Action button labels: poll

[levi]

It's not a matter of opacity - that only affects the backlight brightness coming through a fixed amount, while sunlight is radically brighter than lightbulbs, and darkness is infinitely darker than that.


I expect the backlight to be PWMable (sp?) so it's brightness could be dialled up or down, but I suspect it'd only be possible to cover darkness and indoors using that. As is, the Pandora's screen backlight can be PWMed down, and that's still too bright in darkness on the lowest setting, and almost invisible in sunlight on the highest (on my inferior GHz screen, admittedly).

 

[God Ginrai]

It's not a matter of opacity - that only affects the backlight brightness coming through a fixed amount, while sunlight is radically brighter than lightbulbs, and darkness is infinitely darker than that.

I expect the backlight to be PWMable (sp?) so it's brightness could be dialled up or down, but I suspect it'd only be possible to cover darkness and indoors using that. As is, the Pandora's screen backlight can be PWMed down, and that's still too bright in darkness on the lowest setting, and almost invisible in sunlight on the highest (on my inferior GHz screen, admittedly).

That's not true. A significantly opaque white will look white in sunlight, which is what I was suggesting.

-God Ginrai

 

[Askarus]

Look good but IMO it should be with mate black button and glossy black letters so that it would look more elegant.

Black on Black would be too hard to distinguish for some people.

-God Ginrai

How that might look

I also prefer the black one.

Like Pandora buttons are.

Or like the 3DS XL.

White letters on black button.

 

[_wb_]

I prefer matte black buttons with glossy colored symbols (not engraved, or at least not in a way that collects dirt like on the Pandora), where the brightness and saturation is sufficient to easily read the symbol and perceive its color even if you're color blind, but not too much to look like a toy. I guess that is a delicate balance

 

[BlackEagle]

People aren't going to judge whether your device is a DS or not based on the buttons. They are going to ask "is that a DS" because you're holding a gaming device with a clamshell form factor. They probably would not even have seen it close enough to notice the labels on the buttons by the time they asked you that question.

You're right about that, I don't mind at this special decal, but seriously it's the sum of all that, which is making the whole product. I would prefer it as a special designed unit so it's independent to other one's as the start of the Playstations Symbols e.g.

The one reason why open source consoles aren't that famous as the most common big ones is people think it's just a copy of anything which almost exists. Is there nobody, who want's to start a new designed autarcik handheld console which is additionally open source? I hoped, since games have been coded exspecially for linux with more precision than "hangman" or "xo" the time has come for a new system technique. Android was the best example, although most people don't know the roots.

 

[_wb_]

I hope this poll goes through iterations so people can vote again amongst a decreasing pool. I don't think the acceptable/preferred split gives enough of that on its own. I suspect that the Greek Playstation-like option wouldn't be winning once all the latin options are eliminated, those voters would be more likely to move to the next most similar thing.

Yes, I think it's good to have a second round at some point, maybe next week or so.


Here are the results so far:

I propose we use this sorting order and eliminate the bottom half. Or we could use some threshold, e.g. 50% of the total voters have to consider it acceptable to go to the next round.


Maybe for the next round we could then do STV voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote) to eliminate strategic voting etc.

 

[God Ginrai]

Maybe for the next round we could then do STV voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote) to eliminate strategic voting etc.

I don't think STV will be useful until we've drastically reduced the number of entries. Maybe for a round 3 or 4.

-God Ginrai

 

[TrashyMG]

^Agreed..

 

[milkshake]

Don't forget what exophase wrote that if there were less Latin lettered choices that in practice more people are actually in favour of a Latin button set is just the specific layout that differs.

So maybe we should be focusing on Latin layout but focusing the vote on layout of those characters instead.

 

[fusion_power]

Greek may look geek (  ) but how to write these letters? It I want to write them for example here in the Forums? Alpha, Omega... as word is OK but for the actual letter I have to stress an ASCII table, and I'm lazy! 

 

[foxblock]

I feel like every but the first 4 choices have a few problems and no real advantage (besides "looking cool" or "being different"):

Here are a few problematic scenarios:

Describing the buttons to strangers, childs, etc.

Many people don't know the name of greek symbols, chess pieces, etc. or even if they do they cannot make the connection to the correct symbol. Choices 7,8,12,15 are especially problematic since you cannot easily describe the symbols (symbols need to be common knowledge or described in three words or less. Given I probably can do that for 7: crossed out circle, melting circle, chandelier, triangle, open door and X... sounds pretty silly though).

ABXY... on the other hand are common knowledge not only to gamers, but can also be described easily to non-gamers (or at least everyone using the latin alphabet, but I assume that is covering most people and certainly more than the greek alphabet or chess symbols).

This isn't a good solution though, telling someone "Press the A button" is not nearly as effective as "Press the green button" or "Press the top button". Coloured letters help a lot (not buttons, since that would make the Pandora look like a clown car somewhat).

EDIT: To clarify: I like coloured buttons, I like the xbox controller (for example), but the Pyra does not aim to be a handheld, it aims to be a multi-functional computer and it should look like that. People using it to write mails, manage servers, listen to music, etc. might not find coloured buttons attractive and coloured labels are a good compromise here.

So you could say the lettering does not matter, but then again I don't feel like a new layout has any advantage and just alienates people.

Making a readme for your application, posting about the controls on the forum, etc.

I don't like having to look up or copy utf codes when I write a readme for my game, please keep it easy and simple

Complexity of the hardware/mould of the buttons

I assume the buttons of the Pandora are created with injection moulding and the Pyra's buttons will be the same.

Creating a mould with chess pieces or dice symbols seems much more complex than Latin or greek letters (that is a layman's assumption though, but maybe something to consider).

Licensing costs

IIRC the ABXY layout is licensed (by Nintendo?) and fees would have to be paid in order to use this - this was the reason the fairly uncommon layout of the Pandora was chosen.

I suspect the SEGA layout is licensed as well, but one would have to look into that.

Compatibility

We are in trouble here, the Pyra would like to be compatible with not only old emulated systems, but also the Pandora and possibly the GCW Zero and a bazillion other handhelds.

All of these use different layouts, so there is no way we are going to be compatible with every one of them.

Now we can try to go for the greatest common divisor, pure Pandora compatibility (to avoid work in changing ported apps again - though this should hardly be the deciding factor) or go for something completely new.

I don't know what the best approach is, but I feel like people already know the Nintendo layout or the Sega layout or the PlayStation layout and everyone has a favourite, introducing something completely new can setup an even ground, but could also alienate people and cause even more confusion...

 

[Exophase]

Choices 7,8,12,15 are especially problematic since you cannot easily describe the symbols (symbols need to be common knowledge or described in three words or less. Given I probably can do that for 7: crossed out circle, melting circle, chandelier, triangle, open door and X... sounds pretty silly though).

The one I gave (γαβχ μν) is easy to describe using Latin letters by proxy. yabx uv/YABX UV. Anyone can immediately see the similarity. That's why they were picked.

 

[LEOXD]

Licensing costs IIRC the ABXY layout is licensed (by Nintendo?) and fees would have to be paid in order to use this - this was the reason the fairly uncommon layout of the Pandora was chosen. I suspect the SEGA layout is licensed as well, but one would have to look into that.

 The ABXY-design is patented? (actually, thinking about it, it isn't that surprising)

Do you happen to know the publication number or something like that?

 

[_wb_]

I feel like every but the first 4 choices have a few problems and no real advantage (besides "looking cool" or "being different"):

Actually all options have problems -- see the first post and the thread it refers to. They all have different problems, but there is not a single choice that has no downsides at all.

So this is a matter of weighing the pros and the cons, and personal preferences like aesthetics.

 

[God Ginrai]

Many people don't know the name of greek symbols, chess pieces, etc. or even if they do they cannot make the connection to the correct symbol. Choices 7,8,12,15 are especially problematic since you cannot easily describe the symbols (symbols need to be common knowledge or described in three words or less. Given I probably can do that for 7: crossed out circle, melting circle, chandelier, triangle, open door and X... sounds pretty silly though).

Choice 15 is the keyboard mappings. How are those symbols?

This isn't a good solution though, telling someone "Press the A button" is not nearly as effective as "Press the green button" or "Press the top button". Coloured letters help a lot (not buttons, since that would make the Pandora look like a clown car somewhat).

So you think the SNES controller looks like a clown car? It had colored buttons.

Creating a mould with chess pieces or dice symbols seems much more complex than Latin or greek letters (that is a layman's assumption though, but maybe something to consider).

Dice pips are just dots. I don't see how you could suggest that they are more complex than Latin or Greek letters...

I suspect the SEGA layout is licensed as well, but one would have to look into that.

It's been many years since the Sega Saturn. I doubt Sega owns the license for this layout anymore, assuming they actually had it at any one point.

-God Ginrai

 

[Exophase]

I doubt the mold complexity is really an issue here, unless the plan was to reuse Pandora buttons. This would be assuming the old molds are transferable to the new plastics company, or that ED has a huge stock of Pandora buttons ready to be reused. The other two buttons would still have to be made though.. I don't know how these molds work exactly but I assume for little parts one mold handles a bunch of them.

 

[Neelix]

Actually all options have problems -- see the first post and the thread it refers to. They all have different problems, but there is not a single choice that has no downsides at all.

I'm curious what people see as the downside of alphanumeric combinations. Note that the example given isn't the only way to do it. Tenka suggested using consecutive numbers with a single letter so G1-G6 for example. (I chose G for gaming, but most other letters would do except for F, L or R)

- Neelix

 

[foxblock]

Choices 7,8,12,15 are especially problematic since you cannot easily describe the symbols (symbols need to be common knowledge or described in three words or less. Given I probably can do that for 7: crossed out circle, melting circle, chandelier, triangle, open door and X... sounds pretty silly though).

The one I gave (γαβχ μν) is easy to describe using Latin letters by proxy. yabx uv/YABX UV. Anyone can immediately see the similarity. That's why they were picked.

Then why not use YABX UV?

Licensing costs IIRC the ABXY layout is licensed (by Nintendo?) and fees would have to be paid in order to use this - this was the reason the fairly uncommon layout of the Pandora was chosen. I suspect the SEGA layout is licensed as well, but one would have to look into that.

 
The ABXY-design is patented? (actually, thinking about it, it isn't that surprising)


Do you happen to know the publication number or something like that?

I don't know, it's something I have in the back of my head from all the discussions when the Pandora was created. It has been a long time, I could be wrong.

I feel like every but the first 4 choices have a few problems and no real advantage (besides "looking cool" or "being different"):

Actually all options have problems -- see the first post and the thread it refers to. They all have different problems, but there is not a single choice that has no downsides at all.

So this is a matter of weighing the pros and the cons, and personal preferences like aesthetics.

I know and I just gave my opinion, I am sorry if it came out as if I was stating facts, that wasn't my intention.

I have not read through 29 pages of discussion and I am sorry if the point I was trying to make has already been made. That's the problem with discussions like this, everything gets buried eventually, points are repeated and it's becoming very time consuming to follow.

Thank you for the nice overview in this poll though.

 

[WizardStan]

Then why not use YABX UV?

That was my (more serious) suggestion.

 

[Exophase]

Then why not use YABX UV?

That was my (more serious) suggestion.

There's been lengthy discussion about this on other threads already. The biggest reason is that it gives developers the choice to refer to the Greek letters so that there's no ambiguity as to whether they're referring to the buttons or the keyboard keys. And I guess because people like something more unique and stylized. I'm not saying I actually find the ambiguity to be a problem, I'm just going with what other people think.

It's a compromise, and like I've said before, people aren't generally fond of compromises until they're forced to choose them.