[wyrm]

Me three on Hitchers summary. Definitely no way to get away with no new screens but above seems very reasonable.

Thanks Garbear for asking and thanks Hitcher for distilling discussion down to a list for Garbear.

Wyrm (AppTV)

[jurialmunkey]

+1 for Hitcher's summary. GameOSD.xml makes sense as needing a new screen and the rest imho can fit into the suggested existing dialogs.

[garbear]

OK, this is what I got. Main menu using new GameOSD.xml:



Bookmarks dialog, DialogBookmarks.xml, adapted to games by ronie in PR11034. The savestate manager was broken in a rebase, so this is always empty currently.



Settings dialog, using Custom_1101_SettingsList.xml:



Video settings, using DialogSettings.xml:



Audio settings, also using DialogSettings.xml:



Input settings open DialogGameControllers.xml:



This is version 1 of the in-game menu. It needs a few more dialogs, so I'll try to reuse as much as possible. Let me know if you see any room for improvement.

[Hitcher]

Custom_1101_SettingsList.xml can definitely be changed to use DialogContextMenu.xml but apart from that everything looks good to me.

Also, is 'volume' the only audio setting? If so, you just open DialogSlider.xml directly to adjust it.

[garbear]

Custom_1101_SettingsList.xml can definitely be changed to use DialogContextMenu.xml but apart from that everything looks good to me.

OK, will do.

Also, is 'volume' the only audio setting? If so, you just open DialogSlider.xml directly to adjust it.

Yes, volume is the only setting from VideoPlayer that applied to RetroPlayer. Remember, this window is only 1 day old I'll adjust the menu so that Volume is accessible directly in the settings menu.

[Gade]

This is getting really nice!

[RockerC]

The "Saved games" button opens a saved game manager, which doesn't exist yet. I'm using the bookmark manager as a stand-in, and yea...

* Nitpicking and maybe the OSD context-meny text is off-topic here but should it instead of "Saved games" not say "Game Saves Manager" or perhaps just "Game Saves" to bring you to the upcoming game saves manager? Regardless IMHO the wording should start with 'Game...' something so maybe "Game Saves...", "Game Save...", or similar. Starting with the word "Save..." sounds wrong if its not for a direct action to save the game, as then it can simple be "Save Game" or "Save Game State". Oh, and in the GUI/settings please try to always use the working "Game Save" or "Game Saves", and not "Game State" as most users will surley not intuitively understand what a "state" is in this context, as it it not a term usually used in video games wording, even if 'state' saving is what is technically being done.

[garbear]

* Nitpicking and maybe the OSD context-meny text is off-topic here but should it instead of "Saved games" not say "Game Saves Manager" or perhaps just "Game Saves" to bring you to the upcoming game saves manager?

So you noticed I switch from Game Saves to Saved Games The reason for this is because I've actually thought about what it means to "save" an emulated game. You can capture the state, but not all emulators/games support that. SRAM is backed by the hard drive, and non-emulated games can store files to the harddrive too. Also, you can scrape emulator RAM to monitor for achievements from http://retroachievements.org You can also save screenshots or gameplay videos.

Grammatically, the difference between "Saved games" and "Game saves" is the noun. Do we want to focus on Games or Saves? Because Saves can encompass so many things, I'd like to focus on the game, and center the manager around all ways of saving an emulated game.

What are all the things you think the saved game manager should include?

Oh, and in the GUI/settings please try to always use the working "Game Save" or "Game Saves", and not "Game State" as most users will surley not intuitively understand what a "state" is in this context, as it it not a term usually used in video games wording, even if 'state' saving is what is technically being done.

I appreciate this line of thought.

I gave a career speech to a bunch of 10-year-olds in a poor neighborhood a few months ago. When I said I worked with emulators, I got blank stares. Most of these kids have parents who couldn't afford game consoles growing up. Some have a friend with an xbox or playstation. One console emulating another isn't a concept the kids have ever been exposed to.

How do you configure, let alone choose, an emulator without any concept of emulation? My goal is to hide everything related to emulation and make it all about the games. "State" is definitely an emulation term, so I'm with you in keeping it out of the GUI.

Besides, your argument of leading with "Game" doesn't work for spanish because they switch their nouns and adjectives... "Juego Guardado" is literally "Game Saved"

[garbear]

Here's all the things I would like in a saved game manager:

• Savestates
  • Thumbnail
    
  • Date
    
  • Playtime
    
• In-game saves
  • Thumbnail?
    
  • Size of SRAM file or harddrive contents (probably compressed)
    
  • Ability to copy SRAM between savestates
    
• Achievements
  • Thumbnail
    
  • Current progress
    
  • Completion date
    
  • % complete
    
  • Points
    

[jurialmunkey]

What purpose does the progress bar serve (e.g. as seen in the savestate manager image)? Does it provide some ability to rewind play or something like that?

A progress bar in an emulator really confuses me and certainly doesn't give any intuitive sense of what its purpose is (same thing with the time elapsed/remaining counters). I'm guessing it is just a leftover that will be removed at a later date. But if it does serve some purpose then I think it really needs to be reworked into something far more intuitive as I have absolutely no clue what it is for by looking at it.

[RockerC]

So you noticed I switch from Game Saves to Saved Games The reason for this is because I've actually thought about what it means to "save" an emulated game. You can capture the state, but not all emulators/games support that. SRAM is backed by the hard drive, and non-emulated games can store files to the harddrive too. Also, you can scrape emulator RAM to monitor for achievements from http://retroachievements.org You can also save screenshots or gameplay videos.

Grammatically, the difference between "Saved games" and "Game saves" is the noun. Do we want to focus on Games or Saves? Because Saves can encompass so many things, I'd like to focus on the game, and center the manager around all ways of saving an emulated game.

What are all the things you think the saved game manager should include?

Maybe just me then as a none native English speaker overthinking it, and I'm sure my CDO tendencies is to blaime too, (it's like OCD but all the letters are in alphabetical order, as they should be! ). Though I've studied English and lived in the UK for many years, and having written and translated many technical guides and manuals to and from English myself I believe that I have good enough grasp of the English language.

It is just that to me "Saved games" sounds as if I have "games saved" on my harddrive, not actually having 'game-saves saved'. Same goes for "saved game manager", as that to me sounds as maybe a download manager for games or something that handled the full games I have saved on my harddrive, and not a manager of game-saves. That is, to me "saved games" sound like I have stored full copies of games, while "game saves" sounds more like the saved state as a specific point in specific games.

Perhaps my problem with the wording is that the manager will deal with saving states from multiple games instead of just saving states in the one game you are running like classic game saves. Having one manager dealing with multiple games complicates the meaning of "saves games", as it could easily be interpreted as it is (full) games being saved/stored to the harddrive, and not only gameplay states in different games, as in "game save points".

Perhaps then "save state" works better to be less confusing, or go for something like "save point" for the wording instead, or to be even more verbose “gameplay save state” or "gameplay save point"? The concept of having saved gameplay as a "game state" save will be new to many or most it might still be less confusing than instinctively knowing the difference between a "game save points" and having "saved games" to your harddrive?

Besides, your argument of leading with "Game" doesn't work for spanish because they switch their nouns and adjectives... "Juego Guardado" is literally "Game Saved"

Leading with "game" doesn't work in Swedish either, but that just because like Spanish its grammar is also different from English. But for reference please know that I written my rant above from my understanding of UK English, as that is Kodi's default language after all

[garbear]

I'm going to call it "Saved saveables"

[garbear]

What purpose does the progress bar serve (e.g. as seen in the savestate manager image)? Does it provide some ability to rewind play or something like that?

Indeed, it is for rewind. The progress bar is the rewind buffer, so it starts at 0:00 (no rewind buffer) and runs until 1:00 (a minute of rewind time). It's like video, you can rewind or seek backwards, at least up until a minute in reverse.

Obviously this bar is left over from video, but that begs the question, what should we do for games? Hide it completely? How to show the user they have a minute of rewind time? Or when fast-forward becomes possible, how to show the user they're able to fast-forward/seek forward?

Not gonna lie, this is an area I haven't put any thought into yet so I'd like to hear your opinions.

[RockerC]

What purpose does the progress bar serve (e.g. as seen in the savestate manager image)? Does it provide some ability to rewind play or something like that?

Indeed, it is for rewind. The progress bar is the rewind buffer, so it starts at 0:00 (no rewind buffer) and runs until 1:00 (a minute of rewind time). It's like video, you can rewind or seek backwards, at least up until a minute in reverse.

Obviously this bar is left over from video, but that begs the question, what should we do for games? Hide it completely? How to show the user they have a minute of rewind time? Or when fast-forward becomes possible, how to show the user they're able to fast-forward/seek forward?

Not gonna lie, this is an area I haven't put any thought into yet so I'd like to hear your opinions.

Personally I do not think that such one-second-interval granual rewind should be possible for games. How about instead implement from the OSD just give three simple the option to jump 10, 30, or 30-seconds back in time, (and a similar 5/10/60 option for skipping forward instead of classic fast-forwarding).

So technically you would still be rewinding but not granually like a classic video rewind function, but instead a little more like the modern skipping navigation feature options that Kodi recently copied from MediaPortal (as discussed in this other thread => https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=36390 ).

Other than in the OSD, such skipping navigation feature could also be easily replicated and mapped to buttons on a game controller (so easy to access the 'rewind' function if using a modern gamepad with more buttons, like Xbox 360/One or PS4 game controllers).

[MrTarantula]

Personally I do not think that such one-second-interval granual rewind should be possible for games. How about instead implement from the OSD just give three simple the option to jump 10, 30, or 30-seconds back in time, (and a similar 5/10/60 option for skipping forward instead of classic fast-forwarding).

Rewind is a part of libretro. I believe one of the (possibly unofficial) goals of Retroplayer is to have feature parity with Retroarch. It would probably take more work to artificially limit the intervals that can be used. Skip steps and additive skipping still apply, so you're getting that functionality for free!