[Scummvm-devel] 1.0 or not 1.0? (was: ScummVM 1.0.0 release schedule)

[Thierry Crozat (Yahoo! Mail)]

Le 13 juil. 09 à 22:29, Max Horn a écrit :

> Improving our README, making it easier for users to "start ScummVM,
> add a game and play", fixing papercuts (see <https://launchpad.net/ 
> hundredpapercuts
>> ) -- those are things we should work on for 1.0.0. Most of those are
> of course not as fun or shiny or impressive -- but those are what
> distinguish good software from great software, IMO.
>
>
> So, let's go for a somewhat extended release cycle, with 1.0rc and
> then 1.0.0 (and maybe 1.0.1, why not). Let's try to get as many ports
> in good shape as possible. Let's try to fix as many bugs on the
> tracker as possible. Let's try to listen to what first time users
> suggest on how to make ScummVm easier to use. Let's try not fall in
> the "one more feature, never release" trap ;)
>

Since you mention that, I have a few suggestions to improve the  
launcher (it seems that usability course I had last year will come in  
handy after all). I am taking snapshots for the new launcher and I  
noticed the following points (I can add all this to the GUI TO DO or  
a new GUI Usability page on the Wiki if you want):

1) That Mass Add button is really not obvious. Without a  
documentation you have no way to guess it is there (either that or  
you have a twisted mind). Unfortunately I don't have an easy  
suggestion to fix that. I will try to think about it.

2) Would it be possible to add some sort of tooltip or inline help? I  
know this is probably not a trivial task but I think it would help  
for non obvious things (e.g. the Mass Add button or some options).

3) In the options tabs, the OK and Cancel button seems to be in the  
current tab, but they are really shared between all the tabs (i.e.  
when you click OK you validates the changes for all the tabs and not  
only the current one). I think they should visibly be outside of  
(below) the tabs.

4) I am not convinced the Graphics mode are well sorted. To start  
with, in a single selector you mix scalers (1x, 2x, 3x) and  
algorithms to do the scaling (e.g SAI, AdvMAME, HQ). But then when I  
look at the list the first question that pops-up is what is the  
scaling for DotMatrix (or SuperEagle)? Also currently the graphics  
modes are sorted by algorithms, but I think the users will first want  
to select a scaler (i.e. the size of the window, while they might not  
see much difference with the selected algorithm). Therefore I have  
two propositions:
4a) using two selectors: you first select the scaler, and on the  
right you have another selector to select the algorithm (listing only  
the ones relevant for the currently selected scaler).
4b) sorting the graphic modes by scaler (which could also answer my  
question; if DotMatrix is between 2xSAI and AdvMAME2x I will strongly  
suspect that it is also a 2x scaler) and then by increasing quality  
of result (which is subjective but I suspect HQ2x is "better" than 2x  
for example).

By the way, is there any reason why the scaling is sometimes as  
prefix (e.g. 2xSAI) and sometimes as suffix (e.g. AdvMAME2x)?

5) Most selector have a <default> entry, which I believe correspond  
to one of the entries below and might be platform dependent. But I am  
not sure this is the case for the Render mode in the Graphics tab.  
Shouldn't there be an additional "normal" entry or something in that  
selector?

6) There is no way to know what the default is. A tooltip or inline  
help might help here as well.Or maybe "<default: the default value>"  
instead of just "<default>".

7) The sorting of the output rates in the Audio tab is strange. Why  
not sort by increasing rates?

8) I am not too much in favour of a number that doesn't mean much in  
the sliders (e.g. subtitle speed, volumes). I am not against the  
value either, but maybe some hint could be added on what it means.  
For example add a "slow" on the left of the subtitle speed slider and  
"fast" on the right (resp. "low" and "high" for the volume sliders)  
and the value only on the right of that.

9) I don't like much the button to toggle between "Speech only",  
"Speech and Subtitles" and "Subtitles only". Why make this selector  
different from the other selectors (the combo boxes) when it should  
work the same (i.e. we want to select one item among several? And we  
don't know what are all the alternatives until we have clicked  
several times and came back to the original setting, at which point  
we might still need to click several times to select the one we want.

10) On the Volume tab I would make the Mute All disable the volume  
sliders. If selected there is not much sense to modify the volumes.


I will stop there for tonight but I might have other remarks once I  
have read again my usability manual.

Thierry

NB: actually after having written all this I think I will add it to  
the wiki tomorrow, whether you want it or not ;-)