Android

Android logo

Android is Google's Linux-based operating system for ARM mobile devices.
This page covers the Android in a PND for Gingerbread.

Installing Android

1. You need at least Ångström Beta 5a.
2. Download the Android PND from here.
3. Move the Android PND onto the card that is in your left SD card slot.
4. For safety reasons, if you want to use a second SD Card with Android, use an empty one. Android may corrupt it. Android seems to only delete files in the root directory of the second card. Anything in subdirectories shouldn't be affected.
5. If your date is not set properly: Do so before starting Android. If the date is in the past, there will be issues with the Google certification.
6. Start Android from System/Android Gingerbread. It takes a while to boot. Once it has booted up, setup your WiFi connection.
7. To install APKs, put them onto a second SD Card and execute them using the built-in FileManager.
8. To stop Android, select "Kill Android" from the menu.

Key Mapping

Home : Pandora Button or F1[/background]
Back : Esc, Right nub to the right.
Menu : F2
Search : Unknown
Volume Up / Down : F12 / F11

Android APK Repositories

F-Droid is a high quality repository with only free and open-source software. To use F-Droid, install the APK from it's website. To install the APK, just execute it from the file manager.

Google Play is Google's official repository with software, music, movies, and other media. To use Google Play:

1. Set up WiFi on your Android installation, and the system time from Ångström.
2. Download this ZIP file.
3. Extract the ZIP into the /pandora/appdata/android_gingerbread folder on your SD Card. Remove the meta-inf-Folder.
4. On your next Android boot, the Play Store setup should appear automatically.
   

Map Touchscreen Controls to Physical Controls

Not all games support physical controls-- some only use the touchscreen.
However, there's an app called "GameKeyboard 2.0" that maps touchscreen controls to physical controls.
This guide is intended to help you use GameKeyboard.

1. Go to CyanogenMod Settings and enable "Soft Keyboard" on long menu button press. This way you can bring up the keyboard in most games by holding the Menu Button.
2. Run GameKeyboard and set it up.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to enable it as SoftKeyboard and choose it as current SoftKeyboard.
4. Then in the settings, do the following:

 Enable "Touchscreen Mode"
   Enable "Remap Hard-Key"
   Map your buttons with "Hardkey Mappings": Select a free slot, 
   press the desired D-Pad direction or button and select in the list 
   what it should be (i.e. D-Pad up to D-Pad up, etc.)
   Go into "Layout Edit" and allow "Layout Edit Mode"

This is the first-time setup, GameKeyboard is now ready to be used. Grant it root access when it asks for it.

1. Run your game. If the touchscreen buttons and DPad are located in the default GameKeyboard locations, the Pandora controls should now just work.
2. If buttons / DPad are somewhere else on the screen, hold the menu button which should show the GameKeyboard controls (doesn't work with all games).
3. Move the controls around using the touchscreen to match the touchscreen controls. Some games hide them though when you press the menu button, some don't even show the GameKeyboard as they disable the softkeyboard. In this case, remember where DPad / buttons need to be, go to the GameKeyboard app and slide the controls at the desired location and then go back to the game.

Once that's done, the game will work with your physical gaming controls. As you can save different profiles in GameKeyboard, you only need to match the locations per game once and then safe the config.

How to Remap Android Hardware Keys

1. Install a text editor from F-Droid or Google Play, such as 920 Editor and Jota+.
2. Install a file manager from F-Droid or Google Play, such as Root Browser.
3. Open up the file manager and navigate to /system/usr/keylayout
4. Copy all the contents of that folder to /mnt/sdcard2/Backups
5. Now, open the text editor.
6. Open gpio-keys.kl in the Backups folder.
7. Edit the file as you wish.
   1. I reccomend you change key 29 from "BUTTON_SELECT" to "BACK"
   2. It is also reccomended to change key 56 from "BUTTON_START" to "MENU"
   3. You should reference this page on Android keycodes for easy editing.
8. After editing the file, save and exit the text editor.
9. Open your file manager and delete /system/usr/keylayout/gpio-keys.kl
10. Copy /mnt/sdcard2/Backups/gpio-keys.kl to /system/usr/keylayout
11. Finally, relaunch Android with the "Kill Android" app.
12. Finally, confirm the key remapping.

Unfortunately, the coding for the nubs is incomplete. Right_Nub_Down is mapped to Keycode 82 and Right_Nub_Left is mapped to keycode 4 but other than that, the nubs have no key functionality and so as far as I can tell, you can't change what they do. If anyone wants to look around and see if they can find a way, please post in the thread.

KeyTest is a useful program that tells you the keycode for the key you're currently pressing.