Action button labels


Consider this meta-discussion. In this post I'm not saying what you wrote now or in the other cases is right or wrong in my opinion.


Please always back up assertions like this with a rationale. I've seen you doing comments like this on many threads and many times found myself wondering why you said what you did. It would be easier to agree or disagree with you if you added some basis on which your opinion lies upon. Just adding judgemental commentary without a rationale is not a constructive line of conversation and only causes further polarization and frustration. Try following your comments with a "because" or "since" in your head and find the root cause for your opinion. Then post enough so people understand why you feel as you do.


Thank you, have fun and please take this as the constructive criticism it's meant to be and not condescending nagging like it may sound to some :)
I did give my reason. In fact, God Ginrai gave some of the same reasons I did.


That was countering the "purely aesthetically speaking," statement that _wb_ wrote.


I rather just have the dice or Pandora buttons with 1 and 2 as the extra buttons for the Pyra,If


it keeps us from these Greek letters. Tho, he didn't even give me a compelling reason why this wouldn't work.

         Z


    Y       C


X      B


    A 

@God Ginrai Are you reading my mind? :lol:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Pretty much any labels will work, we will get used to them. My only worry is choosing labels that people do not recognize would cause some problems. When reading the documentation for a game or emulator, not everyone will know what an "Omega" or "Chi" is supposed to look like, for example.
 
Pretty much any labels will work, we will get used to them. My only worry is choosing labels that people do not recognize would cause some problems. When reading the documentation for a game or emulator, not everyone will know what an "Omega" or "Chi" is supposed to look like, for example.
That could be a problem initially, but people would learn. The symbols should be made to resemble simpler forms like circles and X's on purpose (more than the traditional Greek letters would, but not enough to make them different symbols) and then people can call it either. Software devs should display the symbol as it is on the key (distributing .svgs, various raster graphic formats in different sizes and maybe a .ttf font file would be easy and would be enough for it to be easy to include for devs).It could be a fun part of exploring your new device and being part of the community, would be instantly recognizable, could interest people and would make it clear from the first glance that this isn't the usual standard gaming/netbook device but something different, something for geeks.
 
I have no idea how to use code tags. Sorry.


How would you modify it on your own?
If you quote this post, you'll see an example. Since your image is just an image of ASCII text, you can just lay out the ASCII text in code tags. When I quote you, I would be able to copy your code tags to have something to modify.


Example:


   Pyra                                                                 
    __________________________________________________________            
   /                                                          \          
  |                                                            |         
  |   +++++++++   WiFi 3/4G   Power    Br-  Br+    +++++++++   |         
  |   +++++++++                                    +++++++++   |         
  |                                                            |         
  |       ^                   Start                       (c)  |         
  |                                                   (z)      |         
  |                                                            |         
  |  <         >    (Nub1)    Select    (Nub2)    (y)      ( |         
  |                                                            |         
  |                                             (x)            |         
  |       v                    Menu                   (A)      |         
  |                                                            |         
  |                                                            |         
  |    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    0  Back    |         
  |                                                            |         
  | Tab   q    w    e    r    t    y    u    i    o    p   Ent |         
  |                                                            |         
  |  Shift  a    s    d    f    g    h    j    k    l  Shift   |         
  |                                                            |         
  |  ,    .    z    x    c    v    b    n    m   Spacebar  Fn  |     
  |                                                            |  
   \__________________________________________________________/          



-God Ginrai
Well, that's what it looks like now. Let's see if you can dazzle us. ;)

By the way, do you write out "God Ginrai" at the end of every single post you make manually or does the forum add it for you? Curious is all.
 
By the way, do you write out "God Ginrai" at the end of every single post you make manually or does the forum add it for you? Curious is all.
I assume he probably either does it manually or has a browser plugin for it.But I wanted to ask him anyway whether he could put it in his signature so I can ignore it.

(nothing personal, I ignore several signatures. They just cutter up my screen with useless stuff)
 
Well, that's what it looks like now. Let's see if you can dazzle us. ;)
Commencing Dazzle:

Pyra
__________________________________________________________
/ \
| |
| +++++++++ WiFi 3/4G Power Br- Br+ +++++++++ |
| +++++++++ +++++++++ |
| |
| ^ Start |
| (Z) |
| (Y) |
| < > (Nub1) Select (Nub2) (C) |
| (X) ( |
| |
| v Menu (A) |
| |
| |
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Back |
| |
| Tab q w e r t y u i o p Ent |
| |
| Shift a s d f g h j k l Shift |
| |
| , . z x c v b n m Spacebar Fn |
| |
\__________________________________________________________/
By the way, do you write out "God Ginrai" at the end of every single post you make manually or does the forum add it for you? Curious is all.
I write it out by hand every time. It's practically muscle memory now. I even type the BBCode for the italics at the same time.

But I wanted to ask him anyway whether he could put it in his signature so I can ignore it.

(nothing personal, I ignore several signatures. They just cutter up my screen with useless stuff)
Sorry, not to piss you off, but I would rather not put it in my signature. I don't like how the forum signature separates it from the rest of my message. At that point, it feels less like a signature and more like one of those automated messages that get added when you send an email from your cell phone. (ie: "Sent from my Pre3")

EDIT: Wait while I redo this post. Vim killed it somehow.

EDIT2: FIXED!

-God Ginrai
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Consider this meta-discussion. In this post I'm not saying what you wrote now or in the other cases is right or wrong in my opinion.


Please always back up assertions like this with a rationale. I've seen you doing comments like this on many threads and many times found myself wondering why you said what you did. It would be easier to agree or disagree with you if you added some basis on which your opinion lies upon. Just adding judgemental commentary without a rationale is not a constructive line of conversation and only causes further polarization and frustration. Try following your comments with a "because" or "since" in your head and find the root cause for your opinion. Then post enough so people understand why you feel as you do.


Thank you, have fun and please take this as the constructive criticism it's meant to be and not condescending nagging like it may sound to some :)
I did give my reason. In fact, God Ginrai gave some of the same reasons I did.


That was countering the "purely aesthetically speaking," statement that _wb_ wrote.
You said Greek letters are "ridiculous". I suppose that means they make you laugh for some reason. You didn't specify the reason why you consider them to be funny. I don't really see what the comedic aspect has to do with the aesthetics. Elaborate please.

I rather just have the dice or Pandora buttons with 1 and 2 as the extra buttons for the Pyra,If


it keeps us from these Greek letters. Tho, he didn't even give me a compelling reason why this wouldn't work.

         Z


    Y       C


X      B


    A 

I have already stated several times why the above layout is not a good idea: compared to the Pandora layout, the X and A are swapped. That means that there are two options, none of which are desirable:

  • either we swap the keycodes too (so Home and PageDown are swapped), which would make the positioning of Home-End-PgUp-PgDn very illogical and which would break games that use the ABXY keys as a secondary dpad (e.g. for weapon aiming), since you would need to press the south button to aim left and the west button to aim down.
  • or the keycodes are not swapped, only the labels. But then if a Pandora application/game says "press X", you have to press "A", and when it says "press A", you have to press "X".
Of course none of this is an unsurmountable problem, we could eventually learn to live with it. But why would we purposefully break backwards compatibility in such a confusing way?

Pretty much any labels will work, we will get used to them. My only worry is choosing labels that people do not recognize would cause some problems. When reading the documentation for a game or emulator, not everyone will know what an "Omega" or "Chi" is supposed to look like, for example.
It would be pretty bad practice in my opinion to use those words to describe the buttons in documentation. I would recommend using the actual symbols (Δ Π Ω X), there should not be any reason to resort to spelled out forms (we don't talk about the A Bee Ex Wye buttons either). Unicode characters should always be available, unless maybe when you're porting some old game which uses a built-in ASCII-only font. In those rare cases you could use descriptions like Triangle Square Circle Cross, or maybe use some kind of ASCII art approximation like

Code:
 ,   ___    _    \/
/_\  | |  _( )_  /\      or in one line:       /\  ][  ()  ><
 
I have already stated several times why the above layout is not a good idea: compared to the Pandora layout, the X and A are swapped. That means that there are two options, none of which are desirable:

  • either we swap the keycodes too (so Home and PageDown are swapped), which would make the positioning of Home-End-PgUp-PgDn very illogical and which would break games that use the ABXY keys as a secondary dpad (e.g. for weapon aiming), since you would need to press the south button to aim left and the west button to aim down.
  • or the keycodes are not swapped, only the labels. But then if a Pandora application/game says "press X", you have to press "A", and when it says "press A", you have to press "X".
Of course none of this is an unsurmountable problem, we could eventually learn to live with it. But why would we purposefully break backwards compatibility in such a confusing way?
 We're not breaking backwards compatibility by having A and X be in different places. All we're doing is referring to the button differently. The functionality still works. And, assuming you don't swap keycodes, (which we totally should not swap the keycodes) then the buttons are still in the same place for gameplay purposes. Then, you only need to learn 2 buttons that are swapped, which is actually a lot less effort than learning, say, for SNES on the Pandora that (legend: Pandora = SNES) A = Y, Y = X, X = B, and B = A.

It would be pretty bad practice in my opinion to use those words to describe the buttons in documentation. I would recommend using the actual symbols (Δ Π Ω X), there should not be any reason to resort to spelled out forms (we don't talk about the A Bee Ex Wye buttons either). Unicode characters should always be available, unless maybe when you're porting some old game which uses a built-in ASCII-only font. In those rare cases you could use descriptions like Triangle Square Circle Cross, or maybe use some kind of ASCII art approximation like

, ___ _ \/
/_\  | | _( )_ /\ or in one line: /\ ][ () ><
That actually hurts your argument. people aren't going to use multiline in text, so they would use one-liners, and while the one-liner for Delta could likely be understood, the one-liners you put for Pi and Omega look nothing like them and would cause confusion. Also, side question: Why did you use >< for Chi instead of X? That is harder for people to see as well.

-God Ginrai
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I like the idea of using symbols, but I also like keeping the Pandora layout for compatibility. I haven't been able to really think of any good symbols to use, it makes sort of sense to use Greek letters what with the Pyra name and all, but I think the delta/pi/omega/chi symbols just resemble Playstation's buttons too much, it has to be more different than that.
 
I have already stated several times why the above layout is not a good idea: compared to the Pandora layout, the X and A are swapped. That means that there are two options, none of which are desirable:

  • either we swap the keycodes too (so Home and PageDown are swapped), which would make the positioning of Home-End-PgUp-PgDn very illogical and which would break games that use the ABXY keys as a secondary dpad (e.g. for weapon aiming), since you would need to press the south button to aim left and the west button to aim down.
  • or the keycodes are not swapped, only the labels. But then if a Pandora application/game says "press X", you have to press "A", and when it says "press A", you have to press "X".
Of course none of this is an unsurmountable problem, we could eventually learn to live with it. But why would we purposefully break backwards compatibility in such a confusing way?
 
We're not breaking backwards compatibility by having A and X be in different places. All we're doing is referring to the button differently. The functionality still works. And, assuming you don't swap keycodes, (which we totally should not swap the keycodes) then the buttons are still in the same place for gameplay purposes. Then, you only need to learn 2 buttons that are swapped, which is actually a lot less effort than learning, say, for SNES on the Pandora that (legend: Pandora = SNES) A = Y, Y = X, X = B, and B = A.

It would be pretty bad practice in my opinion to use those words to describe the buttons in documentation. I would recommend using the actual symbols (Δ Π Ω X), there should not be any reason to resort to spelled out forms (we don't talk about the A Bee Ex Wye buttons either). Unicode characters should always be available, unless maybe when you're porting some old game which uses a built-in ASCII-only font. In those rare cases you could use descriptions like Triangle Square Circle Cross, or maybe use some kind of ASCII art approximation like


, ___ _ \/
/_\  | | _( )_ /\ or in one line: /\ ][ () ><
That actually hurts your argument. people aren't going to use multiline in text, so they would use one-liners, and while the one-liner for Delta could likely be understood, the one-liners you put for Pi and Omega look nothing like them and would cause confusion. Also, side question: Why did you use >< for Chi instead of X? That is harder for people to see as well.

-God Ginrai
Forget about ASCII art, just use the actual symbols.

Don't you agree that having to learn a mapping from {A,B,X,Y} to {A,B,X,Y} is harder and more confusing than learning a mapping from {Δ,Π,Ω,X} to {A,B,X,Y}?

Compare:

Using the layout:

     Z

  Y   C

X  B

  A

we get:

Pyra → Pandora: X → A, Y → Y, B → B, A → X

Pyra → Nintendo:  X → Y, Y → X, A → B, B → A

Pyra → Nintendo64:  X → B, Y → CL, A → A, B → CD, Z → CU, C → CR

Pyra → Sega Genesis: perfect match

Pyra → Dreamcast: perfect match

Pyra → PlayStation: X → , Y → , B → , A → X

Using the layout

     Σ

  Δ   Ψ

Π  Ω

  X

Pyra → Pandora:  Π → A, Δ → Y, Ω → B, X → X

Pyra → Nintendo:  Π → Y, Δ → X, Ω → A, X → B

Pyra → Nintendo64:  Π → B, Δ → CL, Ω → CD, X → A, Σ → CU, Ψ → CR

Pyra → Sega Genesis: Π → X, Δ → Y, Ω → B, X → A, Σ → Z, Ψ → C

Pyra → Dreamcast: Π → X, Δ → Y, Ω → B, X → A

Pyra → PlayStation: Π → , Δ → , Ω → , X → X

Ugh. It's a mess anyway when you're doing emulation.

Still, for native applications I think having unique, Pyra-specific button labels would be neat.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well, that's what it looks like now. Let's see if you can dazzle us. ;)
Commencing Dazzle:


Pyra
__________________________________________________________
/ \
| |
| +++++++++ WiFi 3/4G Power Br- Br+ +++++++++ |
| +++++++++ +++++++++ |
| |
| ^ Start |
| (Z) |
| (Y) |
| < > (Nub1) Select (Nub2) (C) |
| (X) ( |
| |
| v Menu (A) |
| |
| |
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Back |
| |
| Tab q w e r t y u i o p Ent |
| |
| Shift a s d f g h j k l Shift |
| |
| , . z x c v b n m Spacebar Fn |
| |
\__________________________________________________________/

-God Ginrai
Just a couple questions GG. :)

Are the face buttons all the same size and are they smaller than the Pandora's action buttons? I'm assuming they are shrunk down like the DS.

It's hard to tell, but is the X button right up against the right nub, and are X, B, A, Y in a cross pattern, or are they in a lean more like on the SNES controller? They look like a small cross though.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I have already stated several times why the above layout is not a good idea: compared to the Pandora layout, the X and A are swapped. That means that there are two options, none of which are desirable:

  • either we swap the keycodes too (so Home and PageDown are swapped), which would make the positioning of Home-End-PgUp-PgDn very illogical and which would break games that use the ABXY keys as a secondary dpad (e.g. for weapon aiming), since you would need to press the south button to aim left and the west button to aim down.
  • or the keycodes are not swapped, only the labels. But then if a Pandora application/game says "press X", you have to press "A", and when it says "press A", you have to press "X".
Of course none of this is an unsurmountable problem, we could eventually learn to live with it. But why would we purposefully break backwards compatibility in such a confusing way?
 We're not breaking backwards compatibility by having A and X be in different places. All we're doing is referring to the button differently. The functionality still works. And, assuming you don't swap keycodes, (which we totally should not swap the keycodes) then the buttons are still in the same place for gameplay purposes. Then, you only need to learn 2 buttons that are swapped, which is actually a lot less effort than learning, say, for SNES on the Pandora that (legend: Pandora = SNES) A = Y, Y = X, X = B, and B = A.

It would be pretty bad practice in my opinion to use those words to describe the buttons in documentation. I would recommend using the actual symbols (Δ Π Ω X), there should not be any reason to resort to spelled out forms (we don't talk about the A Bee Ex Wye buttons either). Unicode characters should always be available, unless maybe when you're porting some old game which uses a built-in ASCII-only font. In those rare cases you could use descriptions like Triangle Square Circle Cross, or maybe use some kind of ASCII art approximation like


, ___ _ \/
/_\  | | _( )_ /\ or in one line: /\ ][ () ><
That actually hurts your argument. people aren't going to use multiline in text, so they would use one-liners, and while the one-liner for Delta could likely be understood, the one-liners you put for Pi and Omega look nothing like them and would cause confusion. Also, side question: Why did you use >< for Chi instead of X? That is harder for people to see as well.

-God Ginrai
 Forget about ASCII art, just use the actual symbols.
 But you specifically said "unless maybe when you're porting some old game which uses a built-in ASCII-only font." So you can't just say "forget about ASCII art". Also, any bitmap font is unlikely to have the Greek characters as well, so it's not just really old ASCII-font games.

Don't you agree that having to learn a mapping from {A,B,X,Y} to {A,B,X,Y} is harder and more confusing than learning a mapping from {Δ,Π,Ω,X} to {A,B,X,Y}?
 Not at all. I think it's easier to map ABXY to ABXY. As I said, you're only flipping 2 button names with respect to the Pandora layout, whereas with the Greek symbols, you need to learn what each one maps to. That's learning 2 versus learning 4 for Pandora/GP2X games.

Compare:

Using the layout:

     Z

  Y   C

X  B

  A

we get:

Pyra → Pandora: X → A, Y → Y, B → B, A → X

Pyra → Nintendo:  X → Y, Y → X, A → B, B → A

Pyra → Nintendo64:  X → B, Y → CL, A → A, B → CD, Z → CU, C → CR

Pyra → Sega Genesis: perfect match

Pyra → Sega Saturn: perfect match

Pyra → Dreamcast: perfect match

Pyra → PlayStation: X → , Y → , B → , A → X

Using the layout

     Σ

  Δ   Ψ

Π  Ω

  X

Pyra → Pandora:  Π → A, Δ → Y, Ω → B, X → X

Pyra → Nintendo:  Π → Y, Δ → X, Ω → A, X → B

Pyra → Nintendo64:  Π → B, Δ → CL, Ω → CD, X → A, Σ → CU, Ψ → CR

Pyra → Sega Genesis: Π → X, Δ → Y, Ω → B, X → A, Σ → Z, Ψ → C

Pyra → Sega Saturn: Π → X, Δ → Y, Ω → B, X → A, Σ → Z, Ψ → C

Pyra → Dreamcast: Π → X, Δ → Y, Ω → B, X → A

Pyra → PlayStation: Π → , Δ → , Ω → , X → X

Ugh. It's a mess anyway when you're doing emulation.
 Exactly. Looking at that comparision, learning the Greek for emulation looks like quite a mess compared to the Saturn Mapping. I added the Sega Saturn since you were missing it. Looking at this, I see 3 consoles that have a perfect match with the Saturn Mapping, whereas with the Greek Mapping, nothing matches.

Still, for native applications I think having unique, Pyra-specific button labels would be neat.
Honestly, for native applications, I'd just prefer they do like PND Manager did and make neat button icons.

-God Ginrai
 
I have already stated several times why the above layout is not a good idea: compared to the Pandora layout, the X and A are swapped. That means that there are two options, none of which are desirable:

  • either we swap the keycodes too (so Home and PageDown are swapped), which would make the positioning of Home-End-PgUp-PgDn very illogical and which would break games that use the ABXY keys as a secondary dpad (e.g. for weapon aiming), since you would need to press the south button to aim left and the west button to aim down.
  • or the keycodes are not swapped, only the labels. But then if a Pandora application/game says "press X", you have to press "A", and when it says "press A", you have to press "X".
Of course none of this is an unsurmountable problem, we could eventually learn to live with it. But why would we purposefully break backwards compatibility in such a confusing way?
 
We're not breaking backwards compatibility by having A and X be in different places. All we're doing is referring to the button differently. The functionality still works. And, assuming you don't swap keycodes, (which we totally should not swap the keycodes) then the buttons are still in the same place for gameplay purposes. Then, you only need to learn 2 buttons that are swapped, which is actually a lot less effort than learning, say, for SNES on the Pandora that (legend: Pandora = SNES) A = Y, Y = X, X = B, and B = A.

It would be pretty bad practice in my opinion to use those words to describe the buttons in documentation. I would recommend using the actual symbols (Δ Π Ω X), there should not be any reason to resort to spelled out forms (we don't talk about the A Bee Ex Wye buttons either). Unicode characters should always be available, unless maybe when you're porting some old game which uses a built-in ASCII-only font. In those rare cases you could use descriptions like Triangle Square Circle Cross, or maybe use some kind of ASCII art approximation like


, ___ _ \/
/_\  | | _( )_ /\ or in one line: /\ ][ () ><
That actually hurts your argument. people aren't going to use multiline in text, so they would use one-liners, and while the one-liner for Delta could likely be understood, the one-liners you put for Pi and Omega look nothing like them and would cause confusion. Also, side question: Why did you use >< for Chi instead of X? That is harder for people to see as well.

-God Ginrai
 
Forget about ASCII art, just use the actual symbols.
 
But you specifically said "unless maybe when you're porting some old game which uses a built-in ASCII-only font." So you can't just say "forget about ASCII art". Also, any bitmap font is unlikely to have the Greek characters as well, so it's not just really old ASCII-font games.
Well, you'll have 128 non-standardized codepoints in a one-byte-per-character bitmap font, it's not like you'll have a hard time finding some space for 6 greek chars...
 
Well, that's what it looks like now. Let's see if you can dazzle us. ;)
Commencing Dazzle:


Pyra
__________________________________________________________
/ \
| |
| +++++++++ WiFi 3/4G Power Br- Br+ +++++++++ |
| +++++++++ +++++++++ |
| |
| ^ Start |
| (Z) |
| (Y) |
| < > (Nub1) Select (Nub2) (C) |
| (X) ( |
| |
| v Menu (A) |
| |
| |
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 Back |
| |
| Tab q w e r t y u i o p Ent |
| |
| Shift a s d f g h j k l Shift |
| |
| , . z x c v b n m Spacebar Fn |
| |
\__________________________________________________________/
-God Ginrai
Just a couple questions GG. :)
 Sure!

Are the face buttons all the same size and are they smaller than the Pandora's action buttons? I'm assuming they are shrunk down like the DS.
 I'm fine with them either way. The Pandora buttons are actually slightly larger than the GP2X buttons, IIRC, and I found the GP2X buttons to be the perfect size.

It's hard to tell, but is the X button right up against the right nub, and are X, B, A, Y in a cross pattern, or are they in a lean more like on the SNES controller? They look like a small cross though.
The X button is close to the nub, but not right up against it. The extra room was created by moving the nubs closer inwards, since there is empty space between the Start, Select, Menu buttons and the Nubs that can be used for positioning of the buttons. This optionally allows us to move the dpad a little inward if anyone felt it was too far out to the side.

As for the ABXY buttons, they are in a cross pattern. It was made clear to me in the 6 button topic that there is a large number of people who want that.

-God Ginrai
 
Well, you'll have 128 non-standardized codepoints in a one-byte-per-character bitmap font, it's not like you'll have a hard time finding some space for 6 greek chars...
I don't think all developers will be as eager as you seem to be to create those bitmaps themselves.

-God Ginrai
 
Exactly. Looking at that comparision, learning the Greek for emulation looks like quite a mess compared to the Saturn Mapping. I added the Sega Saturn since you were missing it. Looking at this, I see 3 consoles that have a perfect match with the Saturn Mapping, whereas with the Greek Mapping, nothing matches.
Well, for PlayStation and PSP (let's say those are 2 consoles) the Greek letters are a pretty good match. Is Sega emulation more important than PlayStation emulation? No idea, I don't want to start a discussion about that :)

Still, for native applications I think having unique, Pyra-specific button labels would be neat.
Honestly, for native applications, I'd just prefer they do like PND Manager did and make neat button icons.

-God Ginrai
Yes. Neat icons with Greek letters in them ;)
 
Well, you'll have 128 non-standardized codepoints in a one-byte-per-character bitmap font, it's not like you'll have a hard time finding some space for 6 greek chars...
I don't think all developers will be as eager as you seem to be to create those bitmaps themselves.

-God Ginrai
If you aren't going to put in the effort of porting something, then don't.

Besides, you could always just use unifont, if you really want to use a bitmap font...
 
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