ZSNES Looks Terrible!

seekingthetruth · Post by **seekingthetruth** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:30 am

I want to love this emulator, but I just can't! Why did the designers decide to make it look like something out of the early 90's and kept it that way? I know this is a lot to ask, and will probably be ignored, but why not use a template such as the JNES emulator ... that is standard, basic, and effective!

I would have thought people were sick of old emulators that brought them into a tacky display window rather than open up an actual window that looks like the rest of the software designed for Windows. I simply can't get around the poor design of this emulator, so I hope something will be done about it.

Hope you're listening ...

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:51 am

The UI was done years ago back when DOS was the primary platform. It's completely cross platform, and not exactly easy to alter, given it's all or mostly in x86 Assembly.

Edit: Just to make it clear, this emulator is over ten years old. Many of its' original devs were on DOS at the time.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:59 am

seekingthetruth wrote: I would have thought people were sick of old emulators that brought them into a tacky display window rather than open up an actual window that looks like the rest of the software designed for Windows.

Are you joking? Almost NO commercial entertainment software uses a native OS interface.
Hell, not even Windows Media Player does.

The native GUI is reserved for people too lazy to create their own interface or people sacrificing aesthetics for cross-platform compatibility(in which case they aren't using the native Windows GUI anyways, though some cross-platform libraries wrap decently enough that it's not obvious).

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:13 am

seekingthetruth wrote:
Hope you're listening ...

this is the part where grin laughs at you, i think

Post by **lordmissus** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:28 am

ZSNES Looks Terrible!

Yeah, that's why ZSNES 2 will use Qt and have a pretty much standard GUI.

What everyone else said.

escapee · Post by **escapee** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:31 am

Play a game and you won't see the interface. Frankly, why care what it looks like anyway, so long as it functions properly.

Post by **Agozer** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:06 am

sweener2001 wrote:
seekingthetruth wrote:
Hope you're listening ...
this is the part where grin laughs at you, i think

This is the part where many of the long-time ZSNES users laugh at him, actually.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 12:52 pm

lordmister wrote:
ZSNES Looks Terrible!
Yeah, that's why ZSNES 2 will use Qt and have a pretty much standard GUI.

What everyone else said.

No, teh fact that the existing GUI is a complete pain in the ass to maintian is why the next major revision will use Qt. And be skinnable, so that it WON'T have to look like another generic window.

sc0tt10 · Post by **sc0tt10** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:44 pm

I've always liked the style of the GUI in ZSNES, never known why.

Fras · Post by **Fras** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:20 pm

Uhm.

Hahah.

No, I don't get this topic. =(

yawnmoth · Post by **yawnmoth** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:20 pm

I like the current interface, as well. An interface from the 90's seems somehow appropriate when playing games from the 90's.

Post by **grinvader** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:36 pm

I.S.T. wrote:Many of its' original devs were on DOS at the time.

All of them. There was only DOS zsnes for several years.

failtroll op is not that fail due to people not being used to failtrolls around here

Ph4n70m · Post by **Ph4n70m** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:31 pm

I like the current one...
And I will like the new if it is still possible to use the joystick to control the interface and open roms without the keyboard

mytmyke · Post by **mytmyke** » Fri May 01, 2009 3:00 am

Configure ZSNES, then use a frontend. Then you won't have to see its UI again.

alyxx · Post by **alyxx** » Fri May 01, 2009 6:32 am

I've always preferred ZSNES because of its retro look. After all, aren't roms supposed to be retro? And most of all SNES roms?

That rant is just... epic fail.

Awakened · Post by **Awakened** » Fri May 01, 2009 7:44 pm

If you don't like ZSNES' interface just use SNESGT until ZSNES 2.0 comes out.

alyxx · Post by **alyxx** » Fri May 01, 2009 7:58 pm

Even when ZSNES 2.0 comes out I'll still be using this old version just because I love the DOS-like interface.

mytmyke · Post by **mytmyke** » Sat May 02, 2009 2:26 am

alyxx wrote:Even when ZSNES 2.0 comes out I'll still be using this old version just because I love the DOS-like interface.

LIAR!!!!

Rashidi · Post by **Rashidi** » Sat May 02, 2009 3:42 am

mytmyke wrote:
alyxx wrote:Even when ZSNES 2.0 comes out I'll still be using this old version just because I love the DOS-like interface.

LIAR!!!!

as for me, i still gonna use older version of zsnes, if its speed reached those of bsnes.

Killa B · Post by **Killa B** » Sat May 02, 2009 5:56 am

Rashidi wrote:as for me, i still gonna use older version of zsnes, if its speed reached those of bsnes.

Having a native GUI doesn't necessarily mean it'll be slow. Snes9x, for example, is plenty fast.

I've always like ZSNES's interface, but I support the rewrite, mainly for the sake of the developers. You guys are crazy for doing all that in Assembly (but also awesome

).

alyxx · Post by **alyxx** » Sat May 02, 2009 8:55 am

I think ZSNES is pretty awesome because it sticks out. The DOS-like interface gives it a very original and nice-looking factor in contradiction to all those emulators who rely on a boring GUI.

Post by **lordmissus** » Sat May 02, 2009 3:34 pm

alyxx wrote:I think ZSNES is pretty awesome because it sticks out. The DOS-like interface gives it a very original and nice-looking factor in contradiction to all those emulators who rely on a boring GUI.

Uh, contradiction? I think the word you're looking for is "comparison".
That's epic fail right there, dude.

And if by "sticks out" you are referring to how it looks completely out of place with other running applications, I agree with you. Not that I personally run zsnes in windowed mode...

AamirM · Post by **AamirM** » Sat May 02, 2009 4:30 pm

I actually tried to create a zsnes-ish like GUI for Regen because of portability and because it would look same on all platforms and because it would be COOL. But I failed.

sweener2001 · Post by **sweener2001** » Sat May 02, 2009 8:09 pm

lordmister wrote:
alyxx wrote:I think ZSNES is pretty awesome because it sticks out. The DOS-like interface gives it a very original and nice-looking factor in contradiction to all those emulators who rely on a boring GUI.
Uh, contradiction? I think the word you're looking for is "comparison".
That's epic fail right there, dude.

And if by "sticks out" you are referring to how it looks completely out of place with other running applications, I agree with you. Not that I personally run zsnes in windowed mode...

you also missed the argument where no professional piece of software uses the standard windows decorations. like itunes, anything from adobe, steam, windows messenger (and media player, and office 2003 and 2007), ccleaner, dvdfab, even the bigfishgames loader, etc.

so basically, EVERY program looks out of place to you.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat May 02, 2009 8:34 pm

lordmister wrote:
alyxx wrote:I think ZSNES is pretty awesome because it sticks out. The DOS-like interface gives it a very original and nice-looking factor in contradiction to all those emulators who rely on a boring GUI.
Uh, contradiction? I think the word you're looking for is "comparison".
That's epic fail right there, dude.

Perhaps he meant contrast.

AamirM wrote:I actually tried to create a zsnes-ish like GUI for Regen because of portability and because it would look same on all platforms and because it would be COOL. But I failed.

Awww. :'(

ZSNES board

ZSNES Looks Terrible!

ZSNES Looks Terrible!

Re: ZSNES Looks Terrible!

Re: ZSNES Looks Terrible!

Re: ZSNES Looks Terrible!