Some suggestions

[Valpskott]

First of all. Is there any Suggestions section on this forum, if there are, then please move this thread there If there isn't, then make one


Secondly, I found an app the other day named PNDstore... Real great app, this should be in Hotfix 6 and forward. And see to it that all/most of the availible software gets into the repo(could not find Mupen).


Thirdly, might I suggest standardized button layout for emulator menus. Something like this:


Quick tap on Pandora Button = Emulator Menu


D-Pad = Navigation(scrolling trough options)


X, Enter = Take Action (Confirm/Apply/Go Forward/Open Directory/Open Rom... etc)


B = Back


Esc(Fn+Q) = Quit (Yes/No)


More often than not, I have to end Emulators with holding down the Pandora Button and killing the process. For Menu some Emus have "Space" and others have Esc(Fn+Q), while others doesn't seem to have any menu-button at all. I don't really care which button gets standardized, but intuivly I tried the "Pandora Button" the first times, so to me it would make sense.


I'd really like to see some kind of standard here for the Emulators that have a Menu.


I welcome critique, counter-suggestions and additionional suggestions.

 

[darfgarf]

youknow every handheld has had people saying 'we really ought to standardise it' but nothing ever happens, so good luck pursuading everyone to use the same controls (i just pick something sensible, so pandora button for menu would make more sense than esc etc)

 

[meandu229]

Not even just handhelds, how many PSX game change accept/ok between O and X.


I do think pandora button should be emu menu, if possible

 

[cinaed666]

YES.


Standards = must.

 

[MarioPandio]

Whilst I agree standards would be great and Craigix would no doubt also like to see something like this happen, we have to agree that the creators all have their own ways of doing things and may not wish to conform to such restrictions.


In addition the majority of emus currently available are ports from other systems, not freshly made Pandora designed versions. Its still early days despite the pro-longed batch1-2 process. I doubt it will ever happen though for the reasons gfrancisdev states. Effigy and Wahcade were intended frontends that may have gone some way toward such a thing and Pickles PickleLauncher has been an excellent frontend skin for many of the existing emu's. I dont know whats happened with Effigy or Wahcade as they didnt seem to create the intended interest that they deserve, again due to small current userbase or perhaps they just arent feasible.


The Pandora button is supposed to work for Mupen as the exit button but all it tends to do is call up the xfce menu in the background, ruining framerate and making it difficult to exit the app blindly. As a result many people have altered the keymap to make a different key like X or Q kill it instead. I imagine such behaviour will also occur in many emus if it is adopted universally. It only seems to work well from minimenu as the default kill method.


It would be great to see more unified UI's for all the emu's though but in the meantime, we must appreciate them for what they already are. Which is pretty good at certain jobs but lacking some polish here and there.


Give things time or make a huge bounty to get the changes required of interest to all the differing dev's involved. They arent making much cash from their spare time efforts otherwise.

 

[Caine]

Secondly, I found an app the other day named PNDstore... Real great app, this should be in Hotfix 6 and forward. And see to it that all/most of the availible software gets into the repo(could not find Mupen).

This is planned. source. Though Craig seems to think it is not user friendly and kinda refuses to support it in the official appstore and chooses to develop his own alternative instead (refer to the linked thread).

Thirdly, might I suggest standardized button layout for emulator menus.

There have been plenty of discussions about this already but they never seem to lead to any consensus and/or actual activity.

 

[Valpskott]

Thirdly, might I suggest standardized button layout for emulator menus.

There have been plenty of discussions about this already but they never seem to lead to any consensus and/or actual activity.

Too sad, the Pandora would benefit from a standard.


Something just sprang to mind... if Emus started using a file called menubuttons.txt in the Pandora directory(check if present, if not, write file SD-card/Pandora/menubuttons.txt). Then we wouldn't really need a consensus on what the buttons should be sinse anyone can configure their own prefered buttons.


I have a hard time imagining some programmer condoning the idea of sharing menu-button schematics with other EMUs... the hard part ought to be motivating some of them to do the acctual implementation.


And I do believe ports that use the standard in some cases would be favoured over ports that don't use the standard.

 

[darfgarf]

I have a hard time imagining some programmer condoning the idea of sharing menu-button schematics with other EMUs...

i don't, sure everyone would love to use a single system, but that would mean only letting in programs that obey the rules, and that's not how this works


everyone would want their method to be standard anyways XD

 

[MarioPandio]

"War with Emunia is imminent"


"The Ministry of Pandorian Correction will soon have everything ++good and all for the betterment of Pandoria. Give your Overseers 2 months"


"Blandoria Ville Welcomes You"

 

[Nintendo]

I don't mind how it is now, because with each emulator...once I've played it a few times, I never forget.

 

[Valpskott]

I have a hard time imagining some programmer condoning the idea of sharing menu-button schematics with other EMUs...

i don't, sure everyone would love to use a single system, but that would mean only letting in programs that obey the rules, and that's not how this works


everyone would want their method to be standard anyways XD

Hmm, I think that I at least tried to be clear on the point that I was not trying to force developers to use the Standard. "that would mean only letting in programs that obey the rules" isn't at all what I was going for. The standard I was proposing should at it's peak only be a recomendation or a plee. And if it's only a matter of a shared configuration file for menubuttons, then it's up to any user to use their own standard for the Emulators they have installed(which adheres to the standard).

 

[darfgarf]

Hmm, I think that I at least tried to be clear on the point that I was not trying to force developers to use the Standard. "that would mean only letting in programs that obey the rules" isn't at all what I was going for. The standard I was proposing should at it's peak only be a recomendation or a plee. And if it's only a matter of a shared configuration file for menubuttons, then it's up to any user to use their own standard for the Emulators they have installed(which adheres to the standard).

yep, but recommendations won't get very far without enforcement, which isn't exactly practical in this case, best way to actually make it stick would be a bunch of people agreeing on sensible things (not down to which button is fire/bomb, but which menu button, and definately which button combination for menu/quitting) and then those people sticking to it, then hope it grows i guess

 

[Valpskott]

Hmm, I think that I at least tried to be clear on the point that I was not trying to force developers to use the Standard. "that would mean only letting in programs that obey the rules" isn't at all what I was going for. The standard I was proposing should at it's peak only be a recomendation or a plee. And if it's only a matter of a shared configuration file for menubuttons, then it's up to any user to use their own standard for the Emulators they have installed(which adheres to the standard).

yep, but recommendations won't get very far without enforcement, which isn't exactly practical in this case, best way to actually make it stick would be a bunch of people agreeing on sensible things (not down to which button is fire/bomb, but which menu button, and definately which button combination for menu/quitting) and then those people sticking to it, then hope it grows i guess

Haha, did you read my initial post? I could have been more clear, but I never mentioned fire/bomb or any other in game buttons.... the only thing I proposed was a standard for the emulator menu, like a button to acess it and buttons for navigating the emu-menu.