ZSNES GUI 3.0 the first screenshot

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:08 pm

Also remember the mighty "i am at fucking work" time.

Post by **badinsults** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 12:45 am

People don't know how to lurk moar.

ShadowFX · Post by **ShadowFX** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 10:57 am

badinsults wrote:People don't know how to lurk moar.

Well, in my case, I've been lurking for years now and still at it

pjay · Post by **pjay** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:25 pm

I remember the first few build of zsnes that came out I couldn't even play Dracula X properly because of transparency issues with the flames. But I'm glad that it's still being working on after 10+ years

CSMR · Post by **CSMR** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 8:21 pm

Why still the non-standard menu bar in the first screenshot? It looks like it's a DOS program being emulated in a window. (Better than the current version where it looks like a DOS program being badly emulated in a broken window!)

It's important to fix these GUI issues because that's the main problem with ZSNES and yet it must be one of the most trivial things to fix.
Whenever I've tried ZSNES it always gets uninstalled pretty promptly because the bad & non-standard GUI. It's a shame as in other respects it has a lot of advantages over the alternatives. I'm hoping the next release will be better.

The second screenshot looks just fine.

Post by **grinvader** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 8:38 pm

CSMR wrote:must be one of the most trivial things to fix.

Hahahahahahahaha

hahahahaha
haha

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 10:45 pm

CSMR wrote:Why still the non-standard menu bar in the first screenshot? It looks like it's a DOS program being emulated in a window. (Better than the current version where it looks like a DOS program being badly emulated in a broken window!)

It's important to fix these GUI issues because that's the main problem with ZSNES

ZSNES currently doesn't use any native controls at all because that's the only way to support DOS + Windows + Linux. These "issues" are intentional.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:14 pm

creaothceann wrote:ZSNES currently doesn't use any native controls at all because that's the only way to support DOS + Windows + Linux. These "issues" are intentional.

It also gives one major advantage: you can control the entire UI from a gamepad / joystick, so you don't have to sit in front of your PC to play games. Something native GUIs cannot do on their own.

I'm hoping pagefault and Nach can find a way to still allow that for the Qt interface.

CSMR · Post by **CSMR** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:47 pm

creaothceann wrote:ZSNES currently doesn't use any native controls at all because that's the only way to support DOS + Windows + Linux. These "issues" are intentional.

It's a heavy price to pay for DOS support. Are there conclaves of DOS users hiding out in a jungle somewhere?

CSMR · Post by **CSMR** » Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:58 pm

byuu wrote:It also gives one major advantage: you can control the entire UI from a gamepad / joystick, so you don't have to sit in front of your PC to play games. Something native GUIs cannot do on their own.

But with a standard interface everything is the same between emulators and other types of software so you can go about controlling them in the same way. On an HTPC it shoud be as simple as mapping a remote control key to TAB, or some gamepad keys to TAB and up/down/left/right, or something like that. And software/drivers to map keys is something you'll need for anything beyond the most basic HTPC setup.

PS Nice work on bsnes, I've been enjoying using it recently. Great to have accurately emulated sound on the old classics. Thanks!

ShadowFX · Post by **ShadowFX** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 8:53 am

CSMR wrote:
byuu wrote:It also gives one major advantage: you can control the entire UI from a gamepad / joystick, so you don't have to sit in front of your PC to play games. Something native GUIs cannot do on their own.
But with a standard interface everything is the same between emulators and other types of software so you can go about controlling them in the same way. On an HTPC it shoud be as simple as mapping a remote control key to TAB, or some gamepad keys to TAB and up/down/left/right, or something like that. And software/drivers to map keys is something you'll need for anything beyond the most basic HTPC setup.

That is where front-ends usually come in.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:11 am

CSMR wrote:Why still the non-standard menu bar in the first screenshot? It looks like it's a DOS program being emulated in a window. (Better than the current version where it looks like a DOS program being badly emulated in a broken window!)

It's important to fix these GUI issues because that's the main problem with ZSNES and yet it must be one of the most trivial things to fix.
Whenever I've tried ZSNES it always gets uninstalled pretty promptly because the bad & non-standard GUI. It's a shame as in other respects it has a lot of advantages over the alternatives. I'm hoping the next release will be better.

I always find this complaint hilarious, given that commercial entertainment software goes out of it's way to AVOID the standard OS windowframe+bar GUI.

Hell, even MS and Apple do it in their own products(Windows Media Player? iTunes?)

I've always considered the GUI one of ZSNES' strong points, from an aesthetic point of view.
Unlike so many other emulators, it has an interface that fits the theme of the application(aesthetically, I also recommend the SMS emulator MEKA).

Palin · Post by **Palin** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:26 am

I think people just can't handle the purple

ShadowFX · Post by **ShadowFX** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 10:19 am

Could be indeed, people are used to Black/Silver/Greyish UIs.

denzilla · Post by **denzilla** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:51 pm

Its not really the UI design itself that bothers me, its the text/edges being all blocky. If it would at least look like it was rendered at your monitor's resolution, it would make it look alot better.

CSMR · Post by **CSMR** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 2:49 pm

Gil_Hamilton wrote:I always find this complaint hilarious, given that commercial entertainment software goes out of it's way to AVOID the standard OS windowframe+bar GUI. Hell, even MS and Apple do it in their own products(Windows Media Player? iTunes?)

1. WMP has one of the worst UIs ever, at least from the point of view of a competent computer user, who likely is not not be the target audience. Essential menus hidden in very unintuitive places; to do anything beyond playing a file the user has to make a careful search of the player, and possibly switch interface, essentially solving a meaningless puzzle. WMP doesn't even resize gracefully (latest version on Vista)... try it for a laugh. There is much better media software available (e.g. MPC-HC, foobar).

Consumer-targeted software often uses a task-based interface without a visible menu bar. Although the best software which gets used by technically competent users (which you have to be to use any emulator) pretty much always has a standard menu interface, entertainment software or anything else. (MS Office an exception.)

2. The ZSNES interface is based on a menu bar. So the arguments pro and con menu-based and individualized or task based interfaces aren't relevant. Given that you have this type of interface do you want:
- low-res bitmapped fonts or the same system font (properly rendered and even sub-pixel anti-aliased) that the user has chosen to appear in all menus?
- a mouse pointer that moves at adifferent speed in and out of the ZSNES window? And inexplicably changes shape and colour in the ZSNES window?
-box-like menus that show off DOS-era design?

If you LIKE the design, then you can set it as your system default! You can make the whole OS use a bitmap font, colour it purple, make your mouse pointer bitmapped and yellow. For the DOS style menu boxes you may have to petition Microsoft. At any rate the OS is the right level to make these choices at.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 5:06 pm

i don't think you fully "get" wmp. and the fact that you didn't mention xmbc as a better alternative confirms that for me.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:07 pm

I love it how the recent posts are a disaster, plus the fact that "he knows all".

I can understand differences of opinion, but then there's just being lost.

mozz · Post by **mozz** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:23 pm

CSMR wrote:If you LIKE the design, then you can set it as your system default! You can make the whole OS use a bitmap font, colour it purple, make your mouse pointer bitmapped and yellow. For the DOS style menu boxes you may have to petition Microsoft. At any rate the OS is the right level to make these choices at.

When Zsnes was written, the Windows 95 look and feel had not taken over the world yet. Besides, it had to run under DOS where the "standard" win32 widgetry (hahahaha) was not available.

And to make sure they never changed their minds, they wrote the GUI (like the rest of zsnes) as a kiloton of assembly instead of writing it in some panzy high-level language like C.

CSMR wrote:must be one of the most trivial things to fix.

If by "trivial" you mean "multi-month pain in the ass", then yeah.
I would guess its about on par with re-writing the PPU from scratch. Yeah, something like that.

grinvader wrote:Hahahahahahahaha

hahahahaha
haha

Yeah.

Post by **grinvader** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:28 pm

mozz wrote:they wrote the GUI (like the rest of zsnes) as a kiloton of assembly ENCAPSULATED AT VARIOUS POINTS WITHIN THE MAIN EXECUTION LOOP instead of writing it in some panzy high-level language like C.

Critical fix'd

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Sun Apr 12, 2009 1:13 pm

A zsnes theme for GTK would be pretty sweet, I think. :p Even better in Mac OS where you have the menubar stuck to the top of the screen.

CSMR · Post by **CSMR** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:37 pm

mozz wrote:Besides, it had to run under DOS where the "standard" win32 widgetry (hahahaha) was not available.

And to make sure they never changed their minds, they wrote the GUI (like the rest of zsnes) as a kiloton of assembly instead of writing it in some panzy high-level language like C.

If by "trivial" you mean "multi-month pain in the ass", then yeah.
I would guess its about on par with re-writing the PPU from scratch. Yeah, something like that.

grinvader wrote:they wrote the GUI (like the rest of zsnes) as a kiloton of assembly ENCAPSULATED AT VARIOUS POINTS WITHIN THE MAIN EXECUTION LOOP instead of writing it in some panzy high-level language like C.

Thanks for the explanation. Ordinarily writing a menu GUI would be trivial while writing an emulator is extremely difficult, but if the code is so unstructured that the GUI isn't even separated from the other parts of the code then I can imagine doing anything becomes extremely difficult. As a "panzy" I don't envy the developers.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 10:47 pm

way to get that last passive/aggressive jab in

kudos to you

denzilla · Post by **denzilla** » Mon Apr 13, 2009 11:52 pm

Given the hell rewriting things have been, in retrospect would things be easier writing the new version of ZSNES from scratch?

Post by **Nach** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:46 am

byuu wrote:It also gives one major advantage: you can control the entire UI from a gamepad / joystick, so you don't have to sit in front of your PC to play games. Something native GUIs cannot do on their own.

I'm hoping pagefault and Nach can find a way to still allow that for the Qt interface.

I wrote a lib which merges gamepad input into the Qt execution loop.

If Qt supports faking mouse hovering or keypress or whatever onto the GUI, it's just a matter of mapping it.