[Scummvm-devel] Possible new backend features

[Neil Millstone]

Hi,

I'd better introduce myself.  I'm Neil Millstone (or agentq) and I have 
written an unofficial DS version of ScummVM, which can be found at 
http://scummvm.drunkencoders.com.  You can get the source there for the 
latest released version, so you can see how messy and horrible it is. :-)

I have used ScummVM for years on the PC and have found it an amazing 
program.  This is why it was my first choice for something to port to 
the DS.  It's a great fit for the DS and it brings the games to life 
again.  They look amazingly crisp on the DS's low res screen.

I have been in contact with sev about getting it into CVS, but currently 
there are several hooks and additions to ScummVM which would need adding 
in a non-port-specific way.  I am told this is the best place to suggest 
such things!

1)   The backend needs to know the GameID of the game that is running.  
I have different interfaces and tweaks for various games to make them 
nice and usable with the 'pen and buttons' interface, and I need to know 
which game is running to enable the necessary tweak.  All that would be 
needed for this is a setGameID() function in OSystem.

2)  The backend needs to be notified where the current speaking 
character is located.  I have a zoomed-in view on the top screen and it 
uses pan-and-scan to move around to show the person who's speaking.  It 
works pretty well with the simple hack I implemented.  This could be 
implemented for all engines (I assume).

3)  I have added several check boxes to two dialogs.  These are a left 
handed option which swaps controls over for those holding the stylus in 
their left hand, and an indy fight controls option, which replaces the 
key mappings on the D-pad to those keys used for fighting in Indiana 
Jones.  The two dialogs these appear on are the main options dialog you 
get to from the launcher, and the other is the in-game options dialog.  
It would be handy if there was an extra tab to the dialogs that was 
port-specific, and the backend could add gui controls to it.

4)  The Scumm help screen shows PC keybaord controls, which are 
obviously not accurate on other ports without a keyboard.  Perhaps it 
could be possible to send new text to the help dialog?  Not essential 
though, as there are other ways round it.

So, any thoughts on how likely some of these changes are?  Or perhaps 
another way of doing this stuff that doesn't require changing ScummVM?

- Neil