Universal "emulator Menu" Button

[Nupfi]

Hey guys and gals!
So, thats been bothering me now for quite some time: wouldn't it be awesome if every emulator, homebrew program ect.. would use the same button to call up the options menu?
Just imagine: no more remembering "press both volume keys / press start / press select / press up down right left left ect. for more options".

So, my question is: why cant there be one "standard" button for menu options?
Would make life much easier.

 

[DaveC]

Guys and gals?!

What, has Sara Palin gottin' into emulatin' or somthin'

You Betcha!

 

[Nupfi]

LOL you better cast your vote.. NOW.

 

[Bosbeetle]

I did vote yes but I dont think we'll ever see that

 

[gruso]

I think it's a good idea. Hard to implement though, because many homebrew devs resist the idea of doing things someone else's way. It was always a little bugbear on the GP2X, and it was a breath of fresh air on the Dingoo (native) to see all emus using more or less the same interface.

With the range of controls we have on the Pandora, I think we have a shot at seeing this happen (as devs get more time to work on their front ends).

 

[grasshoppir]

doesn't matter for me, as long as they can be set with command-line args

 

[Wolenber]

Should they? Yes. Will it ever happen? No.

 

[Trip]

Of course it should.
When the Pandora was being designed and they asked for ideas, the first thing I asked for was a dedicated button for that exact purpose and we got the Pandora button. Unfortunately that's now being used for other operating system stuff (and rightly so too).

I put my vote for a simple FNkey+Start button combo. Easy to remember and there is no way to press them both at the same time by accident whilst playing

 

[Pleng]

I vote fn-Q (Escape)

 

[PokeParadox]

I vote fn-Q (Escape)

Escape exits some programs... and rightly so (function+Quit)
I like Trip_monkey's idea FN+Start

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

Hey guys and gals!
So, thats been bothering me now for quite some time: wouldn't it be awesome if every emulator, homebrew program ect.. would use the same button to call up the options menu?
Just imagine: no more remembering "press both volume keys / press start / press select / press up down right left left ect. for more options".

So, my question is: why cant there be one "standard" button for menu options?
Would make life much easier.

Zomg, gizmo noticed another female!
Single?

 

[JayFoxRox]

No, idea is bad because it still gives the devs the options to add more unstandartized stuff

You can't expect the emu devs to implement extra stuff, especially not on Pandora where most emus are ports of existing software. Just stick to the readme of the original and ask the dev to document their stuff.

Somewhat better would be if PXML allowed callbacks and a real menu would appear if the pandora button is pressed - then show the callback functions.
- But most likely not going to happen.


//Edit: So no, the emus shouldn't have the option, but any application should have a special menu.
So my opinion:
No, emulators shouldn't have a special key
Yes, the OS should provide a special key which takes work of the dev to implement a feature like requested

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

No, idea is bad because it still gives the devs the options to add more unstandartized stuff

You can't expect the emu devs to implement extra stuff, especially not on Pandora where most emus are ports of existing software. Just stick to the readme of the original and ask the dev to document their stuff.

Somewhat better would be if PXML allowed callbacks and a real menu would appear if the pandora button is pressed - then show the callback functions.
- But most likely not going to happen.


//Edit: So no, the emus shouldn't have the option, but any application should have a special menu.
So my opinion:
No, emulators shouldn't have a special key
Yes, the OS should provide a special key which takes work of the dev to implement a feature like requested

Kinda like thw wii home menu and the ps3 thing...

 

[fusion_power]

Hey guys and gals!
So, thats been bothering me now for quite some time: wouldn't it be awesome if every emulator, homebrew program ect.. would use the same button to call up the options menu?
Just imagine: no more remembering "press both volume keys / press start / press select / press up down right left left ect. for more options".

So, my question is: why cant there be one "standard" button for menu options?
Would make life much easier.

Yo have some funny things like L+R+A+B+X+Y in mind that should be prevented, reight?
I'm in. There already is a thread about possible standards in Pandora Software. I guess at least some simple basic Standards would make everything more easy especialy for the non-pro-users.

You can't expect the emu devs to implement extra stuff, especially not on Pandora where most emus are ports of existing software. Just stick to the readme of the original and ask the dev to document their stuff.

Devs can bring supa-duper-Emus and Games to life onto the Pandora but are not able to change some simple Button configs? :lol: not really I hope.
I don't expect "extra" stuff but I expect at least a optimized port even if it will not be onto the first release of Software-X. Like you wrote it sounds somehow that most of the "Devs only make a quick port of existing programs and then vanishing in the haze. h34r: But at least SOME basic optimizing in Software (handling/device-specific stuff) should be a must. And I guess it is not that hard to alter a complicated button combo for something like menu or exit the programm (which maybe was a must onto the original device the software came from).
It even could be Srtart or Pandora Button or a combo of these buttons with another Button. But not a to complicated combo. Look at commercial consoles/handhelds, they all have unified buttons for certain actions and nobody ever complained about this. So I guess the pros of this system overwhelming the cons otherwiese every Nintendo Game would have it's own Button Setting for Menus, Confirm/abort, select/start buttons etc...

 

[kaprikawn]

Zomg, gizmo noticed another female!
Single?

It's idiots like you who give gaming a bad name. Twat.

 

[TLJRyan]

Yes!

The biggest problem with the GP2X was the D-Pad.

The second, how every emu used different buttons to call up the menu. I couldn't really blame them much, though, because of the limited input they had to work with to begin with.

But with a shitload of keys, I'm sure most devs will naturally choose keys that makes sense. Much like how you always expect the ESC key in PC games to pull up the options menu, even though that isn't formally standardized.

(Or maybe it is formally standardized within companies...)

 

[Evil Star]

Zomg, gizmo noticed another female!
Single?

It's idiots like you who give gaming a bad name. Twat.

Playa-Hater

 

[Exophase]

I like this idea but I don't like the suggestions here - there are tons of buttons on the keyboard, why should a combo be used, especially for emulators of platforms w/o keyboards? I thought the Pandora button was meant for this purpose, or does it do something else universally already? Anyhow, in Temper escape and 'm' will probably both do it since they do on the PC version, but I'm up for adding another key too.

 

[Sephiroth]

I like this idea but I don't like the suggestions here - there are tons of buttons on the keyboard, why should a combo be used, especially for emulators of platforms w/o keyboards? I thought the Pandora button was meant for this purpose, or does it do something else universally already?

Yep,

Pandora-button in..:
mmenu: closes the current game.
Xfce: short: like the windows-button on windows ~> the startmenu enlarges
long: kill-process window should appear (atm a little bit buggy)

This was posted in the german forum by evildragon

greetings

 

[Exophase]

Thanks Capitano. I think having short push passed to the program (and encouraged for opening menus) and long press kill the process would be preferable to what's currently happening. That's just my opinion, of course.