[Scummvm-devel] Making it easier for users to add games

[Miguel Bernabeu]

Hi there,

My opinion is that adding games should be as easy as it can, so I'm thinking
the following (most of it already proposed in the thread):

- Directory layout:
    -Games folder
         -Game1 folder
         -Game2 folder

- An Add Game(s) button which opens a directory selection dialog in which
the user selects a directory. This directory is scanned recursively to all
subdirectories looking for supported games. I suppose this is how the Mass
Add works now.

- What if I just want to add one particular game? Then just select the
directory containing a single game, the internal logic is the same, whether
you have selected your Games folder or Game1 folder.

I think this is simple and obvious whether you are newbie or power user of
ScummVM, you don't need any checkboxes or special keys.

This doesn't consider the possibility that there's more than one game in the
same folder. Could this happen? Is there something else I'm missing and
makes this a bad decision?

Thank you for reading,
Miguel

2011/5/2 Max Horn <max at quendi.de>

> Hi there,
>
> the suggestion below (about reworking how games are added) was never fully
> addressed. Maybe we can do it for 1.4.x ? I'll quote the original email here
> for your convenience, and then will add some remarks below:
>
> Am 25.11.2009 um 02:17 schrieb Max Horn:
>
> > Hi there,
> >
> > as you know, many users have problems with adding games from the
> > launcher. For one thing, they are often confused by the fact that we
> > expect them to select a directory (not a file). Also, many never find
> > the "Mass Add" feature. Even if they hit the "shift" key by accident,
> > it may not be clear to everybody what "Mass Add" means ("Hm, does that
> > mean I'll gain weight?" ;).
> >
> > So, maybe we should unify Add & Mass Add as follows: First, we merge
> > them, changing the button label to "Add Game(s)...".
> >
> > When the user presses the "Add Game(s)..." button, we first pop up a
> > dialog saying something like this:
> >
> > "We will now show you a selection dialog, in which you should select a
> > directory. ScummVM will search this directory and all its
> > subdirectories for games supported by it. Any games detected this way
> > and not yet in your list of games will be added to it."
> >
> > Afterwards, we proceed as in the current "Mass Add" mode.
> >
> > For average users, and esp. newbies, this should make things a lot
> > simpler. Power users have to skip over one more dialog and loose the
> > ability to not recurse into dirs, but then power users can deal with
> > that, I'd hope. If it's deemed to terrible a burden for those, we can
> > come up with way to adjust for them (e.g. if shift is hold, change the
> > button to the old "Add single game" mode); but i'd prefer to not do
> > that.
> >
> > What do you think?
> >
> > Bye,
> > Max
>
>
> The original message started some discussion. LordHoto implemented some
> improvements for the browser back then, too. The only objection I recall was
> the following by Eugene, plus my reply:
>
>
> > Am 25.11.2009 um 10:02 schrieb Eugene Sandulenko:
> >
> >> 2009/11/25 Max Horn <max at quendi.de>:
> >>> So, maybe we should unify Add & Mass Add as follows: First, we merge
> >>> them, changing the button label to "Add Game(s)...".
> >> Good idea.
> >>
> >>> When the user presses the "Add Game(s)..." button, we first pop up a
> >>> dialog saying something like this:
> >>>
> >>> "We will now show you a selection dialog, in which you should
> >>> select a
> >>> directory. ScummVM will search this directory and all its
> >>> subdirectories for games supported by it. Any games detected this way
> >>> and not yet in your list of games will be added to it."
> >> This has to be config option-turnable.
> >
> > What exactly has to be option-turnable? Whether we show that message
> > or not?
> >
> > Well, as Kostas suggested, it could have a little checkbox "Don't show
> > this dialog again".
>
>
> So, still waiting for a reply, Eugene.
>
> Also, Torbjörn wrote this:
>
>
> Am 27.11.2009 um 21:14 schrieb Torbjörn Andersson:
>
> > Max Horn wrote:
> >
> >> For average users, and esp. newbies, this should make things a lot
> >> simpler. Power users have to skip over one more dialog and loose the
> >> ability to not recurse into dirs, but then power users can deal with
> >> that, I'd hope. If it's deemed to terrible a burden for those, we can
> >> come up with way to adjust for them (e.g. if shift is hold, change the
> >> button to the old "Add single game" mode); but i'd prefer to not do
> >> that.
> >
> > I we want an "Add single game" mode, couldn't that simply be a checkbox
> > in the "Select directory" dialog, or something like that?
> >
> > (For what it's worth, I've never used the "Mass Add" feature myself. I
> > don't get new games to add very often, and I like to tweak the settings
> > a bit by hand anyway.)
> >
> > Torbjörn Andersson
>
>
>
> My stance: I am always wary about adding extra checkboxes and tune knobs. I
> understand Torbjörn's use case, but would personally prefer one of the
> following "solutions" instead (these can be combined, too):
> 1) As suggested in my original email, keep "shift" as a modifier for the
> "Add" button. Only reverse its role: Without shift, the button is "Add
> Game(s)...", with it pressed it becomes "Add Game...". The latter mode would
> work exactly like the current default "Add game" mode.
>
> 2) Tweak the mass add mode: When finished, we show (like now) a list of all
> detected games. But now, allow the user to (de)select entries, in case they
> want to only use some detected results. E.g. by allowing multi-selection in
> ListWidget, or by allowing to remove selected items, or something like that.
> This can be refined arbitrarily: E.g. user could be allowed to double-click
> an entry in the result list, to see its suggested configuration and tweak
> it. And/or there could be a widget next to the ListWidget which shows some
> info about the currently selected result (the full path, gameid, target id,
> description, ...)
>
> Option 2 would be quite some more work than 1), so I think 1 would be
> implemented first, but 2 could be added to our TODO list, and e.g. be part
> of a GUI improvement task next GSoC.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> Max
>
>
>
>
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