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[h8raid]

Hello everyone,
  The project is not going to be easy, nor is it going to be a quick one.  If you have experience in programming on the Xbox, we need you!  I feel that we need to raise the bar for dashboards and their functionality.  There are several dashes to choose from currently, each having their own high points and focus points.  I am tired of seeing people have to switch back and forth from one program to another to another just to do some pretty simple things.  What I am proposing here is that we take the best of the best and build it all into one user-friendly dash.  Don't get me wrong, the current dashes are all very user-friendly, but we all have seen downfalls here and there where one dash does things the best way and another is half-assed.  If you would like to see a change, get involved in this project.  Please don't hesitate, we are going to need all the help we can get to start working on this project right away and hopefully start making some steady progress.  To give you an idea what the goals here are, it can be summed up pretty easily by saying we are going to take the existing development, make the improvements where some areas or features are lacking, and bundle everything into one dashboard.  We are also going to make a few advances of our own along the way.  There are a few things missing from the current setups, we are going to add these features in our release.
Regards,
  -H8raid  <

[HCl]

exactly how are you going to take existing development?
as far as i know, most top of the line dashboards (evox, avalaunch, unleashx)
aren't opensource.

I mean, everyone wants to see certain features in other dashboards
(like evox' trainer feature), but the reason that they're not in other dashes,
is that the source of evox isn't available.

This post has been edited by HCl: Oct 16 2004, 03:11 PM <

[h8raid]

Sorry I should have been more clear on this, what I meant was take the best ways things are being done and recreate it, I believe you are correct in saying they are not open source.  Wouldn't it be great if they were though, imagine if everybody could work together on things and the scene could add things, send it back to the developers and if they like it hey include it in the next release.  <

[HCl]

yea, it would be nice if all xbox software was opensource,
if they were, by now we could have some really awesome dashboards
(unleashx comes close, haven't tried avalaunch)
unleashx could use the harddisk temp feature and trainer feature of evox..
unfortunately, starting another dashboard from scratch doesn't really appeal to me,
sorry bud..  <

[h8raid]

Understandable, it is a lot of work.  I am going to see if it is possible to get in touch with the lead members from the main teams and see if they would be willing to work together on something like this.  I would love to see all these guys get together and build one dash with each of their strong own individual strongpoints, and because they each obviously have their own source, they could release it quite quickly.  What I really want to see happen here is to see an opensource dashboard come out that is compiled with openXDK, however, my understanding is that openXDK still needs some work before anything like that would be practical.  If anybody can put me in touch with the right people to approach something like this, or anybody wants to help get this project moving, get in touch with me.  I am sure these groups arent going to just jump on the idea because they will obviously want to protect their work because so far everybody has been secretive about their work on dashboards.  Let's get out some things we have needed for a long time, first thing is opensource dash.  Next I want to get in touch with Xecuter and actually speak one on one and see if we can get a bios with embedded FTP that actually works so you can send stuff back and forth even while playing games, or doing things when FTP dies now.  And the other thing I would like to see is a dedicated to the dash messenger service w/chatrooms.  This would only be accessible through the dashboard so the only people on there would be other modders.  Lastly, linksboks is already working to implement itself into dashboards, we need to take links, tweak it a little bit to make it fit in with the form factor of our dashboard and go ahead and include it in our dash.  I feel that we need one dash that does it all to raise the bar for current dashes, not to put them out, just to raise the current standard because there are certain areas every dash lacks in and certain key areas for each.  Lets build one dash to do it all, get all the other dashes up to date after it's released and make it opensource so the scene can do some of the work for the developers.  <

[HCl]

Well, if you can manage teams to work together and release some decent sources,
i'm interested in helping, i'm just not willing to start from scratch since some
dashes get really close to perfection.

(unleashx + evox trainer + evox flash bios + avalaunch ftp + mp3 player would get close to the perfect dash in my humble opinion)

No point in reinventing the wheel.

This post has been edited by HCl: Oct 16 2004, 07:20 PM <

[fghjj]

I see all these dashes packed with features, skins, related PC tools and manuals. Yet I still use EvoX (in its most basic "shape") as my dash, because when I boot up my Xbox, I know what I want to do and I want to get there quick.

In my opinion the best approach to a (openXDK based?) Xbox dash is a modularized one. For example let each "feature" have it's own .XBE and set up a proper documented standard for inter-application communication. Kinda like passing properties with a commandline like Unix' SH or DOS. Offcourse this will only work when some of the more groundbreaking teams like EvoX are willing to contribute.

This will always be a homebrew scene but like can be seen from XBMC with the right people a VERY professional product can be made.

ps. about the in-bios FTP from what I read I think that the profit isn't worth the technical barriers that need to be taken since we have IGR.

ps2. notice the lots of "I" in the text sorry for my sux0r English I don't know how to formulate it otherwise.

 <

[h8raid]

@fghjj  I see what you are saying about embedded FTP and IGR, because if you had a session going and used IGR while you were connected it would kill your connection.  There could be a safety built into the embedded FTP that would turn off IGR while a connection was in progress.  Now the problem that would happen then is that you would end up stuck in a game until you were finished with your connections.  There could be a nice work-around here though, since we would actually be establishing a network connection through the bios, then we could setup an in game abort to dash feature.  Instead of going to the dash through a reset, the command would just call up a defined file for the dashboard and take you there.  Yea it is so easy to write how things should be done, but actually doing it is another thing entirely.  <