GP2X Setting A Standard..

[Trip]

I posted here! about trying to set some basic suggestions for developers to follow when creating new software for the GP2x system.
These suggestions were to try & make developing for the system less hassle for the programmers & the programs easier to use/more fun for the normal everyday users.
Lot's of idea's were tossed about & (I think )we came to the conclusion that a key combo of L+R+Start would be a good idea for accessing a menu within games & programmes.

This menu would house some of the more important options for the program like..

• Cancel the menu & carry on as before
• Quit & return to the programmes main menu
• Quit programme completely
• Load savestates
• save savestates
• Whatever options you feel like

This system should go a long way to making the programmes easier to use & more unified for the system, without limiting the imagination of the programmers.

It will also make it easier to test out programmes of different languages, without any prior knowledge of that language. You will know that no matter what type of programme it is, all the most important options you need are only a button combo away.

This system (or slight variations of it) have already been used within some of the emulators with great success.

It pretty much goes without saying that this final decision boils down to what you dev's think about it & you alone.

I'll be asking JimmySlam to post this for the Spanish dev's to add their voices & hopefully other people will be able to do the same for the other communities (not too sure on how many different communities there are right now?). I think that this is something that should be decided by all the communities & not just one.

Anyway.. please leave feedback if you voted negatively on the poll & let us know what you think's wrong with this idea.
Thanks for all your hard work so far dev's, you all rock

 

[gfoot]

I'm in favour of general guidelines (B for primary select, X for cancel, etc) and generally I'd be in favour of games having an easily accessible menu with consistent options, including a clear "quit game" to return to the game's front end menu system. I'd want this to be easier to access though (in games I write) than having to hold down three buttons - I'd just use "start" on its own for this.

I'm also not sure it's worth mandating a quit-to-gp2xmenu option in every instance - a "quit game" option, returning to the game's front end menu, ought to be enough, combined with a quit-to-gp2xmenu option in the front end. The front end itself ought to be quittable by basically pressing X repeatedly, and pressing B repeatedly ought to get you into a sensible game mode without you having to pick any other options.

In any case, nobody is in a position to impose this stuff on game creators - the best you can do is write recommendations so people have a base reference, and if they want to diverge then that's up to them. I do think it's a good thing to write the recommendations, especially if they follow the system already used for the core software (gp2xmenu).

 

[ryosaeba]

Just a clarification: The recommendation of L+R+Start came from the idea that not all programs can use just start for that purpose (think of a snes emulator that binds start to the emulated joypad start button) and that you can use just start + the combo if the program has no problem with that.

 

[Trip]

Just a clarification: The recommendation of L+R+Start came from the idea that not all programs can use just start for that purpose (think of a snes emulator that binds start to the emulated joypad start button) and that you can use just start + the combo if the program has no problem with that.

Cheers Ryo, knew I'd forget something after all that typing

 

[jimmyslam]

So what happen with the SNES? I dont understand... Something is failing on my english...

What is wrong with Start + R + L in SNES?? :huh:

 

[PokeParadox]

We are saying... in new homebrew, just use start. But in emulators use the L+R+Start combo to bring up a menu.

(Because the emulator will have it's system specific controls for the start button.)

 

[tmb_ayebe]

Well I like the idea of standards, but I'm not sure that I like the three button combo, just seems a bit clunky especially when the emus I mainly use are quite happy with one button for the menu.

picodrive, vice : select for menu
OutcaST: start for menu

I appreciate that no one button may work for the SNES emu, but maybe that should be the exception rather than the rule. Then, other emus and homebrew could standardise on 'start' or 'select'.

 

[Trip]

Well I like the idea of standards, but I'm not sure that I like the three button combo, just seems a bit clunky especially when the emus I mainly use are quite happy with one button for the menu.

picodrive, vice : select for menu
OutcaST: start for menu

I appreciate that no one button may work for the SNES emu, but maybe that should be the exception rather than the rule. Then, other emus and homebrew could standardise on 'start' or 'select'.

The 3 button combo was decided on, as it's very hard to hit all them 3 buttons at once while gaming.
If you've tried gngeo2x.. you'll see how well this combo of buttons works when bringing up a menu. It also starts to feel quite natural once you get used to it.

It was decided to use the Start button in combination with L+R, as all the official 2x programs use the start button to exit anyway. Also.. If people press the Start button in any program but it doesn't produce a menu, then they know that they just have to hit L+R at the same time. This should make the combo easier to remember for even the newest users.
As JimmySlam pointed out in the other thread - people are used to using 3 key's at the same time to exit programs anyway (CTRL+ALT+DELETE)

Unfortunatly we can't please everyone all the time, but this combo was decided upon by taking a lot of different arguements into consideration & hopefully most people will be happy to use it.

I'm also not sure it's worth mandating a quit-to-gp2xmenu option in every instance - a "quit game" option, returning to the game's front end menu, ought to be enough, combined with a quit-to-gp2xmenu option in the front end. The front end itself ought to be quittable by basically pressing X repeatedly, and pressing B repeatedly ought to get you into a sensible game mode without you having to pick any other options.

The menu options I entered were just to give you some idea's of the kind of things that it could hold gfoot & your right we can't impose this on programmers, but we can ask nicely
I like the idea of pressing B repeatedly to get you quick gaming, but I think that most people want to use the Start button for exiting (or the quit option in the programmes main menu) just to keep it consistant with the 2x's native programmes.

I'll bump this thread (if needed) on a daily basis for about a week to keep it on the front page long enough for everyone to notice it, vote on the poll & have their say.

 

[DawnOfTheRent]

Well, trying to get a diverse group of programs to conform sounds kind of odd, but, of course, it would be a nice step towards "user friendliness". So, if it can be done, let it be done.

I think that a good fix would be to give the main Front End thingy (like Gmenu2X) the ability to link programs to a 320 by (however long it needs to be) PNG that has all the Controls drawn out on it (and possibly a description of the game, credits, a labeled HUD, or whatever you want on it). Then, whenever you hand someone your GP2X they don't have to ask you the controls for every game they play. They can just press [Y] (or whatever) to bring up the "Help" image.

And to keep it more relevant with the post, you can use this to check the button layout (in case you forget) before entering into the Game)

 

[jimmyslam]

So do you want to have a combo to see a picture to know what is the combo for the exit??
That doesnt sound good does it?

Dont you think is better having a combo to go to the menu and then, from there, u do whatever u want to do?

 

[Trip]

So do you want to have a combo to see a picture to know what is the combo for the exit??
That doesnt sound good does it?

Dont you think is better having a combo to go to the menu and then, from there, u do whatever u want to do?

If I'm understanding DawnOfTheRent correctly(?)..
What he means is that when using Gmenu2X (or one of the other alternative frontends) pressing the one of the currently un-used buttons while highlighting a program shortcut, would automatically look into the programs folder & use the 2x's photo viewer to display either a .png or .jpg picture with the programs key's layout/info on it.

Good idea, as all the dev's would have to do is to ask some of the general 2x users to donate the picture & include it in the programs folder. It wouldn't take any graphical work or coding from them either, well.. except for Ryo & the rest of the dev's that are working on frontends anyway
It would also be interesting to see what designs some of the more talented artists could come up with.

What do you think Ryo? would it be possible or worth it?

***EDIT***
The more I think about this idea, the more I like it.
It reminds me of the old tape inlay's that I used to read through for the C64

Back on topic
I think that the combo should be written Start+L+R (or Start+R+L) as the start button is used by nearly all the programs for pausing anyway. This will make sure that the games paused before going into the menu. If people try & press L then R then Start, it could interfere with other key shortcuts that the developers setup for the program.

 

[ryosaeba]

I think that this can be easily done but it doesn't solve the problem.

I think that usually I would skip looking at those instructions and directly launch the link, then when I need to call the menu or quit the app I would find myself trying all of the combo I can recall (pushing all the bottons together and so on...)

Of course that would be all due to my lazyness but it is a realistic vision IMHO and this wouldn't make the applications more user-friendly...

 

[Trip]

I think that this can be easily done but it doesn't solve the problem.

I think that usually I would skip looking at those instructions and directly launch the link, then when I need to call the menu or quit the app I would find myself trying all of the combo I can recall (pushing all the bottons together and so on...)

Of course that would be all due to my lazyness but it is a realistic vision IMHO and this wouldn't make the applications more user-friendly...

Probably not Ryo, but I think that it would still be a neat feature for your menu anyway (if you get time & want to use it) & it will add even more to the retro feel of the 2x. It will also be a lot more pro looking than a bog standard text file.
I'd quite enjoy opening the pics, just to read the background story of the game etc. before playing

 

[jimmyslam]

the idea of the picture i dont think is a standard... is a help thing but nobody is going to use it probably. I mean i will go to the program and then try different combos and if that doesnt work just turn off the machine cause is too late to have a look at "the picture". We need maybe to do two combos, if one doesnt work we try the second one. is like pressing F10 on some games brings u a menu if not try F5 if not , esc. But normally is something that everyone knows, like the l+r select or l+r start or l+r pad.

some combo...

 

[Orkie]

I wouldn't follow anything like this simply because I don't think that a properly designed interface requires any particular standards for key presses (certainly in a game anyway - different games have different needs, even for their menus ).

 

[jimmyslam]

we are looking for something like ESC. on PC.

 

[Trip]

I wouldn't follow anything like this simply because I don't think that a properly designed interface requires any particular standards for key presses (certainly in a game anyway - different games have different needs, even for their menus ).

Unfortunaly some ports & emulators can't be configured as well as a programme built from the ground up could be. This would give them all the same key presses to get to the menu, that's all. It wouldn't stop the developer from putting what they like into the menu or anything like that

As jimmySlam said.. the idea that DawnOfTheRent had about the picture isn't a standard, it just sounded like a really cool idea & something else that dev's could put into their frontends. He's basicaly suggested a good way of reading game manuals on the 2x & making them easy to access for each game.
I was bored this afternoon, so I made a quick mockup..

That's the sort of thing you were on about isn't it DawnOfTheRent?

Anyway back on topic
Why do people keep thinking that this will totaly change the way that they write programs for the 2x?
It will mean changing hardly anything at all in the way you code, but will improve the usability a hell of a lot more for nearly all the programs.

 

[DawnOfTheRent]

That's quite similar to what I meant, except instead of being navigated as a series of pages, it (originally) would have one long picture the width of the screen (320) that the user could scroll it up or down as they read it, then after they're finished, they could use to launch the program. (or, if possible have the program launch in the background while they're reading, so that way when they press they won't have to wait for it to load)

Actually I didn't think of having pages before, that would definitely make it look more professional (I like it).

Also I didn't think of using the included photo viewer, but that would make it a lot easier on the coders. (and decrease the size of the Front End's download size...... I have an insanely slow connection, so I'm always for that sort of thing.)

Over all it wouldn't help fix the lack of standards (sorry about altering the threads topic), but, like a good standard, it would allow us to hand our GP2X to someone who knows next to nothing about it and let them play without without asking loads of questions.

 

[Trip]

Don't worry about altering the threads topic, as I need to keep bumping this thread anyway

I did the mockup to look like lot's of pages linked together as I thought that this was more like the old game manuals from the eighties. Unfortunatly this means that they don't work quite so well with the standard photo viewer, as it opens up the entire image in full screen & you have to zoom in yourself before reading.
There could be two way's around this..

1. Write a new basic image viewer to tie into the frontends. This would need the ability to load the left side of the image only at full screen instead of loading the entire image at full screen. It would also need the ability to pan left & right with the joystick so you could read the manual.
2. Use seperate (ordered) files for the pages & keep them in one folder. The frontend could load the first file into the standard photo veiwer & you could use the normal next image buttons to view the rest of the files in that folder in the order that you want.

Both have good points & bad points..
The first way would mean more coding, but would open up many more options.
It would also be more pro in it's intergration & be something that's completely unique to the GP2x.
The second way would be less coding & easier to implement into the frontends, but would leave you with less options & it could feel a little bit tacked on.

I prefer the first way myself, but then again I'm not the one who would be doing the coding

 

[DawnOfTheRent]

Well, I guess it will all come down to what Ryo thinks.

I don't know much about Gmenu2X (It says newbie under my name for a reason )... but it looks like it already has something to "view" images, since the background and icons are all PNGs. (which is why I had suggested the images be PNGs at first, I figured it would be easiest for them to make some additions for it, but then I really don't know how anything works "internally" for that Front End so I could be way off.) If it does have a good PNG viewer already in it then Option 1 becomes easier (I hope).