How do you disable the keyboard functions?

Lactose · Post by **Lactose** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 1:20 am

I have a slikstik quad. When I assign the controls based on the default slikstik bindings, it uses buttons like 0, =, and 9 for player 1's buttons. When I press them in game it says stuff like "windowed mode disabled" or "offset disabled" or something like that.

How do I disabled that stuff so I don't have to rebind my control panel? I don't want to disabled and enable sprites with a hotkey.

Post by **grinvader** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 1:31 am

Why not look for yourself ?
It's really something. You spend all the time required to register to a board, and ask a question, when you could look and click some stuff in the GUI for 2 minutes and find how.
And you're just waiting for me to reply to your question with 0 effort from your part.

I do not believe in that. Work a bit, it'll help you in the future. You know, same as the story about teaching how to fish to someone instead of giving him fishes.

Lactose · Post by **Lactose** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:39 am

What a nice response.

Here was the steps I took in resolving this problem:

Browsed "config" because I wanted to change my button configurionat.

Checked the various "input" options (since my change was for input). Failed to find a solution there.

Read the "zsnesw.txt". Didn't find anything about it there.

Read the "zsneswfaq.txt". Didn't find anything about it there either.

Checked the "config" section in the game again.

Found the latest zsnesw on the net and updated then checked the "config" section again.

Found the forums, reregistered (it had been awhile), made a post about it.

Get jumped upon immediately for it.

Well excuse me but I think I went through a reasonable amount of effort to find a solution to the problem before I blew a minute of your valuable time. Frankly, I don't think clicking every menu in the emulator is a more reasonable solution and the fact that the place you specify key bindings is under "misc" instead of being under "config" with the other inputs is just indicative of a poorly thought out interface.

If my question is common enough that answering it is a bother, it should be in the faq or documentation. If it is a rare question, then you don't have grounds to snipe at me over it.

Lastly, I'm not new to zsnesw, having modded it in the past (to properly support more than 4 input devices), nor am I new to these forums.

Bobbias2.0 · Post by **Bobbias2.0** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:09 am

how bout this:
go to "game keys" option and any other in emulator key options
check for which keys are bound to an option that your slikstik uses
set them to something else, or to nothing

And your done. Seriously, that should have been the first place you looked, because that's where those options are set.

Lactose · Post by **Lactose** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:41 am

The first place I should have looked for binding keys is under "misc"? Not "config"?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:57 am

Config is for "configuring the emulator for the most important functions"... look at the dropdown list...

Misc is for "configuring the emulator for MISCELLANOUS functions" such as mapping the designated emulator controls..

In the other point/problem... looking at your original response.. you are using an OLD version of ZSNES. If you were taking a reasonable response and at least NOTICED that your version of ZSNES is outdated.. then maybe you wouldn't have been flamed.

Read the "zsnesw.txt". Didn't find anything about it there.

Read the "zsneswfaq.txt". Didn't find anything about it there either.

Those are files that DO NOT EXIST in version 1.42... (definately in 1.36 and previous)

Lactose · Post by **Lactose** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 10:11 am

Deathlike2 wrote:Config is for "configuring the emulator for the most important functions"... look at the dropdown list...

Misc is for "configuring the emulator for MISCELLANOUS functions" such as mapping the designated emulator controls..

In the other point/problem... looking at your original response.. you are using an OLD version of ZSNES. If you were taking a reasonable response and at least NOTICED that your version of ZSNES is outdated.. then maybe you wouldn't have been flamed.

I love your implicit assumption that I'm an idiot, thanks. As I said before, I've modified zsnesw, so updating is not going to be my first solution (as it requires me to update and recompile). Then, as I pointed out in my post, I DID upgrade to 1.42. I mean you call me unobservant on the one hand and then you selectively ignore parts of my post.

As it stands, my question wasn't even answered in the 1.42 faq. Clearly its not a frequently asked question. Why is it wrong to ask a question that is not frequently asked?

I'm going to break from this line of thought and present this a different way:

In product design, you're failing yourself when you blame the user instead of the program. The average user is never going to read docs or seek out forums, so you won't even get a chance to flame him. The average user is going to fumble with the program in ways you can't anticipate, for a variable amount of time, and he may succeed or he may fail.

Now, zsnes is not a product. It's open source, it's not here to make money. That's fine. It need not be held to the same standards as commercial software. However, you still want as many people using it as possible, because it means the effort in making it was more worthwhile. It's more enjoyable to release a new version if you know there are people waiting to appreciate it.

Every time somebody runs into a problem you can either fix it or you can treat the person like they're the problem, as well as everybody that encounters the issue in the future.

FAQs exist as a compromise, because sometimes the difficulty in fixing an issue is too great for the value of the fix. For example (to pick a random Q from the FAQ), Game Genie codes don't work if you don't insert '-'. If the program detected this case and warned you that the code is not entered correctly, would the program be better or worse? Is this the user's fault for not realizing it, or the program's?

On my specific issue, I feel that having key binding take place in two completely seperate menus is not the best choice. Once a user has found he can bind keys in one place, he may assume, incorrectly, that this is where all keys are bound.

In truth I knew going in that posting on a forum could result in rude responses, but this forum had been helpful in the past when I couldn't get the 5th joystick to work. Then again, a random sampling of posters is not fair evidence of a larger trend.

Post by **grinvader** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 10:42 am

Lactose wrote:However, you still want as many people using it as possible, because it means the effort in making it was more worthwhile. It's more enjoyable to release a new version if you know there are people waiting to appreciate it.

Not really.

I don't care about stupid users. They can die for all I care. I'm coding this for myself in the first place, and if others can get a kick out of it, why not. If they are too lazy to look at everything and just use one menu and assume all must be in this menu, I will blame them.

Since, as you pointed out, we're not paid, we do whatever we want. The latest versions have key bindings spread in 5 different windows, if you count all input as a single window and don't count the key combo bindings.

I may be an asshole to you, but I'm an asshole who doesn't need anyone to tell him to read every-damn-option-menu in a program before even loading something. It's only good sense dammit.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:00 am

In product design, you're failing yourself when you blame the user instead of the program. The average user is never going to read docs or seek out forums, so you won't even get a chance to flame him. The average user is going to fumble with the program in ways you can't anticipate, for a variable amount of time, and he may succeed or he may fail.

Wrong. If the design if the program is not clear enough that you couldn't figure it out on the first try, then you may have a point. However, most of the time the user is supposed to read the documentation at the first sign of a problem or question. Once the step of reading the documentation is skipped, you're setting yourself up to be flamed (especially on this board). I'm not saying you have not.. I'm saying that the MAJORITY of the posters do not adhere to the simple rule of reading the documentation.. let alone the requirements of making a simple bug post. I'm not saying you are one of them. Most of the stuff in the GUI is pretty self explantory.

Then, as I pointed out in my post, I DID upgrade to 1.42. I mean you call me unobservant on the one hand and then you selectively ignore parts of my post.

I didn't selectively ignore.. I missed that part when reading your response. I apologize for that.

On my specific issue, I feel that having key binding take place in two completely seperate menus is not the best choice. Once a user has found he can bind keys in one place, he may assume, incorrectly, that this is where all keys are bound.

This is more of an opinion and a request in the same instance. Frankly, as a keyboard user (and biased towards that extent), I don't find it a huge deal. Since your problem is related to an application that maps your controller to the keys on the keyboard, would it not help to have a special profile for ZSNES instead? It is rather rediculous at where the keys are (they are all over the place in fact, but rather logical for the options they pertain to). However, if you were to put all these key mappings in ZSNES one place.. it would be a glorified mess. There's a bunch of keys listed in the documentation ( ZSNES Default Keys ) that tells you exactly what they are... all you would have to do is to have a special profile.

It could be labeled better... "Misc Keys" should be more like "ZSNES Key Mappings" or something.

MonkeyforaHead · Post by **MonkeyforaHead** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:38 pm

I'll admit that when I first got Zsnes and looked around for the configuration options and stuff, the menus weren't arranged as intuitively as I thought they could have been. Took me a while to figure out how the hell to set up the controls, too.

One of my friends had also been obsessively using Snes9x and steering away from Zsnes, mainly because of the complications of the menus. But frankly Snes9x's menus confuse the hell out of me 20 times more. After a bit of convincing, I've pretty much converted him. It just takes a little bit of searching at first and pretty soon it becomes second nature. Not what I'd call a major problem.

Baldho · Post by **Baldho** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:44 pm

MonkeyforaHead wrote:I'll admit that when I first got Zsnes and looked around for the configuration options and stuff, the menus weren't arranged as intuitively as I thought they could have been. Took me a while to figure out how the hell to set up the controls, too. One of my friends had also been obsessively using Snes9x and steering away from Zsnes, mainly because of the complications of the menus. But frankly Snes9x's menus confuse the hell out of me 20 times more. After a bit of convincing, I've pretty much converted him. It just takes a little bit of searching at first and pretty soon it becomes second nature. Not what I'd call a major problem.

I Agree with that. But some users are scared to go in places they don't know, fearing to screw things up...

I think to have this solved, ZSnes could have a kind of wizard at startup, and many popup helps. But i HATE all this, I would get annoyed and would quit using ZSnes

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 4:54 am

I think to have this solved, ZSnes could have a kind of wizard at startup, and many popup helps.

Nooooooooooooo... no more wizards.. no more popups... I don't want more blooooooooooooooooooat.

There's thjs thing called Windows XP, you've heard of it?

Lactose · Post by **Lactose** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:42 am

Wrong. If the design if the program is not clear enough that you couldn't figure it out on the first try, then you may have a point.

It's better than some emulators and worse than others. The save state system is over-complicated compared to the nesticle type emulators, but its better than MAMEs (I went years using MAME before I realized it had state save/load). The "Config/Options" menu is quite overwhelming.

Ultimately, these interface issues are minor, as zsnesw is the best snes emulator out there overall. The wide variety of options (in particular record/playback of input) and overall compatability with ROMs makes it stand quite tall amongst any emulator out there.

However, if you were to put all these key mappings in ZSNES one place.. it would be a glorified mess. There's a bunch of keys listed in the documentation ( ZSNES Default Keys ) that tells you exactly what they are... all you would have to do is to have a special profile.

I think "game keys" could be moved to "config", just under "input 5", and it would be an improvement rather than a glorified mess. Maybe there are even more key binding areas I'm not aware of though?

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:18 am

Lactose wrote:Maybe there are even more key binding areas I'm not aware of though?

grinvader wrote:The latest versions have key bindings spread in 5 different windows, if you count all input as a single window and don't count the key combo bindings.

And no, we're not putting them all in GUI/config.