Zsnes + Flash = SuperFlashNES

Malcster · Post by **Malcster** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 10:42 pm

Noxious Ninja wrote:
Malcster wrote:I don't suppose you know any portable GUI tookits - TK or whatever?
wxPython, based on wxWidgets.

I was writing one for NSRT in Python but I discovered that laying stuff out is evil as boxes just change their shape and size for the hell of it.
Um, that's kind of the point. You specify how things should be layed out, and all the window resizing logic is automatic. Or are you talking about something else?

Well, if "that's kind of the point" it looks like I suck because when I lay stuff out it just ends up looking massively different than what I think I had programmed it to do. And I was building it up bit by bit, and it all seemed to be fine, until I'd add one seemingly insignificant widget which seemed to say "ooh, there is free space to each side of me, I'll resize myself!" and once a few widgets started doing that it was just a mess. I know there are parameters for the pack() function but they never seemed to make a difference, or at least, a difference in the right way.

And do you actually have significant experience with wxPython? I wasn't asking for the names of libraries, I meant "know" as in "know how to use".

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:24 am

No, I've just started.

cdbsi · Post by **cdbsi** » Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:22 am

The best thing about working off of a standard is that everyone would work towards building one large archive, instead of everyone scrambling and trying to make their own (i.e. screenshots, cart scans, etc.). I think a lot more could get done and there would be much more content. There could be a way to track what has been submitted, and there could be a quality rating for the scan (lightness, visibility, clarity, etc). That way, people could know to work to submit their own scan if one is known to be blurry or something.

I just think it would be incredible to have one hub (skinnable, if desired) where you could select your system, then sort the list of games as desired, then select the game. You would then see screenshots, etc of the game and it would really help with the nostalgia of the whole thing. When you are loading roms into an emulator, all you see are the game titles and it really isn't as fun as putting the cart into a console.

Heck, the skin could change slightly to represent the console when you change the system. Of course, it would consist of images that would remind you of the console, i.e. console picks, controller pick, console logo, common marketing articles, etc.

Here's an idea, when a rom is loaded it could contact a central server sending a query that that certain rom has been loaded. It's just an idea, but it could be used so that you can see the popularity rating of a game based off of how many times people have loaded the game.

Nach wrote:My team is actually working on that, won't be out for at least another two releases though. In the mean time, take a look at MESS32 I think it can do that.

That's fantastic! I forgot about that.

Nightcrawler wrote:It would be interesting to see this feature expanded to say the 10 most played ROMS in each directory or something like that. I can't really think of any sound ideas at the moment.

The great thing about sorting is that you could quickly and easily make it the top ten games played, or the top twenty, top three, top whatever.

Malcster wrote:I was writing one for NSRT in Python but I discovered that laying stuff out is evil as boxes just change their shape and size for the hell of it.

You'll get it eventually. I mean, it's better than writing a GUI from scratch.

cdbsi · Post by **cdbsi** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 6:17 am

Oh great, did I kill the thread? [yes, this is a bump]

Clox · Post by **Clox** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 3:30 am

just wanna point out one thing.

flash does not suck.
yea, it would suck at doing sumthing like that.
and its not like its a prog which can do basically anything, like.. C++ for instance.

flash is great at... what its great at =P

Kagerato · Post by **Kagerato** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 7:37 pm

cdbsi wrote:Here's an idea, when a rom is loaded it could contact a central server sending a query that that certain rom has been loaded. It's just an idea, but it could be used so that you can see the popularity rating of a game based off of how many times people have loaded the game.

The implementation of this idea would undoubtably experience the problems associated with having a central server for any purpose. When it's a single system, the chance of failure is high. You'd need mirrors, and people to own/run them.

Ultimately, gigantic databases do not become assembled unless a great number of people want to become involved in the task.

Clox wrote:flash is great at... what its great at =P

Would you be speaking of web graphics/animations? Even at the tasks it was designed for, flash proves annoying. Simply put, I feel it overcomplicates any interface. There's no need to utilize complex animations, rollovers, and sound effects when standard HTML, CSS, and bits of PHP could achieve the same functionality without the annoyance.

Flash games are understandable, considering there are few (if any) other technologies which could as-effectively produce simple games and embed them into web pages. A game, however, is far more of a standalone entity to my mind than part of any web site's interface.