Feature Request: slightly faster game list navigation aids

[jasonbar]

Howdy Loadman-

2 more feature requests to add to your list, please.

Hopefully, these are easy ones & you'll agree that they're worthy of inclusion.   


1: I'm using my spinner to whiz through my game list & using 2 buttons to skip up or down 1 letter for faster browsing to games that are "far away" (I have about 2200 titles in my list).  The "skip letter" button stops at all games that start with 0, then all games that start with 1, then 2, etc.  There are very few games that start with a number at all, so it takes 10 presses of the "skip letter" to not travel very far in the list.  Is it possible to lump all games w/ names starting w/ a number into 1 group so that the "skip letter" button will not skip to each of the 10 numbers?

2: If I'm halfway through a "long" letter in a game list (like the games that start with "S"--tons of those!) & then I want to skip to the beginning of the S games, I hit the "skip letter down" button & expect to go to the next letter division down, which would be the start of the "S" games, but I instead jump to the start of the "R" games.  This seems counter-intuitive & to not match other software (though I'll be darned if I can give you an example right now of what software does what I'm asking).


Anyway, my 2 little humble requests.  Please consider them.


Thanks,
-Jason

[dungbeetle46]

if you use the x up and x down this will skip 10 titles at a time which will help

[jasonbar]

Thanks--yah, I played w/ that feature & then decided against it.

Right now, I'm using a fast spinner for selection, w/ 2 buttons to skip letters.  I think that any more controls than that would confuse the majority of my users.

Thanks,
-Jason

[loadman]

Howdy Loadman-

2 more feature requests to add to your list, please.

Hopefully, these are easy ones & you'll agree that they're worthy of inclusion.   


1: I'm using my spinner to whiz through my game list & using 2 buttons to skip up or down 1 letter for faster browsing to games that are "far away" (I have about 2200 titles in my list).  The "skip letter" button stops at all games that start with 0, then all games that start with 1, then 2, etc.  There are very few games that start with a number at all, so it takes 10 presses of the "skip letter" to not travel very far in the list.  Is it possible to lump all games w/ names starting w/ a number into 1 group so that the "skip letter" button will not skip to each of the 10 numbers?

2: If I'm halfway through a "long" letter in a game list (like the games that start with "S"--tons of those!) & then I want to skip to the beginning of the S games, I hit the "skip letter down" button & expect to go to the next letter division down, which would be the start of the "S" games, but I instead jump to the start of the "R" games.  This seems counter-intuitive & to not match other software (though I'll be darned if I can give you an example right now of what software does what I'm asking).


Anyway, my 2 little humble requests.  Please consider them.


Thanks,
-Jason

OK

I will 

[jasonbar]

Thanks!   

[Deefish]

Jasonbar, I have a question for you. How did you set Mala to use your spinner to navigate the game list?

I have my joysticks and trackball active to scroll the list, but my spinner does not do anything in the list screen. It works fine in spinner games. Is there something I missed?

Thanks,
Deefish

[jasonbar]

Check out this thread: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=65031.0

If your trackball works, then I think your spinner would automatically work too, as both devices are considered mice by Windows (and MaLa)...?

Perhaps your spinner's orientation (vertical vs. horizontal?) is to blame?  My spinners act like horizontal-motion-only mice.

-Jason

[Deefish]

hmmm, well my spinner does move the mouse icon left and right across the screen, but does not activate the game list.

I am using the TT2 from GGG.

Weird. Is there some setting in Mala Options that I need? I will dig deeper when I go home to see if I missed something.

I thought that maybe you had to do something special to add additional "mice" devices for controlling Mala.

If you find out anything let me know.

Thanks,
Deefish

[jasonbar]

Sorry, I have no extra insight or tricks up my sleeve to share.

Actually, I had an old post indicating that I wanted 1 spinner to scroll through games 1 by 1, and my other spinner to flip through games letter by letter.

The response was that MaLa just polls "mouse" instead of a specific mouse, so there was no real way to separate one mouse from another & give it a different function.

That's why I'm confused that your spinner doesn't work, while your trackball does...this is over my head...

Good luck!

-Jason

PS--I have a Blackhawk push/pull & the one that came w/ my SlikStik Quad (Tornado?)

[Deefish]

hmmm, it is weird and frustrating, but not a show stopper

Maybe Loadman could check in and have a possible solution.

You out there oh great one Loadman? Have you seen this issue?

Deefish

[loadman]

Ehh 

Unless I misunderstand the problem.

Can't you choose if you want to use the x or y axis of a mouse/spinner in options.?

"Exchange Axis"

Works on my mouse and my spinner

[jasonbar]

Had a flash of inspiration this weekend & figured..."Hmmm...what if I put a space in the beginning of each game name that starts with a number?  Will that trick MaLa into grouping them as one 'letter'?"

Nope!  I put a space character at the beginning of each of my 20 or so number-starting game names in MaLa GameList & tried the "skip letter" button in MaLa.  It seems to just ignore these games now & skip right over all of them!  Fortunately, I have only 20 or so of them (out of my 2200 or so games in the list), so when I flip to the letter "A", I can see 8 or so of the number-named games above the first "A" game & spin up to the number games pretty easily.

It's an OK workaround, but I'd still be tickled if my request got implemented in a future MaLa release.   


Thanks,
-Jason

1: I'm using my spinner to whiz through my game list & using 2 buttons to skip up or down 1 letter for faster browsing to games that are "far away" (I have about 2200 titles in my list).  The "skip letter" button stops at all games that start with 0, then all games that start with 1, then 2, etc.  There are very few games that start with a number at all, so it takes 10 presses of the "skip letter" to not travel very far in the list.  Is it possible to lump all games w/ names starting w/ a number into 1 group so that the "skip letter" button will not skip to each of the 10 numbers?

[loadman]

Remind me after I get the next release out 

[loadman]

2: If I'm halfway through a "long" letter in a game list (like the games that start with "S"--tons of those!) & then I want to skip to the beginning of the S games, I hit the "skip letter down" button & expect to go to the next letter division down, which would be the start of the "S" games, but I instead jump to the start of the "R" games.  This seems counter-intuitive & to not match other software (though I'll be darned if I can give you an example right now of what software does what I'm asking).

OK I put this into MaLa, it was pretty easy.

My question is, in your example above you meant 'you are in the middle of a big 's' list and you hit letter up to get to the first 's' (rather than letterdown)? Right?

[jasonbar]

 

You've got the right idea--I might've mis-typed in my appliction of "up" vs "down".

Example.  You're at Centipede in your list.

If you hit the button that sends you to the next letter in the alphabet, it will send you to the first game alphabetically that starts with D.

But, if, from Centipede, you instead hit the button that sends you to the previous letter in the alphabet, it will send you to the first game alphabetically that starts with C, *not* the first game alphabetically that starts with B.

Clear as mud?

Thanks!
-Jason

[loadman]

Cool.

Implemented  correctly then ;-) 

1/3 is not bad 

I might make a few more changes before I make the next version available for testing

[jasonbar]

You're on a roll--keep the momentum going!!!

Thanks!
-Jason

[loadman]

1: I'm using my spinner to whiz through my game list & using 2 buttons to skip up or down 1 letter for faster browsing to games that are "far away" (I have about 2200 titles in my list).  The "skip letter" button stops at all games that start with 0, then all games that start with 1, then 2, etc.  There are very few games that start with a number at all, so it takes 10 presses of the "skip letter" to not travel very far in the list.  Is it possible to lump all games w/ names starting w/ a number into 1 group so that the "skip letter" button will not skip to each of the 10 numbers?

Just made the change for this too.  

It's in the next version.

3/3....  

[jasonbar]

You so rock.   


Sooooooooo, when can we download a new version with these fantastic suggestions implemented?   

Thanks,
-Jason

[loadman]

You so rock.   


Sooooooooo, when can we download a new version with these fantastic suggestions implemented?   

Thanks,
-Jason

hmmmm I might do another beta soon