The 'select' Button

[sindbad]

Don't forget that there were also plans to use Start and Select (iirc) as CTRL and ALT some time back (back when the designs were first released and various people noticed the lack of such essential buttons on it).

Not that these ideas aren't cool or anything, just we need to be careful find an alternative for CTRL and ALT if this is the route to be taken...

I'd like to use the shoulder buttons for that.

 

[Trip]

Don't forget that there were also plans to use Start and Select (iirc) as CTRL and ALT some time back (back when the designs were first released and various people noticed the lack of such essential buttons on it).

Not that these ideas aren't cool or anything, just we need to be careful find an alternative for CTRL and ALT if this is the route to be taken...

I'd like to use the shoulder buttons for that.

Yeah.. but then u get arguments about which button does which action. I'm voting for CTRL on the left

 

[Xmas]

In that case a good layout maybe..

Select Press = Select in program being used
Select + Hold = Universal program swap (Alt+Tab type with graphical selector)
Select + Fn = Instant swap to the next program (no graphical selector)

Start Press = Start in program being used
Start + Hold = Universal pause in system software (pauses all currently running software)
Start + Fn = Pause for program being used
(Starts normaly used for pausing anyway in most game software)

Menu Press = Menu in program being used
Menu + Hold = Universal system menu
Menu + Fn = Enter bios menu for things like NeoGeo emulators etc. or whatever?

I really don't think you need that many options. An emulator for a system with keyboard can use the start and select keys for pause/menu, while a handheld emulator can always use the keyboard for emulator specific functions. E.g. ESC for the emulator menu, P for pause. Additionally, Start is often used as pause key in games anyway.

I strongly agree with MWeston that presses of the Menu/Pandora/whatever key should be caught by the OS and never be visible to applications. It should probably be used for task switching, but the exact method can be configurable.

Pausing all currently running software means standby. You can already use the lid or power switch for that.

Showing a graphical selector probably means that the OS needs to "own" the top video overlay, so access to the display controller needs to be restricted.

 

[Edy]

Think on it to be as simple, usable and intuitive as possible. I believe that a specific PANDORA button instead of a generic "menu" button would give the console an unique identity, without any doubt on the function of this button to anyone. The Pandora button should be ONLY used by the OS, so the user would have the simplest and most intuitive way to access the OS features anytime and anywhere.

The Pandora button woundn't quit the running application: it would just freeze the app (effectively acting as "universal pause") showing an overlay menu with the OS options. Simply pressing it again would return to the app without further interference.

A combo like FN-Pandora could be user-configurable only as shortcut to an OS function: switch to next running app (this should be the default), close current app, hibernate...

In order to avoid accidentally pressing the Pandora button, the "1 sec hold time" could be implemented but always as an user-configurable setting. It should be "off" by default, so a single press would show/hide the OS menu. If the user wants, then he could choose to enable the "1 sec hold time" option for the Pandora button to have effect.

The Select and Start buttons would be application-defined. If an application doesn't need a Menu button, then everything will be okay. If an application requires a kind of "Menu" button, then it could implement it in the way of the programmer wants: FN-Select, a shoulder button, a specific key...

About the button order:
[Pandora] (tied to the OS)
[Select] (fully app-defined, including hold and FN-combo)
[Start] (fully app-defined, including hold and FN-combo)And the Pandora configuration settings for the Pandora button would be only two:
1 second hold delay [ ]
FN-Pandora action [switch to next app |V]
QUOTE
Showing a graphical selector probably means that the OS needs to "own" the top video overlay, so access to the display controller needs to be restricted.

I don't think that. The underlying OS would freeze the app context including the display controller state (the same that would be done on OS Sleep or Hibernate). It could just render a darkened picture of the application's screen in the background while showing the OS menu on top of it.

 

[Arialia]

Don't forget that there were also plans to use Start and Select (iirc) as CTRL and ALT some time back (back when the designs were first released and various people noticed the lack of such essential buttons on it).

Not that these ideas aren't cool or anything, just we need to be careful find an alternative for CTRL and ALT if this is the route to be taken...

Hum when i realize the miss of Ctrl and Alt ( few week ) i was thinking about action buttons for that

well when you are in typing text you don't need action buttons , right ?

and for emulator of old computer they have no action button so ( joystick of them had only two buttons if i remember well )

 

[MisterBrisby]

Call it Bob.

 

[Sphinxter]

and use Bob to select things.

 

[Xmas]

I don't think that. The underlying OS would freeze the app context including the display controller state (the same that would be done on OS Sleep or Hibernate). It could just render a darkened picture of the application's screen in the background while showing the OS menu on top of it.

What do you mean by freezing the app context?

 

[Squidge]

I think he means pausing the application so it doesn't get scheduled any cpu cycles.

 

[Edy]

Exactly that, thanks (sorry for my bad english)

 

[Nintendo]

Sorry, I cbf reading the whole thread, but it'd be nice (and somewhat mysterious) if the button was called,

PANDORA

 

[PoisonedV]

I agree with all the people in the thread, and think it should be called
THE PANDORA


BUTTON

 

[Miki_Loz]

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

I agree with him, would be kinda cool if you could map it to any game or app, or even for a play/pause button

 

[Xmas]

I think he means pausing the application so it doesn't get scheduled any cpu cycles.

I thought so, but it's better to ask. I think that's a bad idea. You don't want your music player to pause while you're switching tasks or viewing a task manager, neither do you want network connections to time out. Additionally the GPU could still be rendering frames after the application has been paused, updating the framebuffer later on.

 

[monkeyo2]

Couldn't it be the LOL button? Holding shift could change it to LMAO. For too long we've had waste three keystrokes to express the fact that we are in fact "laughing out loud", wasting good flaming time, when with the potentially revolutionary LOL button we could have just pressed the one button, and got on with telling others to STFU.....

Actually, lets make it the STFU button! For too long we've had use four keystrokes to express the fact that we believe in our heart of hearts that the author of a previous posting should "shut the.........

Pandora key would probably be better though.