[Scummvm-devel] Detection hints in the Add Game browser

[Max Horn]

Am 30.07.2006 um 02:13 schrieb Travis Howell:

[...]

> ScummVM can already
> waste too much time with file access when starting a game now, if  
> there is a
> sub directory, with large amount of files.

I wasn't aware that this poses a noticeable problem on some setups...  
How about properly reporting it so that somebody can look into it,  
then? :-)
(And while it sounds like a serious issue -- I fail to see the  
connection between game startup time, and the launcher code... ? the  
detection code doesn't enter subdirs, after all...)

[...]

> Requring many SCUMM games to have their MD5 details updated would  
> be a bad
> idea and best avoided, as it can take a long time to build up MD5  
> details
> again (As shown by changes to Simon game detection). In the case of HE
> games, reducing to 64K would require many games to be updated

Ah OK. Well, I didn't know that since none of the HE demos I have are  
bigger than 60kb (well, their detection files at least). But anyway,  
even a reduction to 128kb would already be a nice improvement.

Could you give a rough overview which/how many games would be affected?

[...]

> I think a much better idea, is just to improve the documentation  
> and help
> options for ScummVM:
> Adding a guide like
> http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0200586/videogames/scummvm_tutorial/  
> to the
> future HTML documentation, so the process of adding games is even more
> clear.

I disagree that this would be a better alternative. Of course better  
docs are needed (it's me who always asks for them, too :-).

But if your UI is bad or confusing, or counter-intuitive, then it is  
so... Adding any amount of documentation or help buttons (=band-aid)  
won't solve that.
And in the end, people often enough don't read docs, so they'll still  
end up asking for help on the problem if they don't understand our GUI.


> Maybe adding a help button to each section of the GUI, with brief
> descriptions to explain that section. Keeping the text for help  
> descriptions
> in a separate file would be best, for easy translation to other  
> languages in
> the future.

We could do that, and it might even be a nice idea, though orthogonal  
to the rest of this discussion, IMO (see above: solving problems vs.  
fighting symptoms). My main concern is that it'll be a lot of work to  
get started and then maintain (and outdated / missing help texts are  
almost worse than none at all). Looking at our "success" at  
updating / maintaining the SCUMM help dialog, or writing  
documentation (or finding somebody to do it), I am somewhat skeptical  
in this, I am afraid :-/.


Cheers,
Max