[Scummvm-devel] GUI options/layout/etc

[Filippos Karapetis]

Hello

First of all, nice work on the gui options, fuzzie :)

Now, my opinion...

On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 12:04 PM, A. Milburn
<fuzzie at users.sourceforge.net>wrote:

> * I'd like to suggest just adding an 'Extras' tab for all the argued-over
>  enhancements.


Very nice idea, I'm all up for it, plus it provides a specific place for
future enhancements.


  The only trouble would be that we don't have the space for single-game
>  options (like the alternative intros), but as far as I know no-one is
>  too bothered about those.
>

For now, these options go in the config file. Perhaps in the future there
might be a per-game tab for extra options, which are only relevant to a
specific engine (e.g. for the sky and queen engines, an option for
alternative into. For  SCI, undithering, etc).

As for the copy protection option... why would anyone *want* to enable it,
for the games that bypass it? Nostalgia, perhaps? Should there be a GUI
option for this?

* The 'Output rate' combobox seems a bit pointless to have in the main
>  GUI. A lot of the backends override this themselves, and everything
>  except some of the SDL-based ones (not all) and the PSP backend
>  ignore the config setting.
>

To be perfectly honest, this setting is confusing for the end user as it is
right now. Why would anyone want to change this, especially on desktop
platforms? This should be an option that is automatically set, and advanced
users should play with it via the config file, if there's any real benefit.



>  We seem to default to 22khz on desktop platforms, something which dates
>  back in commit history to the first sound support. Can we not default
>  to 44khz on backends which can reasonably handle that and don't just
>  ignore the config anyway, and otherwise leave this as a fairly obscure
>  config option?
>

IMHO, yes, we should default to 44kHz for the majority of the systems that
can handle this. As I said above, this option should be set automatically
and removed from the GUI - only advanced users would ever want to mess with
it.


> * The 'Graphics mode' combobox seems a bit oddly used too - on various
>  backends it's empty because there's no choice of mode, the Dreamcast
>  backend provides one single mode, the PSP backend seems to use it to
>  provide 'keep aspect ratio' and 'full screen' options. Obviously it
>  *is* used on many backends though, so this is just an observation.
>

I wasn't aware of this. So a lot of platforms don't provide the more
advanced scalers, such as AdvMAME 2x or HQ2x. I suppose this makes sense,
as a lot of backends use fixed resolutions, but it would be good if there
was documentation of what resolution/scalers are available to each platform.


> * Is the 'MT-32' tab necessary for backends which can't be connected
>  to real hardware but can run the emulators? Would it be possible to
>  just move the combobox to the 'MIDI' tab if the only options are
>  emulators for which we know whether they support GM/MT-32 natively,
>  or are those options important even with an emulator used?
>

> * In that vein, can't we rename the 'MIDI' tab to Music, plonk the
>  'AdLib emulator' option into it too, and then move the 'Volume'
>  tab into 'Audio' with the space left by removing two comboboxes,
>  at least on small-screen devices? Crazy? (I haven't tried it.)
>  But it would be less confusing to *me*, at least.
>
>
WIll all of the checkboxes fit in a single tab? If yes, it would make more
sense to join all of these together into a "Music" tab, as you pointed out.

As for the volume tab: I don't think that all of the audio options will fit
into one tab, so it might be best if this remains separate. Perhaps there
could also be mute checkboxes next to the volume ones? (currently, there's
a "Mute all" checkbox).

Another idea: perhaps we could merge the "Music driver" and "Adlib
emulator" lists in one? That way, there could be two options for Adlib in
the new list: Adlib (DOSBox - recommended) and Adlib (MAME - older)

Another thing I noticed, the wording on the "Enable GS mode" seems
superfluous, since it's referring to a checkbox. It should be just "GS
mode", to be consistent with the other options.

Finally, some games have their own mute settings (Broken Sword II and Simon
the Sorcerer 1 and 2). Perhaps these can be moved in the more general mute
code in the backend?

So, from what has been mentioned above, here's a revised version of the
configuration tabs:
- Graphics
* Graphics mode (list)
* Render mode (list)
* Aspect ratio correction (checkbox)
* Fullscreen mode (checkbox)

- Audio
* Music driver (list)
* REMOVED - Adlib emulator
* REMOVED - Output rate
* Text and speech (toggle)
* Subtitle speed (slider)
* Sound font (button)
* True Roland MT-32 (disable GM emulation) (checkbox)
* GS mode (checkbox)

- Volume
- Music volume (slider)
- Music mute (checkbox)
- SFX volume (slider)
- SFX mute (checkbox)
- Speech volume (slider)
- Speech mute (checkbox)
- Mute all (checkbox)

- Enhancements
* EGA undithering
* Mixed Adlib/MIDI mode
* Original save/load dialogs
* Prefer synthesized effects

Regards
Filippos
-- 
"Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes" - Oscar Wilde
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