Hi there,<div><br></div><div>My opinion is that adding games should be as easy as it can, so I'm thinking the following (most of it already proposed in the thread):</div><div><br></div><div>- Directory layout:</div><div>
-Games folder</div><div> -Game1 folder</div><div> -Game2 folder</div><div><br></div><div>- An Add Game(s) button which opens a directory selection dialog in which the user selects a directory. This directory is scanned recursively to all subdirectories looking for supported games. I suppose this is how the Mass Add works now.</div>
<div><br></div><div>- What if I just want to add one particular game? Then just select the directory containing a single game, the internal logic is the same, whether you have selected your Games folder or Game1 folder.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I think this is simple and obvious whether you are newbie or power user of ScummVM, you don't need any checkboxes or special keys.</div><div><br></div><div>This doesn't consider the possibility that there's more than one game in the same folder. Could this happen? Is there something else I'm missing and makes this a bad decision?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Thank you for reading,</div><div>Miguel<br><br></div><div>2011/5/2 Max Horn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:max@quendi.de">max@quendi.de</a>></span></div><div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Hi there,<br>
<br>
the suggestion below (about reworking how games are added) was never fully addressed. Maybe we can do it for 1.4.x ? I'll quote the original email here for your convenience, and then will add some remarks below:<br>
<br>
Am 25.11.2009 um 02:17 schrieb Max Horn:<br>
<br>
> Hi there,<br>
><br>
> as you know, many users have problems with adding games from the<br>
> launcher. For one thing, they are often confused by the fact that we<br>
> expect them to select a directory (not a file). Also, many never find<br>
> the "Mass Add" feature. Even if they hit the "shift" key by accident,<br>
> it may not be clear to everybody what "Mass Add" means ("Hm, does that<br>
> mean I'll gain weight?" ;).<br>
><br>
> So, maybe we should unify Add & Mass Add as follows: First, we merge<br>
> them, changing the button label to "Add Game(s)...".<br>
><br>
> When the user presses the "Add Game(s)..." button, we first pop up a<br>
> dialog saying something like this:<br>
><br>
> "We will now show you a selection dialog, in which you should select a<br>
> directory. ScummVM will search this directory and all its<br>
> subdirectories for games supported by it. Any games detected this way<br>
> and not yet in your list of games will be added to it."<br>
><br>
> Afterwards, we proceed as in the current "Mass Add" mode.<br>
><br>
> For average users, and esp. newbies, this should make things a lot<br>
> simpler. Power users have to skip over one more dialog and loose the<br>
> ability to not recurse into dirs, but then power users can deal with<br>
> that, I'd hope. If it's deemed to terrible a burden for those, we can<br>
> come up with way to adjust for them (e.g. if shift is hold, change the<br>
> button to the old "Add single game" mode); but i'd prefer to not do<br>
> that.<br>
><br>
> What do you think?<br>
><br>
> Bye,<br>
> Max<br>
<br>
<br>
The original message started some discussion. LordHoto implemented some improvements for the browser back then, too. The only objection I recall was the following by Eugene, plus my reply:<br>
<br>
<br>
> Am 25.11.2009 um 10:02 schrieb Eugene Sandulenko:<br>
><br>
>> 2009/11/25 Max Horn <<a href="mailto:max@quendi.de">max@quendi.de</a>>:<br>
>>> So, maybe we should unify Add & Mass Add as follows: First, we merge<br>
>>> them, changing the button label to "Add Game(s)...".<br>
>> Good idea.<br>
>><br>
>>> When the user presses the "Add Game(s)..." button, we first pop up a<br>
>>> dialog saying something like this:<br>
>>><br>
>>> "We will now show you a selection dialog, in which you should<br>
>>> select a<br>
>>> directory. ScummVM will search this directory and all its<br>
>>> subdirectories for games supported by it. Any games detected this way<br>
>>> and not yet in your list of games will be added to it."<br>
>> This has to be config option-turnable.<br>
><br>
> What exactly has to be option-turnable? Whether we show that message<br>
> or not?<br>
><br>
> Well, as Kostas suggested, it could have a little checkbox "Don't show<br>
> this dialog again".<br>
<br>
<br>
So, still waiting for a reply, Eugene.<br>
<br>
Also, Torbjörn wrote this:<br>
<br>
<br>
Am 27.11.2009 um 21:14 schrieb Torbjörn Andersson:<br>
<br>
> Max Horn wrote:<br>
><br>
>> For average users, and esp. newbies, this should make things a lot<br>
>> simpler. Power users have to skip over one more dialog and loose the<br>
>> ability to not recurse into dirs, but then power users can deal with<br>
>> that, I'd hope. If it's deemed to terrible a burden for those, we can<br>
>> come up with way to adjust for them (e.g. if shift is hold, change the<br>
>> button to the old "Add single game" mode); but i'd prefer to not do<br>
>> that.<br>
><br>
> I we want an "Add single game" mode, couldn't that simply be a checkbox<br>
> in the "Select directory" dialog, or something like that?<br>
><br>
> (For what it's worth, I've never used the "Mass Add" feature myself. I<br>
> don't get new games to add very often, and I like to tweak the settings<br>
> a bit by hand anyway.)<br>
><br>
> Torbjörn Andersson<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
My stance: I am always wary about adding extra checkboxes and tune knobs. I understand Torbjörn's use case, but would personally prefer one of the following "solutions" instead (these can be combined, too):<br>
1) As suggested in my original email, keep "shift" as a modifier for the "Add" button. Only reverse its role: Without shift, the button is "Add Game(s)...", with it pressed it becomes "Add Game...". The latter mode would work exactly like the current default "Add game" mode.<br>
<br>
2) Tweak the mass add mode: When finished, we show (like now) a list of all detected games. But now, allow the user to (de)select entries, in case they want to only use some detected results. E.g. by allowing multi-selection in ListWidget, or by allowing to remove selected items, or something like that.<br>
This can be refined arbitrarily: E.g. user could be allowed to double-click an entry in the result list, to see its suggested configuration and tweak it. And/or there could be a widget next to the ListWidget which shows some info about the currently selected result (the full path, gameid, target id, description, ...)<br>
<br>
Option 2 would be quite some more work than 1), so I think 1 would be implemented first, but 2 could be added to our TODO list, and e.g. be part of a GUI improvement task next GSoC.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Max<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div>