[Scummvm-devel] UI issue: dialog settings vs. hotkeys

[Max Horn]

Yo folks,


I am currently pondering a UI / representation conflict between the 
options dialog on the one hand and the hotkeys on the other hand. My 
problem is that we distinguish between the users configuration in the 
config file, and the actual active settings; furthermore, it's 
currently possible for the user to change settings at run time and not 
save those preference changes. This is a very unusual thing to do. Just 
think about mostly every modern game - none of them allows you to 
change your settings at run-time and then *not* save them immediately. 
There are very good reasons for this, IMO.

Essentially, what we are currently doing with the options dialog / 
hotkeys is inconsistent and confusing. I see two alternatives to fix 
the problem:

1) Add a "Save" button to the Option dialogs. Changes never get written 
to the config file, unless the user explicitly requests this. At the 
same time, the option dialogs are modified to display / change the 
currently active settings, and not the config file

2) Remove the difference between "active run-time" setting values, and 
"configuration file" values. That is, when the user switches to another 
scaler, save that setting change to the config file immediately (this 
is BTW how virtually all games and programs I recall behave).


I can see benefits to both approaches, BTW. Personally I am used to 
approach 2, as this is how every single program I uses behaves. 
Examples: Diablo II/WarCraft/StartCraft; Mozilla; FireFox; vlc; 
Neverwinter Nights; BZFlags; PhotoShop;  all of the dozen (mac) 
applications I am running right now. However, maybe it's simply a mac 
thing and Windows/Linux apps are overall doing it differently.


Whatever we do, we should decide on one of the two and implement it 
that way. The current behaviour simply is strange (where the options 
dialog represent the config file values, not the active values, yet 
when you press OK that acts as a "Save & Activate", ignoring the 
currently active values).



Cheers,

Max