[Scummvm-devel] Wiki Per Game Compatibility by Platform
Thierry Crozat (Yahoo! Mail)
thierry.crozat at yahoo.co.uk
Thu Mar 12 10:29:38 CET 2009
Le 12 mars 09 à 05:12, Travis Howell a écrit :
> MetaFox wrote:
>>> kirben wrote:
>>
>>> Switch the Supported Engines by Platform table at
>>> http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Platforms/Overview to a table
>>> listing all
>>> games, instead of all game engines. That would be the best idea,
>>> to provide
>>> more information and definitely isn't overkill.
>>>
>>> When people try a port of ScummVM, they want to know all the
>>> games that can
>>> be played on that particular port. Listing via game engines is
>>> simply
>>> confusing and misleading, even for developers. Since a game
>>> engine can be
>>> supported but not all the games (due to memory or screen resolution
>>> requirements, or other issues).
>>>
>> Maybe if we separate the list by engines, then by games? I put up a
>> table here: http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/User:MetaFox#Test_Bed
>
> I don't see the point in listing the game engines at all,
> considering we
> currently have three game engines (AGOS, SAGA, SCUMM) with optional
> games. Along with games that might not work on particular
> platforms, as
> I mentioned above.
I agree. If the list by engines is needed for other reasons (e.g. for
developers) it can be on a separate page (so that the user do not
have to see it). Otherwise I would say drop it.
>
>> I wanted to keep it easy to read at lower resoultions. I use
>> 1024x768, which is probably at the low end of the spectrum on today's
>> computers, and the table doesn't need to scroll, so the information
>> doesn't look as cluttered to me.
>
> Yes, using rows for games, and columns for the platforms looks much
> better, while keeping the table more compact.
Also for consistency I think it would be good to do the same for the
'Features supported by Platform' table (i.e. rows for features and
columns for platforms).
>
> I think a single entry per game would be fine, only listing critical
> issues specific to each ScummVM port, that effect game play. Otherwise
> you would end up with extremely long list (ie Amiga, Apple IIE,
> AtariST,
> Commodore 64, NES, DOS V1, DOS V2 for Maniac Mansion). And duplicate
> information already available in the compatbility list on the web
> page.
I agree (again). There is no need to list all the variants of a game
in that table. If the user wants details for a game he can click on
the game name to be redirected to the game page. If you include all
variants of a game into this table it will be huge and probably more
difficult to read.
Maybe you can add a sentence before or after the table such as "Games
noted as completable means that at least one version of the game is
completable in ScummVM. Some other versions of the game may not work
correctly. See the game page (by clicking on the game name in the
first column of the table) for details of which version of the game
work with ScummVM."
Also I am not too sure about "completable". For me it means the game
can be completed, not that it is working fine. I would make the
legend a bit more explicit: "Completable, no know issues" or
something similar.
>
> An alternative idea:
> * Drop the compatibility list on the web site, instead link (as
> Supported Games?) to this game/platform table page.
> * Merge the current compatibility information, into the game specific
> pages on the wiki.
>
> That would mean users can easily tell which games are completable and
> supported on each port of ScummVM, by looking at a single page. And
> can
> simply click on game or platform links, for more detailed information
> about a game or port of ScummVM.
>
> While we can centralise information for each game and port of ScummVM,
> on their specific pages on the wiki. Without duplicating information
> (compatibility information in this case), available elsewhere.
I like the idea. I think most users don't care for the short name on
the compatibility list, and there was discussions on this mailing
list in the past about percentages being overkill. I think your table
summarises nicely the information for the user. Then move all details
on the games specific pages.
For some (most?) games the information is already there, meaning that
it is currently duplicated between the compatibility and the wiki
games pages (and sometime it is not consistent). We need to clean all
that.
Two comments though:
* We may want to have a bit more than three levels (Completable,
Completable with Notable Issues, Not Completable). For example have
an intermediate level between C and I for "Completable with minor
issues").
* There are several versions of the compatibility page (for e.g. svn,
0.13.0, 0.12.0). We probably want to keep that (i.e. have a page with
the game/platform compatibility table for each released version of
ScummVM + svn).
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