The 'select' Button

[quartercast]

If Pandora is going to have a truly multitasking OS, then there needs to be a button that switches between tasks. Call it whatever you want, but one of those three buttons needs to either cycle through active programs or bring up a program switcher window.

+1

How about switching desktops?

 

[gaterooze]

True. How about "Swap"?

How do you envision it working (if possible) -- hold the Swap button and the screen shows a list of open programs (like Alt-Tab in WinXP), one of which is the home menu, then hit the touch screen to select which one to switch to?

 

[Lineus]

LOL
cheezburger
???
Profit

Very nice. My vote is still with select though - just a neccesity for too many of the emu's I'd be likely to use (I'm a Nintendo fanboy)

 

[quartercast]

True. How about "Swap"?

How do you envision it working (if possible) -- hold the Swap button and the screen shows a list of open programs (like Alt-Tab in WinXP), one of which is the home menu, then hit the touch screen to select which one to switch to?

Assuming the Pando OS supports multiple desktops, I'd have SELECT bring up a pictorial representation of apps running in the current desktop. D-pad left/right would change focus between these apps. D-pad up/down would swap desktops. Press "A" to execute focus/swap and close pictorial representation. Something like that.

But the button can remain as SELECT, after all you're selecting something else to focus on.

 

[Chip]

True. How about "Swap"?

How do you envision it working (if possible) -- hold the Swap button and the screen shows a list of open programs (like Alt-Tab in WinXP), one of which is the home menu, then hit the touch screen to select which one to switch to?

Ideally, it would be nice to hit the button once to bring up an alt-tab-like window that you could scroll through with either the d-pad or shoulder buttons and select the running program you want with whatever your primary action button is set to. If you change your mind about switching, hit the switch (or swap, or whatever) button again and the selection window goes away.

However, I don't know squat about all the different video modes and windowing services and framebuffer whatnots. It may be that bringing up a window like this when another program has "control" is very difficult or even impossible. If that is the case, pushing the switch button could simply switch to the next running program. With only 128MB RAM, nobody is going to be running more than two or three things at once, so this isn't too terribly inefficient.

In either event, one of the running programs you can switch to should always be the main GUI. If you only have one program running, you need to have something to switch to so you can open another.

Assuming the Pando OS supports multiple desktops, I'd have SELECT bring up a pictorial representation of apps running in the current desktop. D-pad left/right would change focus between these apps. D-pad up/down would swap desktops. Press "A" to execute focus/swap and close pictorial representation. Something like that.

The default UI is going to be a simple GMenu2X-type program selector. There won't really be a "desktop" at all, let alone multiple desktops that you'll need to switch between.

 

[Tinnus]

.....but I like Select.

 

[PokeParadox]

Hello everyone,

The talk of button standards reminded me of something, as you know in the middle of the console between the analogue pads we have 'Start' 'Select' and 'Menu'.

I've never been a fan of the 'Select' button as I fear it won't be used for anything outside of a SNES emu (and even then how many games used it?), and I think it could be put to better use labelled something else, of course it can still be used as select in an emu, but I'd like to maximise the button usage.

I thought of maybe having it as 'OK' or something media player related, but it's up to you guys, maybe you just want it to stay as select or have another idea. What do you think?

Thanks,

Craig

Start and select should stay the same! They are, as mentioned, used for many systems.
Task switching can be many ways. I suggest the centre button brings up a system menu with the option to quit the current application and return to the system menu. Possible a quick app switcher could be in this menu.
I don't see the point in having more than one "menu" type button...

 

[DawnOfTheRent]

I'm not sure if this button is the right button for what I'm about to talk about since it would take away the "select" button dedicated for certain emulators, but with a multitasking device, being able to end a program that crashed without powering down the entire device seems important.. We could label it with the Pandora symbol and mix it's options with the multitasking ideas above: It could go back to the main menu, which if it is going to be like Gmenu2X it can have one tab dedicated to running applications (which this button goes to by default), where, if you wanted, you could either select a new running application, or press a sub menu button over that application's icon (or if you were using the touch screen you could just hold your finger on the icon for X amount of seconds for a sub menu to appear) giving you extra options for managing the highlighted program, one option could be "close" for exiting a non responsive program.

<off topic>
Another idea for a menu option could be: "Suspend to Disk" where if you wanted to, you could stop a running program and move it to your SD card freeing up memory for a different program.. like if you were playing a game and your friend came in and wanted to play with the cool new Pandora (and who wouldn't), You could just suspend the game to the SD card giving him all the memory he needs.. has this been done before? (this might be similar to save states in emulators).
</off topic>

Edit:
To retain the ability to map this button as "Select" for those certain emulators, and to cut down on the accidental pressing and unfocusing of a current application, the button could do only that which the application in focus tells it to do. Only if it's pressed in combination with "Menu" will the button go to the system menu. Actually, this might be a better idea, because when you press "Menu" by itself the program's menu will come up with functions related to that program, but when "Menu" is pressed with the "Pandora" button, the Pandora's Menu will come up.

 

[Tobriand]

Personally, I'd keep it as Select.

But, that said, other alternatives might be CTRL, ALT, TAB or as mentioned, Swap.

Please, though, not home. Anything but home. Well, anything but email but home, anyway...

 

[Sphinxter]

In Brand X games it pauses, brings up the menu and a press while at the menu selects the currently selected item.
In arcade emulation it drops the coin. You can't be thinking of renaming it, good god man, think how it totally sucked when gamepark renamed start.

 

[geo12]

Agreed. Start and Select are necessary. I think the idea of a Pandora button is good too though. Gives it sort of a signature, like the 'X' on the 360 controller. It could be used as a swap button or a home button or whatever.

 

[JakeK]

Just call it the Pandora button.

You could leave it blank and let people map it to whatever they want.

And combine!

QUOTE

Pandora button that can be mapped to anything


Thats what I think .

 

[Gilrad]

If you really want to go obscure gaming references, you could call it 'Mode'

But in all seriousness, I'm all with start, select, and a Pandora button. Just give it a pandora logo and call it good.

 

[Chip]

It would be nice to have a select button, but the swap button is far more important. Swapping between programs is something that you will do all the time. You can still map select to any of the 40-something other buttons on the keypad for the rare occasion when it's needed in a Nintendo or PSX game.

 

[gaterooze]

What if pressing Select performs as you would expect, but holding it for a couple of seconds brings up the switch/swap menu?

 

[PokeParadox]

It would be nice to have a select button, but the swap button is far more important. Swapping between programs is something that you will do all the time. You can still map select to any of the 40-something other buttons on the keypad for the rare occasion when it's needed in a Nintendo or PSX game.

We have a keyboard... can't we just Alt-TAB, and have a swap option in the Global system menu activated by the Pandora button?

 

[Chip]

We have a keyboard... can't we just Alt-TAB, and have a swap option in the Global system menu activated by the Pandora button?

Unfortunately our keyboard doesn't have an ALT key and TAB is already a secondary function. Considering that task switching is something that everybody will be doing frequently, it does need a dedicated button. Requiring more than one or two button presses to switch between programs will get really old, really fast.

What if pressing Select performs as you would expect, but holding it for a couple of seconds brings up the switch/swap menu?

Is a dedicated select button (something that is only necessary in about 10% of the games on a handful of emulated systems) really worth having to wait a couple seconds every time you want to switch between programs?

 

[Mr PPV THC]

Call me old school or a nintendo mark...or both, but i think select is the way to go. if you were going to change it i think having a "pandora button" sounds cool also.


damn i cant wait for Pandora!

 

[magicman5421]

+1 for the pandora button. again, it's kind of like the x in the middle of the xbox controller. just gives it a little bit of uniqueness.

 

[gruso]

"TILT"

I like the program switching idea, and I think the word Select fits it nicely (select app, swap app, switch app, all the same thing really). Sometimes the status quo is the best way to go, imo. Yo.