Action button labels

[_wb_]

Another thread (cf. http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/15631-mipi-woes-good-design-ideas-and-headaches/page-4#entry316024) got quite seriously derailed into a discussion of how the 6 action buttons should be labelled. So let's make a thread to have a more serious discussion about this.

I'll try to summarize some of the discussion from the other thread.

One point is that we are in a rather unique position by having game controls as well as a keyboard, which can cause confusion:

One of the biggest issues I had with the Pandora when talking about pressing keys was the need to qualify which A, B, X or Y key I meant, as the Pandora has 2 of each. It would actually simplify things greatly to use symbols instead of letters to refer to those keys. (symbols that are easily named but don't otherwise appear anywhere else on the keyboard, so that there is no room for confusion)

Another point is that game consoles all use different conventions:

NES:

B A

SNES and Wii:

X

Y A

B

Megadrive:

X Y Z

A B C

PSX:

Tri

Box Sq

X

N64:

CU

CL CR

B CD

A

Dreamcast and X-Box:

Y

X B

A

GameCube:

Y

A X

B

OpenPandora:

Y

A B

X

____________________

Now tell me again about "the standard"...

This causes a lot of confusion when emulating different systems. You have to remember which emulated button maps to which physical button.

Nor have I, but many emulated games will tell you which buttons to press and that will (naturally) refer to the emulated layout.

I've also once had someone (I think it may have been Askarus) tell me to press B to do something in a DS game in DraStic, meaning DS B which is Pandora X.

Yeah but those two things will be the case no matter what the buttons are called. Unless we want to put little displays in the buttons and have the labels change with the program, and please no one seriously suggest that.

Yes, but you're missing my point. Borrowing Klumpen's suggestion, (purely for being a positional representation) it's a lot easier to remember that East=A, South=B, North=X, West=Y than it is to remember B=A, X=B, Y=X, A=Y.

Basically, using the same symbols you are mapping for the buttons they are being mapped onto is inherently confusing, unless the symbol mapping already matches the button mapping.

If you have buttons labelled A,B,X and Y which were mapped to Y, A, B and X respectively, and tell you "Press Y", do I mean the button mapped Y or the button labelled Y? On the other hand, if you have buttons Labelled I, J, K and L (for the sake of this argument) mapped to A, B, X, and Y, (respectively) and I tell you to press A it's clear which button is intended.

Finally, another point is backwards compatibility with the Pandora:

I'm also selling GameGadgets, and they have the ABXY keys in a different order.

They included a port of Puzzletube to the GameGadget (which uses ABXY buttons to play), and they are completely messed up.

The game is pretty much unplayable (at least that one mode) because of that.

This would happen to all quick ports of Pandora games or games that will run via the compatibility mode...

That's definitely not what we want.

If two buttons are to be added to the Pandora ABXY layout, there is no way to label them with letters, keep the position of the original ABXY buttons, and get a result that looks like it makes sense...

The only logical progression is

C

Y Z

A B

X

So I proposed to use completely different symbols: Greek letters that happen to look a bit like Playstation buttons:

What about using Delta - Pi - Omega - Chi for the 4 "main" buttons (Δ Π Ω X), and e.g. Sigma and Psi for the 2 new buttons (Σ Ψ)?

Δ

Π Ω

X

These are all recognizable as unambiguous new symbols (except for X, but that's OK because it's in the same spot as before), and yet they resemble the PlayStation symbols quite a bit

They also make some sense: Pi (the first letter of Pyrrha) is the first button (the same as A on the Pandora), it maps to Home. Omega (the last letter of the Greek alphabet) maps to End. Delta looks like a triangle pointing up, and it maps to PageUp (also it's a D which could refer to Dragonbox). Chi looks like an X and that's also how it's labeled on the Pandora.

If backwards compatibility is really important, it can be done by putting dual labels on some buttons, like this:

If we use Π/A Ω/B χ Δ/Y for the main buttons and Γ (Gamma, looks a bit like an "r") and ν (Nu, looks like a "v") for the extra buttons, the buttons can spell the words Pyra, Pandora and DragonBox (if you're fine with a mix of Greek and Latin letters that is), are completely backwards compatible with Pandora, can be described using plain ASCII (A B X Y r v), can be described using non-ambiguous symbols (Π Ω χ Δ Γ ν) that are present in nearly all fonts, and the Π Ω Δ X layout is pretty good for PS1 and PSP emulation without actually using the □ ◯ △ X shapes.

(sorry about the messed up indentation in the quotes, there seems to be a forum bug that ruins the indentation)

 

[SNESFAN]

The "dice" suggestion is my favorite. 1-6 numbering order isn't that important IMO but 1-3 at the bottom and 4-6 at top might be more eye appeasing. As far as backwards comparability I think the abxy should be closest to the nubs and the new buttons the furthest away that could be mapped to something else.

When it comes down to it the actual labels shouldn't matter, I often forget what order the buttons are mapped on different consoles. But I remember which system had "select" in the south most direction and games that didn't follow this unspoken standard used to piss me off way more than the labeling being different.

Emulators seem to have it right now for the most part (thanks pitseb & robert B) allowing people to remap buttons but there was a good portion of time where you couldn't. Make it easy to remap and you can leave the buttons unlabled for all I care.

What is more important that all that though is that the faces of the buttons remain tactile flat, I don't care much for the feeling of the letter B in my thumb.

 

[Saber]

Nice, thoughtful post _wb_, but I think leaving the face buttons as they are on the Pandora is the wisest move. Changing them to yet another arrangement different from, as you've illustrated, other labelings offers no real advantages from keeping it as is.


Besides, there is only so much you can fit on one button without decreasing it's legibility.

 

[Granitehead]

Nice, thoughtful post _wb_, but I think leaving the face buttons as they are on the Pandora is the wisest move.

Impossible if we have 6 of them.

 

[Saber]

Nice, thoughtful post _wb_, but I think leaving the face buttons as they are on the Pandora is the wisest move.

Impossible if we have 6 of them.

On the contrary, I've shown it's possible to keep four big normal size face buttons and add two smaller ones for fighting game aficionados in the first post of the "Unofficial Keyboard Layouts" thread.

As I've said before, imagine there's two smaller buttons to the left and right of the "Y" button, or the North buttons of any good game controller, and you'll see it could work without shrinking the regular ones down in size.

 

[Natsu]

As I said before, most of them use the same letters. Greek letters are stupid, period.

        Z
    Y      C
X      B
    A
 

(sorry about the messed up indentation in the quotes, there seems to be a forum bug that ruins the indentation)

I think you have to do it in the mode that actually shows what things will look like when you post.

 

[Terran]

  Δ

Π Ω

  X

hmmm... seems familiar

*search*

 

[Klumpen]

  Δ

Π Ω

  X

hmmm... seems familiar

*search*

My Google-Fu says that it's from here:

http://en.anisearch.com/anime/7101,boku-wa-tomodachi-ga-sukunai

 

[Terran]

  Δ

Π Ω

  X

hmmm... seems familiar

*search*

...

My Google-Fu says that it's from here:

http://en.anisearch.com/anime/7101,boku-wa-tomodachi-ga-sukunai

jeah, it is from this anime ^^

 

[Klumpen]

OnTopic: My favourites

     N    X1

W       E   X2

     S

    5    6

4      2   3

    1

 

[Cloudef]

I want the buttons to be programmable displays so we can emulate platforms better.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

As I said before, most of them use the same letters. Greek letters are stupid, period.

I like what _wb_ proposed.  I don't see anything wrong with using Greek letters unless you didn't take a math course or physics in your entire life .  If that's the case you don't belong to the Pyra club

 

[Natsu]

Let me rephrase that. Greek letters for the buttons are stupid, period. It just plain unnecessary. 

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

Let me rephrase that. Greek letters for the buttons are stupid, period. It just plain unnecessary. 

Explain

 

[Kiga]

Greek letters are the future. I just can't understand why some people hate them, I really want to understand.

 

[PokeParadox]

They are just characters, they look similar to the PSX buttons and they are distinctive enough to differentiate...  I don't see the problem.

 

[_wb_]

As I said before, most of them use the same letters. Greek letters are stupid, period.

        Z


    Y      C


X      B


    A 

^ This is not backwards compatible with the Pandora, X and A are swapped. That is a very bad idea. Imagine a playing a Pandora game on the Pyra that says "Press [X] to confirm or [A] to abort". That would be really confusing. If we would use Greek letters (without the small backwards-compatibility hint labels), you may not know where that [A] button is supposed to be, because on the Pyra it is Π, but at least you don't get weird swapped around instructions.

To make it backwards compatible, you would have to change it to:

    Z

  Y   C

A   B

  X

or

    C

  Y   Z

A   B

  X

or

    C

  Y   D

A   B

  X

or something like that. None of those options look good, in fact they all look completely messed up if you ask me.

Not to mention that using latin letters has the problems outlined in my first post: confusion between keyboard letters and action buttons, confusion between emulated buttons and physical buttons.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

As I said before, most of them use the same letters. Greek letters are stupid, period.

        Z


    Y      C


X      B


    A 

^ This is not backwards compatible with the Pandora, X and A are swapped. That is a very bad idea...

Yes this would be DEADLY!  Confusion in game and one wrong button you're dead   THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS ISSUE!

 

[God Ginrai]

On the contrary, I've shown it's possible to keep four big normal size face buttons and add two smaller ones for fighting game aficionados in the first post of the "Unofficial Keyboard Layouts" thread.

As I've said before, imagine there's two smaller buttons to the left and right of the "Y" button, or the North buttons of any good game controller, and you'll see it could work without shrinking the regular ones down in size.

 Absolutely not. Your idea for the layout of the buttons was absolutely miserable, and the only reason I didn't address it before is because I didn't want to drag the keyboard topic you posted it in offtopic. If you had actually participated in the six button topic, you would have realized that the consensus is to keep a 6-button layout that was close to the Saturn layout that also allowed 4 of the buttons to have a cross pattern so that those who want their 4 cross buttons can still have them.

Let me rephrase that. Greek letters for the buttons are stupid, period. It just plain unnecessary.

Explain

Not everyone knows what Greek letters are called. This will lead to problems in communication.

It is not that hard to get over having a key named A and a button named A. If something tells me to press A and it doesn't work when I press the button, the next thing I'll do is try the key. If the key works, then I'll remember it uses the key. It's not rocket science. And trying to complicate everything like _wb_ is doing is just not worth it.

-God Ginrai

 

[God Ginrai]

^ This is not backwards compatible with the Pandora, X and A are swapped. That is a very bad idea. Imagine a playing a Pandora game on the Pyra that says "Press [X] to confirm or [A] to abort". That would be really confusing.

Bullshit. We've done just fine on the GP2X, Wiz, and the Pandora understanding that in emulation. This is no different.

-God Ginrai