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[ressurectionx]

What did you guys think of:

1) A multi-language menu

2) An in-skin text viewer where the user could view text files in a nicer screen than green on black.

3) A way to randomize music on startup for emus that gilles finds multiple good songs that fit the platform.  

Oh.....

4) Any ideas yet for the "enhanced favorites" screen yet madmab?

[ressurectionx]

Hey Gilles,

Thanks for getting that done so fast bud.  I don't even have the beta yet  

I updated your post in the thread.  Please check and make sure that I have your newest releases for all of the skins you've provided so far.  I believe I do, but since I fell a little behind I'm not completely sure.  Also, if there is more information or pics you'd like me to add for any of them, just PM me or put it in a post here and I'll edit it.  I took a lot of the info you put into them out because with newer versions it was looking pretty messy and some of that info was outdated or conflicting.  I figured I'd just clean it all up and give you the option to add whatever you wanted.


Hey Madmab,

I never heard back from you.  What exactly did you mean by this question "RessX did you ever finish up that alternative game select menu you were working on?"

Whenever you get a chance with that emu I'll be around.  I only have to work 1 day out of the next 7, so I plan on getting a lot done on my last big chance to do it before Christmas.

Later guys,
~Rx

[ressurectionx]

Hey guys.  The PSX beta looks and acts great.  I did notice a few bugs though.


Bugs:  

1) Screenshots only seem to show up when they want to.  Sometimes when I change a setting they won't show up anymore.  For instance, they were showing up and scrolling through the box/action/title/cd just fine until I edited the filename filter and now they don't show up on their own.  I can press right on the left joystick and make the 0001.png show up, but it won't scroll through the other images.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get them to work again, but then I got it.  It seems that I have to "Browse Screenshots", look at a few screenshots, back out to the game list and now the screenshots work fine again (Unfortunately, this somehow deleted the file extention filter, so I have anywhere from 1 to 4 entries for each game in the game select screen now again)

2) Sometimes when I exit a game, the XBox just locks up on me at the "In Game Options" screen.

3) Whenever you select an option, it always goes back to rom directory.  Is there a way to save the last directory to each setting?

4) There are two boxsizes for PSX, so separating Boxart from screenshots doesn't work very well like it has for the other emulators.  Many of the smaller boxes show up at the aspect ratio of the screenshots, while about half of the CD images seem to do the same thing.

Not a bug, just an observation: Rewind does not seem to work.  I enabled the rewind and mapped it to the White button and it never did anything.


New ideas for options on all emulators for future release:  

1)  Lock Favorites.  A setting that will make it so you can't add or delete any favorites from your favorite list unless you turn this back off.

2)  Disable Delete Rom.  Same Idea as the Lock Favorites option.  Keeps somebody from accidentally deleting a rom.


I'll hold off on my PSX testing until you get a chance to look at these things madmab.  

Thanks guys,
~Rx



EDIT:  Gilles, there are some typos in the sprites:

1) BOTH OF THESE HAVE AN EXTRA SPACE AFTER [BUTTONS]
20_[BUTTONS]  A
21_[BUTTONS]  B

2) ALL OF THESE NEED THE OTHER WORDS CAPITALIZED:
40_[PM3] Cursor main menu
50_[PM3] Rombrowser blade
51_[PM3] Rombrowser half blade
60_[TEXT] Madmab edition
61_[TEXT] Splash screen
(There are many more with this problem, just didn't list them all out)

3)  I think the "by Gilou9999" looks messy and uses extra spaces when we're already short on space. I think the way I did it in my edit of your ADAM works much better.

Example:  

73_[BANNER] Breath of Fire 4 by Gilou9999  would be 73_[BANNER-Gilou9999] Breath of Fire IV
(Note that I also changed 4 to IV because it looks better and that's how I'm naming all of the Xtras so they match across all aspects of the emu if we do this to game names in the future)

[ressurectionx]

QUOTE(madmab @ Dec 4 2008, 06:28 PM)

1)  I always suspected filters would create issues, now I know.    Fixed.

Awesome.  Big help here man.

QUOTE

2)  I assume this was not happening with the last version.  I think I know why.  See if it works with the new one I send.

I don't think it was, but it's been about a year or more since I've done PSX testing.  It doesn't happen a ton, but as you know it's annoying when it does.

QUOTE

3)  You lost me here.  What options are you selecting that go back to the rom directory?  Did it do this with the previous pcsxbox?

I believe the old version acted just like ADAM did, where it saved the last spot you were at for any other option.  This is definately an upgrade to that system, but I was hoping that there could be something that wrote a directory to an .ini file for every single option where you need to navigate to a directory.  Is that more clear.  I know this is a tough one to illustrate.

QUOTE

4)  Could you send me a couple samples so I can see if I come up with something?

Sure.  I'll put it on my to do list.

QUOTE

Rewind ->  Not sure if it is even "hooked up".  I know that the Vice64 emulator does not have it hooked up as well.  Chances is are it wont be possible.  The rewind code is a huge memory hog and it doesn't take much to lock it up.  The PSX has pretty large memory compared to the other x-port emulated systems.

That's one feature I never use.  No loss to me.  You're right.  It's probably not possible.

QUOTE

Lock favorites and disable delete Rom.  I take it we would shove these in the general settings?

Sure.  Or we could put them in the regular configuration menu for easy access.  What do you think?

[ressurectionx]

QUOTE(madmab @ Dec 5 2008, 08:14 PM)

1)  Although I think it would be possible the amount of work that would have to go into it would be pretty substancial.  On top of that maintenance would be pretty high if I needed to move or add menu options around.  Something that seems to have been happening ALOT as of late.  

I didn't know how much work for you it would be if somebody made the translation for each of the options exactly where they are now.  It was just an idea, if somebody who is fluent in another language wanted to change the english text to another language for all of the options.  Didn't know if Gilles would like seeing the emus in french too.  

QUOTE

2)  What?  Green on black not your choice of color?    Where do you get green on black from anyways?  When I went into the text viewer it shows white on black.

Sorry.... the ZSNESXBox is Green on black.  I forgot that XPORT is white on black.  Maybe that's the only way to really view it so it's readable.  I thought maybe we could get a cool looking page on the emu to display it on a nice background though.

QUOTE

3)  Add it to the wish list.    I do have to admit it would be nice to have the song change up from time to time.

Cool.  I'm going to really have to start keeping track of the ideas.  I hope you are.

QUOTE

Going back to the "delete file" question.  I thought it defaults to asking the user "Are you sure?".  If that is the case couldn't we just do the same for the Favorites thing?  Just asking.  I still think they'd be better under "General Options" maybe we could just have them default to off.

We could just have it ask the question, but I suppose this goes all the way back to the "Dummy Proof" mode we talked about like a year ago.  I'd like these things to default to off (Although adding games to favorites is something that people will generally want to do from time to time I'm thinking, that's why I suggested that it be put in the configuration options so you can get to it through one sub-menu instead of finding it buried in two pages on the general settings page)

[ressurectionx]

QUOTE(madmab @ Dec 5 2008, 10:36 PM)

Well based on how I've seen other programs do it (which would be the proper way) by having a file with the alternative menu text, allowing the user to "pick" a language.  It would take alot of internal restructuring to accomodate that.  Maintaining it when moving stuff around would increase proportionaly to how many languages were supported.

Bummer....  Maybe something to think about way down the road when everything else is perfected.

QUOTE

Only in my head.  I've been trying to get around to update the list at the beginning of this thread.  But I keep getting sidetracked.

I make all these notes for all this work I do and I haven't managed to make a brainstorming set of notes.  Good thing you usually fix most of the things I come up with before I need to write them down.  

QUOTE

I just don't like cluttering a menu that should lead to other menu's with specific options, if you know what I mean.  It just comes across to me as too cluttered.  That's the big thing and as we come up with more ideas that just means more clutter and less flexibility.

Well.... More ideas and more flexibility, but I see what you mean.  I think these options are pretty important here though.  Maybe we can have one option "Dummy Mode" (or whatever more user friendly name you want to give it, like locked mode) and when you chose it, it will turn off these two options, and any other options we'd like to see frozen when the kids are playing it.

[Mega Man (?)]

Yes to the first part of your question nate, and I believe his next question is:
if Gilles made or can make a new Zsnexbox skin

[Mega Man (?)]

Lets move this on over to the RXtras, forum thread.
We don't need to get in these men's way for this

[ressurectionx]

QUOTE(madmab @ Dec 6 2008, 04:45 AM)

Yeah.  I was going over this in my head yesterday and I think it could be done but it would be ALOT of work and then after that maintenence.    Unfortunately that bumps it pretty far down my priority list.

Yeah.  I'd say it should probably be last on the list, since a revision would need to be made on any menu changes down the road.  We'll put it on our idea lists and talk about it again way down the road.  

QUOTE

Actually this gives me an idea.  If "disabling" certain options is more important than "removing them from the menu" I think I got an idea that could work feasibly.  We might have to nitpick a little on how to "activate" st00pid mode, but I think my idea will work.

Yeah.... I just came up with that as I was replying to you.  I think that disabling a bunch of options and then flipping them all back on like a switch is a pretty sweet idea.  That will keep a lot of people out of trouble, and keep me from getting so many calls from my brothers who accidentally did something they can't undo.  The "Locked Mode" option could also then be placed right in the main configuration menu without cluttering it up at all.

Man it's cool having you guys around to bounce these ideas around off of each other.

[ressurectionx]

QUOTE(madmab @ Dec 6 2008, 09:02 AM)

Well assuming we leave the menu option present but "disabled" it would be fairly easy to setup the code to just ignore that feature if it is listed as being a "locked" option.

I love that idea.  By disabled, do you mean "grayed out"?  That would be a really nice touch so somebody knows that the option is set to unusable instead of dealing with a nasty bug.

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It's just a matter of drumming up a list of what options we want "lockable".  I can then create an internal list which would be referenced.  The user could go into the "Locked Mode Settings" or something like that and define which options they want to be lock when "locked mode" is active, or something like that.

Now that I know, I can start thinking about it while I'm using an emulator.  If this is really doable, I would think that we would benifit greatly from adding a whole ton of options to this.  Now that I think of it, let's take it one step further.....

1) We make a "You know when you were fumbling around with your sasquach hands and deleted some shit you shouldn't have [DISABLED]" mode.
2) The option right beneath that could be for a text file that explains exactly what the option shuts off/turns on.  
3) We make a second disable option which would pretty much put everything except for romplay critical menu options.   A "Total Lockdown" option, if you will.  Or "Unbreakable Mode" maybe.  I would have to go through the menus and think about what exactly would go into it, but I think we could probably just do the following with it....

Main Menu:
Select from Favorites
Select Game
Skin Configuration
Configuration
Utilities
Return to Launcher

NOTE:  As I was looking at that above, I came up with what I think is a great idea.  Call it "Configuration Lockdown" and put the option in "Utilities"  When turned on, the only options, as seen above, are Select from Favorites, Select Game, Utilites (to get back to it to turn it back off again), and Return to Launcher.  

   TOTAL DUMMY PROOF!!!!!!

QUOTE

The only other thing is deciding how to let the user "activate" this functionality.  Whether it be by an INI setting or some other less "obvious" manner.

That's more up your alley man.  I don't know much about that stuff.  I guess that would be weighed out between what's easier for you to do and what takes up the least system resources.  I think the INI is descrete enough if you're worried about somebody changing things there.  Most people wouldn't ever even notice it either way, I think, and those that do would probably know enough to know when they've messed something up and gotten themselves into trouble.  "Delete and reinstall the emu" as quoted by me and probably a thousand others in here over the years, right?

[ressurectionx]

QUOTE(gilles9999 @ Dec 6 2008, 11:20 AM)

The famous dummy mode...
Why each time a kid/friend play with our xboxs they are pushing all the buttons and change all the settings without our permission?

Right?  I know that I continually change the screen filter, take unintended screenshots and all other things on my own when playing a game.  I'd like to keep it simple and locked down when I allow it out of my hands.  Something where it would really take a lot of effort to screw anything up.  

QUOTE

I have finished the enhanced help screen with the "retouched S pad"

Looks great man.   Nice work.

~Rx

[Cospefogo]

DUMMY MODE = Wonderful!
I love the idea of locking FAVS and DELETE ROM.

One more thing:
I am a NEAT guy.
Everytime I want to shutdown my Xbox I exit the emulator
and I go to POWER OFF in the XBMC. I hate to shut it off pressing
the power button in the middle of my game or something...
looks too... brutal... ha ha.

It reminds me when we need to force a shutdown on a frozen
computer. I don't like it... I prefer to go through the correct ways.
Pressing a button ---> Turn off.

SO ----- I WONDER?

Can we have a SHUTDOWN XBOX/POWER OFF in the Main menu for
the emulators? MAME has this, FBA has this...
It could be nice to have Xport with this too.

Just an idea...
C.

[Mega Man (?)]

QUOTE(gilles9999 @ Dec 6 2008, 09:20 AM)

I have finished the enhanced help screen with the "retouched S pad"

They look beautiful, thank you Gilles. Dummy mode! awesome guys, just awesome!

[madmab]

QUOTE(ressurectionx @ Dec 6 2008, 10:38 AM)

Main Menu:
Select from Favorites
Select Game
Skin Configuration
Configuration
Utilities
Return to Launcher

NOTE:  As I was looking at that above, I came up with what I think is a great idea.  Call it "Configuration Lockdown" and put the option in "Utilities"  When turned on, the only options, as seen above, are Select from Favorites, Select Game, Utilites (to get back to it to turn it back off again), and Return to Launcher.  

   TOTAL DUMMY PROOF!!!!!!

Well I wasn't exactly thinking graying the text but I whipped up something that should do the trick.  Right now it is coded to cut the brightness in half of the "locked" menu option.  Or I could just pick a nice shade of gray and stick that that.  Or even RED.. muahahaha

[Cospefogo]

For GOD I swear...
If you use RED I will hunt you and stick an APPLE into your mouth!
And shot you with a crossbow!

Hahahahaha.

Cut the alpha to 50%... or even 25%.
Don't use a solid color.
This can be aggressive to different skins out there.

Thanks bróder.
Cospefogo.

PS. Just remembered something that really annoyed me in the past, but in the
end I got used to it --- The color flashing titles in all Xport emus. For a long time
I really wished to be able to set the titles on a SOLID single color to better
acomodate them on my skins... I even wrote to Xport talking abut it.

But in the end... nevermind.