[Scummvm-devel] Touchscreen input methods

[Max Horn]

Am 19.04.2011 um 12:31 schrieb Paul Gilbert:

> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Klaus Reimer <k at ailis.de> wrote:
> On 04/19/2011 10:24 AM, Paul Gilbert wrote:
> > Or to use another example, Lure of the Temptress has a special define that
> > PDA/Touchscreen devices need to set, which alters how the action menu
> > scrolls. I've thought in the past that this is kind of nasty, and new
> > porters might not be aware of it.
> 
> Right, I'm not aware of it :-) Which define is it I have to set?
> 
> See at the start of engines/lure/menu.cpp:
> 
> #if defined(_WIN32_WCE) || defined(__SYMBIAN32__)
> #define LURE_CLICKABLE_MENUS
> #endif
> 
> You'd presumably need to add whichever define can be used to identify your particular device.

No offense, but it is no surprise that new (and old!) porters, and in fact probably most other devs, are not aware of LURE_CLICKABLE_MENUS and what it does:

1) LURE_CLICKABLE_MENUS was never announced / explained  on -devel (at least a grep through my archives reveals nothing about it).

2) There is no comment at all which explains what LURE_CLICKABLE_MENUS does. 

3) The name is not really suggestive ... In fact, I still don't really know what setting it does (no need to tell me now, acutally -- yeah, I could probably figure it out by reading the code, but that totally misses the point here... :)

4) It *has* been documented on    <http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Defines>
   Sadly, nothing at all links to this Wiki page, so people have no chance to find it ... :(.

In sum, it is no surprise that rarely anybody uses it (only WinCE, Symbian, and NDS) or is aware of it. Sadly, ScummVM is full of such communication failures :(. It would be great if we all could work together to improve this situation.


For starters, let's link to <http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/Defines> from the developer central, the backends howto, and whatever other good places come to mind.

Also, let's fill that page with more helpful information.

Lastly: All devs (engine authors, porters, all) should remember that they can and should ask here when things are unclear. Otherwise, we'll never learn about the existence of certain problems, and won't be able to address them. This includes documentation: Yeah, not many people like writing it; hence it is even *more* important that you clearly ask if you really, *really* could use some more information on a given subject. I for one am much more motivated to work on docs if I know people can actually use them.


Cheers,
Max