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So what would you guys like to see?
x-wing:
--- Quote from: SirPoonga on August 03, 2002, 07:52:52 pm ---
Favorite list. Yeah, yoiu have that list helper, but AHHHHH, not user friendly:) Again, comparison to my FE. I can create a list on the fly.
I'll explain how I do it just as a reference.
Yapfe right now works like this. There is the pacman icon in the upper left, that's the central point. Then to the right is 4 "buttons" displays categories and user lists.
When pacman is highlighted if you push select and the next 4 categories show in the buttons. Once you get to the end of the categories then you start displaying any user created lists. To change and existin list you highlight it and push up, that puts yapfe into "edit" mode in which when you go through roms list if you push select you add or subract it from the list. Doing it this way you can only add or subtract roms to a user list from the last category shown. we haven;t figured out a good way to change categories with the navigation concept behind yapfe. Anyway, that isn;t a big deal, usually what will happen is I or a friend will see a game and want to add it to a list. Doing the above methos keeps that game on the screen. To get out of edit mode you just go back up to the name of the list and push up again. To start a new list there will always be a blank button available. Goto it and push up to enter edit mode. Being a new list you will be force to give it a name (limited by 10 characters, same method as the search for entering letters/numbers).
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Well, I guess you can't get much more user friendly than that.
Do you think yapfe will have any other neat little shortcuts? ;)
x-wing:
Just in case it wasn't obvious, the above was seriously tongue-in-cheek. I couldn't program my way out of a paper bag, so the things you guys do just seem amazing. Can't wait to see yapfe.
SirPoonga:
Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but ypafe may not come out for sometime. It's being made for just for my cabinet. My cabinet is themed, like Roswell 88201 (http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade_roswell.html and http://www.arcadecontrols.com/images/Roswell_Frontend.jpg).
We may let it go out to the public. If we do don't expect an easy setup:) As it will not be supported. We would release it for fun. If you run win98 you'd need to get the latest Jet drivers from m$ so you can use the access2000 db.
Howard_Casto:
(I wanted to put a quote from sp's post up here but yabb said my message was too long. I guess I talk too much. ;) )
Ok for public reference I'll go over these down the line. Those are some great ideas btw.
Lazarus already has full mouse support in a pont-and-click style.... you have to activate the buttons, though in the skin your making. However It will never be fully act-labs comp simply because I don't like buttons and i use a left-click, right-click, double-click mwethod to navigate. I want my fe to remind you (however loosely) of an arcade selection screen within a video game. Arcade games don't have buttons, but windows apps do, so i try to stay away from them.
I've actually been contemplating on a recently played games list. It would be easy enough to code, but I can't figure out where to put the darn thing. As it's a special list I would like to keep it seperate from the rest.
As you said I like the search idea and that will be added very soon. As for the favorites list. The list helper isn't really designed to make favorites, it's more for generating dat files for emus that lack dats, and adding pc games to a list. This isn't well documented yet so I can understand the confusion. Favorites lists are actually very easy to make. You make a path entry in your dirs.ini and Then make the follwing search entry...... 2=Pacman;2=Galaga;2=Street Fighter 2
or whatever your preference until you've filled a list. When you add a single game at a time it ignores the clones flag too, so you could say add all the mk parents and then add 2=Ultimate Mortal Kombat to add umk3 which is technically a clone but still has enough options to be a full fledged version.
As for creating lists on the fly... I can understand how some people would like that, but personally I don't. I take a lot of time getting my lists just the way I want them and I don't wnat my goober friends coming in and screwing it up. As a matter of fact I go to great lengths to do the opposite, that is make sure the major things can't be changed at run time. The only thing that can be changed is the appearance, which is easy to set back afterwards.
In another approach, what I've been thinking of doing is adding a recall button like on your tv's remote. press the button and you zoom back to the last game played. Press it again and you go back to your original position on the list.
I like your idea of moving through categories though... I have a ocx that turns a label into a scrolling marquee. What I could do is add a this with all of the list names and have to were if you click on a caption it jumps to that particular list. Again I hate buttons... I'm just trying to figure out a way i could do it without using them. This would obviously be a mouse element though and wouldn't be included in my default skin.
)p(:
--- Quote from: Howard_Casto on August 04, 2002, 06:06:53 pm ---
I like your idea of moving through categories though... I have a ocx that turns a label into a scrolling marquee. What I could do is add a this with all of the list names and have to were if you click on a caption it jumps to that particular list. Again I hate buttons... I'm just trying to figure out a way i could do it without using them. This would obviously be a mouse element though and wouldn't be included in my default skin.
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You could do that like I do as a variant on the highscore entry search...instead 3 letters horizontally you have the filters listed when you move the joystick and moving the joystick up and down scrolls through the options for that filter, for example the categories...works really well in my opinion...
Peter