The Enhanced Help Screen, A more "digest" help screen is welcome in XPORT's emus Options

[gilles9999]

Hello to all the XBOX 1 fans!
The emulation experience in the xbox 1 is the best thanks to XPORT and all the genius coders.
I created this topic about the enhanced help screen to avoid confusion with the others threads.
One thing i have noticed when friends/kids are playing my xbox is:
They always asks "Which button do what?", they don't even know where is button X, Y, A, B, start, etc...
And the actual "textual help screen" is ... a little indigest!
That is why i suggest, a "visual help screen" where you see (with a good pic of the famous "S" pad)
easilly, and directly all the functions of the Xport's emus by pressing "start"

Example 1: You are in the "game selection menu", you are pressing start, you'll see this:



Example 2: You are viewing a text file, you are pressing start, you'll see this:



p.s.: by default in the "view text file screen, the "start button" is used for Increase width
of simulated fixed-width font; that's why i suggest this solution: start button for displaying the enhanced help screen (always), and the right thumbstick for these options

This post has been edited by gilles9999: Dec 7 2008, 12:33 PM

[madmab]

Cool. I'll be slapping these in some time after I get the manual/commercial viewing code going. I'm gonna kinda rely on those routines to handle displaying them. I'll probably put them in a "help" directory or something like that.

[madmab]

Bada bing bada bump....

I was thinking today in regards to the latest inquiries on NES pallettes that it may be useful to have some type of help system for the game configuration screen for the different emu's.

Basically it would just consist of some comments on what the options mean and/or what purpose they serve. This idea would also be extended to the "in game options" screen since it can include emu specific options as well. It would be relatively easy to emulate since these "options" are all handled in the emu side of the code and not in commonfuncs..

For example... In atarixlbox you have..

"Swap Joystick Port 1 with 2 -"

The help entry would say something like.

Some games look for the joystick in port two. Use this option for those games.

There are a couple ways we could handle this. We could do it synopsis style and have the user press a certain button to get help for an option (like start or right-analog-stick-button). Or we could just have the standard generic help screen which displays all the information for all options on that screen.

So what do you all think?

This post has been edited by madmab: Dec 30 2008, 12:12 AM

[ressurectionx]

I like it man. Could you explain a little more about the "synopsis sytle" option. I'm not picturing it. It sounds good to me, but how would it work?

[madmab]

Synopsis style means the help text would work in the same manner that the current synopsis text works.

User moves highlight over line in question.
User presses right analog stick.
Help text for that particular option is displayed the same way the synopsis is displayed (popup).
User can scroll (if needed but unlikely).
User presses b to remove help text.

[Mega Man (?)]

I really like that idea!
The help screen with every thing on it may be over looked and a little confusing for some, but the synopsis style is definitely the most user friendly. over all; great idea

This kind of thing will even help "us" not knowing all these options

Thanks madmab

[ressurectionx]

Synopsis style means the help text would work in the same manner that the current synopsis text works.

User moves highlight over line in question.
User presses right analog stick.
Help text for that particular option is displayed the same way the synopsis is displayed (popup).
User can scroll (if needed but unlikely).
User presses b to remove help text.

I really like this idea.

What if the options menus displayed the help automatically, in a smaller separate window at the bottom of the options screens? When you're highlighting over an option in the option selection window there is a smaller window that takes up the bottom of the screen that automatically pulls up the short help text on it for display.

I figure most of our option screens don't have a ton of options anymore, now that they're better organized, and there would be more room to accomidate a one-line "help text" box at the bottom of the options screens. I'm sure any menu with too many options can be better organized anyways. If, for some reason, there is a very in-depth help text associated with an option, the user could still press the joystick and "zoom in" to a full size synopsis-like screen where they could scroll up and down to see everything.

Or, even better, maybe even we could display just the top line of the help text in the "help window" and leave it to the user to press the right joystick button down to see the full help text.

What do you think about that guys? Is something like this doable madmab?

~Rx

This post has been edited by ressurectionx: Dec 30 2008, 03:34 AM

[madmab]

What if the options menus displayed the help automatically, in a smaller separate window at the bottom of the options screens? When you're highlighting over an option in the option selection window there is a smaller window that takes up the bottom of the screen that automatically pulls up the short help text on it for display.

I figure most of our option screens don't have a ton of options anymore, now that they're better organized, and there would be more room to accomidate a one-line "help text" box at the bottom of the options screens. I'm sure any menu with too many options can be better organized anyways. If, for some reason, there is a very in-depth help text associated with an option, the user could still press the joystick and "zoom in" to a full size synopsis-like screen where they could scroll up and down to see everything.

Or, even better, maybe even we could display just the top line of the help text in the "help window" and leave it to the user to press the right joystick button down to see the full help text.

What do you think about that guys? Is something like this doable madmab?

~Rx

It may be possible to do that. I'd have to tinker around with it when I can get to it. I'll have to work up a few text samples for atarixlbox in the meantime.

[ressurectionx]

That would be real cool madmab. Let me know how that works out...

[gilles9999]

In fact it's easy to have a french help screen, the only textual background; when you have the photoshop psd file.And easy to bring the fr translation.xbmc has a language otion, but in xport emus it would be awesome, and generate buzz in the camembert and wine country.

[gilles9999]

For the users of the new betas with the "press start for help".
put this pic in the "help" folder (right click, then copy/paste it):



In the first "game selection menu.jpg" , the text had overscan and it wasn't really clear
now, the text is perfectly centered "without" overscan while displayed on our tv's.

Again, great work Madmab

[ressurectionx]

I can't get the help to work with the new betas Gilles. Where does the "help" directory need to be and what should the .jpg name be?

Do you think it would be a good idea to put the "Help" folder in the skin directory, so every skin could have its own help screen pic?

~Rx

[madmab]

"D:\help\View Text File.jpg"
"D:\help\game selection menu.jpg"

I think the reason I didn't put them (and the synopsis.jpg) in the skin directory was because then they wouldn't be used if the user happened to be using an older skin.

Maybe I should have it look for them in the skin directory and if not there then check the other spot.

[ressurectionx]

That sounds good madmab... It's always nice having something to fall back on, but the chances that this help screen would match well with every Dynamic Skin made are pretty slim (assuming that there will be more down the road).

I figure this system should be used for any of the pop-up artwork like the Help files, the Synopsis background and anything else we come up with. That way, we could have Gilles stuff come in the Help Directory inside the emulator itself as well as with his skins. It would only change if somebody had their own help/synopsis background in the right place in their own skins.

~Rx

[gilles9999]

"D:\help\View Text File.jpg"
"D:\help\game selection menu.jpg"

I think the reason I didn't put them (and the synopsis.jpg) in the skin directory was because then they wouldn't be used if the user happened to be using an older skin.

Maybe I should have it look for them in the skin directory and if not there then check the other spot.

Yep i think that too; it's way better like this.
It is written "push start for help" in the rombrowser (wich is perfect, my neighbours kids are always asking : wich button do what, now they don't have any excuse); for xboxers like us we know perfectly wich button do what, but for the newbies, the pictural help screen is perfect (user friendly)

So the help screen must appear EACH TIME you are pressing start in the rombrowser (not only if you have my pm3 dynamic skin). The backgrounds MUST be in the emu root (perheaps a double check:
First - D:\emuskins\*\help\game selection menu.jpg
Then - D:\help\game selection menu.jpg
but only if madmab has a little time; this way PERHEAPS we should see help screen and synopsis background with the same theme as the skin.

To have a "clear" view, we should put all the backgrounds (synopsis.png, game selection menu.jpg, View Text File.jpg) in a folder called "backgrounds" in the emu root, the simpliest solution i think.

The "double check" solution should be the best, even if i have put efforts to make my "help screen" the more universal possible (black background, official S controller).
So if the emu is checking only in the root help/background folder, all will be fine.