bd00 Posted July 19, 2014 Author Share Posted July 19, 2014 Ok, I have an idea regarding the libraries and I have created a new thread like you suggested Jason. Quite simple really, how about a library per developer? Atari, Nintendo, Sega, etc. Obviously, some developers have more platforms & games than others, so maybe smaller developers could be grouped together. DOS could have its own and PC Games/Apps could have their own. Separating like this may have other benefits too, for example, the suggestion regarding the rename and organize feature. As you pointed out, Steam imports are different and DOSbox has it's own wizard, etc. If these platforms had their own libraries, would it not make something like that easier to set-up? if you catch my drift? This way, LB would manage everything under the hood and you keep things simple for the user. I do like the idea of having control over the libraries though. Have you considered an advanced settings menu? You could even hide it and make it only accessible from a keyboard shortcut or something, which will keep LB simple on the surface but allow users who know how, a little more control. Cater for both sides, fill the gap in the market but also offer some advanced customization options. I am starting to drift away from the topic at hand. So, how about libraries per developer as default and the option to manually control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 19, 2014 Share Posted July 19, 2014 Thanks for the thread. I've been doing some more thinking, and really, the concept of "libraries", as in multiple XML files, really solves a nonexistent problem. The original reason why I was thinking of doing separate libraries/XML files was for performance/RAM usage reasons. Since then, the performance is great, even with humongous collections. So really, the only issue we have left is RAM usage, and that's only because of the images, and I think there are better ways to solve that problem than separate collections, after thinking about it. So we definitely still need to talk about how to design the nesting interface, but I think the multiple libraries idea would just be unnecessary development. Sorry for leading you and everyone else down the wrong path there. The issue with the RAM usage will go away when I switch the games list backend to use web technologies, which I plan to do before 4.0. Basically, I want to switch the list of game boxes over to a web page type of backend (using the Chromium Embedded Framework most likely). This shouldn't change the appearance or behavior much, but will allow much easier flexibilty as far as animations and customizations inside the games list (especially since it'll all be controlled by simple HTML and CSS). At least that's my current idea. Anyways, so we're back to either nesting or OpenEmu-style. With either approach, I want the presentation to change based on the current Arrange By setting. For instance, if you're currently arranged by developers, then the new navigation would show a list of developers. If by platforms, the it'd show a list of platforms. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 20, 2014 Author Share Posted July 20, 2014 To be honest, I am glad and what you just said sounds great. Now, I suppose either nesting or OE-style would both still work with arrange. (for OE-style the left list would just change depending on sort option) What approach are you considering for nesting? expanding/collapsing ribbons or the "layers" type or something completely different? Maybe even a combination of both? If expanding/collapsing, the ribbons would just change depending on the "arrange by" variable set. If layers, then images could be set for each "arrange by" option. If platform, then platform images (like design below), if developer then their logos, if genre some genre images could be designed, etc. Hope that makes sense. I will have a think and try come up with some more ideas. I might even draw up some drafts if I have time. OFF TOPIC: I do like the idea of the "collections" that OE offers (like playlists), have you considered adding anything like this? Also, I think the darker bottom bar on OE looks better than the "system grey" colour used in LB. Dark menu and scroll bars would be better also. Just my opinion though. Visual examples: Spoiler expanding/collapsing (Link to thread) layers OpenEmu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Ok, no matter how you do this, I think you are going to have to change your "arrange by" set-up, except for the expanding/collapsing option... maybe. Things like "Version", "TheGamesDB.net ID", "Release Date", "Date Added", etc. will not really work with the kind of grouping your looking at here. You could create "Groups" or something, then have sorting options within them (Groups would be things like platform, genre, developer, rating, star rating, etc.) One group would be "All Games" (or All Platforms/Developers/Genres/etc/whatever), so your current "Arrange By" set-up could remain the same, only nestled under the group. Some "Arrange By" options would need to be removed from other groups. I still think you should have the option to turn off the interface also. (All games, with the extra bits of GUI removed - would just look like LB looks now) Hmm.. I suppose it would be just like having some preset filters, with additional GUI added to access them and some sorting options for the results. Anyway, I have created some mock-ups that will hopefully spark something for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Bottom Ribbon Spoiler A group could be selected, and a ribbon shown at the bottom of LB with the options. (click to enlarge) You might be better off letting the users upload their own images for a platform. TheGamesDB has developer/publisher logos, if you can scrape them. Let users add missing logos or change current ones. You would need to create some default images for certain groups, such as genre or star rating, etc. You would need to add a drop-down menu somewhere, so users can change the group shown in the ribbon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Top Ribbon Spoiler Same as above, but with the ribbon at the top. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 OE Style Spoiler I decided to draft how LB might look with an OE style interface. You may have noticed I added a "charms bar" to the top of the sidebar, with some possible features. You can use the group icon to change the group. (I crossed out some of the "arrange by" options that wouldn't really work. I also added filters and thought if you went the OE route, it might be better to move the filters panel over there. Obviously change the color of the filter panel to match the rest. I also added a favorites button. This would allow access to favorites and also "collections" if you decide to add that feature. Also, other stuff could go here, i added a couple of examples but there are many more possibilities here. The last button I added was the settings button. This could offer quick access to the settings window, or you could add a new side bar settings panel (so the settings would appear in the sidebar). I did not make a draft of this. I'm sure you could think of other stuff that could go in this sidebar too. Game manuals maybe or game music. You could add a button for "Launch Random Game" and it would launch a random game from whatever group you are viewing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 "Layers" Spoiler I also tossed together another layers draft. This time keeping with LB's current style and removing the big image to the right. Again, some groups would require you to create images, but let the users add their own images for the others. An "all games" option would need to be somewhere and you would need a "go back" button or tile. Platform: Developer: Genre: Star Rating: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 That's all for now. I realize some of these are not great, but I did not have as much time as I would of liked to create them and they were rushed and corners were cut. But hopefully they paint a picture. If someone throws out some ideas, I will create some more if required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Expanding/Collapsing Spoiler Ok, I just did a new expanding/collapsing draft. This one should work with your current arrange by set-up. It will work exactly like LB now, but the ribbons are interactive. If you choose an arrange by option that does not have ribbons, it will just go to the full list, like it does now. You could add an option to start LB with the ribbons expanded or collapsed. I added a large charm bar across the top, which includes buttons for: (from left to right) Arrange By (with drop-down menu) Filters Favorites Random Game (from all games) Emulators (more on this in a min) Game Manuals ------ from bottom bar (this would allow you to get rid of the bottom bar)------ Play Game Edit Game Delete Game Poster Size Slider Add Game Settings Moving to the ribbons, which can be exp/col using the button on the far right. I added some group specific charms, these would change depending what arrange by option your viewing. ( for this e.g. I am using platform) From left to right: Edit- allows the user to edit the images of the platform Edit emulator (or maybe launch emulator, you could add both) Random Game - from this platform only I'm sure there are loads of others you could add, but you get the picture. Now, onto the emulators. You have being considering adding support to edit the emulators (separate from games) and this would be a nice way to access it. If you click the emulators charm, it takes you to the emulators the user is using (see img below). From here, the user can launch the actual emulator, edit the emulator settings in LB and customize their images for each emulator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 Almost forgot, you could add a simple place holder for platforms with no logo, for example: Spoiler Here is where the platform abbreviations would come in handy Same goes for the console images Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Wow, bd, thanks for all that good work. All those mockups will really help to make decisions I think. What are your thoughts? What would be the preferred approach at this point in your mind? I think I'm favoring the OpenEmu approach, especially with the mockups you created with the charms bar and the tabs (combining the filters, etc.). I think that'd be really great. Thoughts? And I agree about the dark theme, I've thought that from the beginning but would have to figure out a way to re-theme the default Windows controls (as they don't support theming by default). But that will probably be necessary for this. I do like the concept of OpenEmu collections as well, though that might have to be another subproject. Anyways, thanks again, gonna go hit up the Beta Testing thread to tell people to check this and out get their 2 cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Just skimmed through. I was going to go about creating Pixel representations of consoles and controls because I knew that this was a direction Jason wanted to go, but It doesn't look like I need to do that anymore. As far as which look, I prefer the Left Sidebar view, but I have a big screen. For those with a smaller display maybe there can be a choice on the initial start up but detecting that would be difficult but either way, make it a choice honestly. Saying that, I realize that could be a nightmare so I personally would go for the Left bar styled look. As for showing the content you want. Why make it so overly complicated? Sorting by developers I find strongly useless. Platform, Genre, Rating, maybe Year or Metacritic Rating (for those that want it) would be fine. Someone would like the developer sorting too, but I think it needs to make sense. The way I saw that was you Click a filter, like Snes, then you hit another Filter like Electronic Arts, etc etc. That's what I took away from the layered look. If you went a left bar route you could choose the master sorting method. I.e. Genre or Platform. Then from there a choice indented from your master choice pops up. From there you can pick year or anything else you can come up with. Similar to how you can refine searches in Amazon or NewEgg. This is all of course predicated on the fact that TheGamesDB has every game in your library, which they do not for me. Not even close. So powerful sorting is fine and all, but Wikipedia searching is a must. That said, and I'll put this in the Beta Post too, but I changed over to the new version, and even though I imported all my images, they are all gone. Whats more is that TheGamesDB has some games, but no images. So I also think that if an image is missing it can populate the game system with it saying something along the lines of "No Image Available" especially since even with Wikipedia searching, finding images is still going to be a pain. Edit: Also, sorry I haven't been saying much recently. My images bug pissed me off, but there has been some stuff I've been thinking about for LB, and bugs I've been needing to talk about. I've just been really trying to focus on my YouTube and my other stuff... I need my YouTube to finally take off and im sure Jason can agree, trying to make your own way and not work for someone else, like a YouTube channel or creating your own program, is very hard. Sometimes I get really depressed and reclusive for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 Jason Carr said Wow, bd, thanks for all that good work. All those mockups will really help to make decisions I think. What are your thoughts? What would be the preferred approach at this point in your mind? I think I'm favoring the OpenEmu approach, especially with the mockups you created with the charms bar and the tabs (combining the filters, etc.). I think that'd be really great. Thoughts? And I agree about the dark theme, I've thought that from the beginning but would have to figure out a way to re-theme the default Windows controls (as they don't support theming by default). But that will probably be necessary for this. I do like the concept of OpenEmu collections as well, though that might have to be another subproject. Anyways, thanks again, gonna go hit up the Beta Testing thread to tell people to check this and out get their 2 cents. Yeah I agree, I prefer the sidebar approach too. I would however like an image of the console somewhere. Would you consider adding a small panel at the bottom of the sidebar for a console (genre/developer/rating/whatever people prefer to arrange by) image? Make it off by default, and have the users add their own images if they want it turned on. Something like this: Spoiler or or e.g. for NES Thank you Conehead for this spoiler idea i had not considered using it for this purpose, great idea The images could possibly be entered in the emulator settings, since each platform is tied to an emu or an instance of an emu. Although this would be a problem for PC and DOS games. Which brings me onto the emulators. Could you also add the ability to open the emulators from LB (something like I drafted in the exp/col mock-up) purely for ease of access, LB is a launcher after all. Hmm, clicking the image at the bottom of the sidebar could be a nice way to implement it. Also, access to the emulator settings without going through a game is also a must in my opinion. Maybe a right click menu or charms bar on the console image would work here. Food for thought. SentaiBrad said Just skimmed through. I was going to go about creating Pixel representations of consoles and controls because I knew that this was a direction Jason wanted to go, but It doesn't look like I need to do that anymore. If you are talking about the little icons for the sidebar, please continue. The mock-up i created used a screenshot of OE for the main sidebar. I did not want to be recreating that just for a draft and I didn't have the time anyway. So please carry on, don't stop on my account. I have seen some of your pixel work and it is great. As far as which look, I prefer the Left Sidebar view, but I have a big screen. For those with a smaller display maybe there can be a choice on the initial start up but detecting that would be difficult but either way, make it a choice honestly. Saying that, I realize that could be a nightmare so I personally would go for the Left bar styled look. How about a hybrid of the OE and expanding & collapsing? For example, if someone has a genre selected the games would still be separated by the ribbon, so allow them to collapse. If the ribbons collapsed, this would also mean users could turn off the sidebar if they did not want it and still have the grouping option available to them. As for showing the content you want. Why make it so overly complicated? Sorting by developers I find strongly useless. Platform, Genre, Rating, maybe Year or Metacritic Rating (for those that want it) would be fine. Someone would like the developer sorting too, but I think it needs to make sense. The way I saw that was you Click a filter, like Snes, then you hit another Filter like Electronic Arts, etc etc. That's what I took away from the layered look. If you went a left bar route you could choose the master sorting method. I.e. Genre or Platform. Then from there a choice indented from your master choice pops up. From there you can pick year or anything else you can come up with. Similar to how you can refine searches in Amazon or NewEgg. This is all of course predicated on the fact that TheGamesDB has every game in your library, which they do not for me. Not even close. Yeah, I agree the layers way is not great, my least favorite in fact. That was originally thought up as a way to separate platforms and nothing else. I would never/rarely use most of the other options (developer/publisher/etc) either, but others probably do and it is nice to have the option there if you ever wish to use it. Still for me personally, I think t would probably be set to platform most of the time and genre/rating/etc on occasions. As for the deeper sorting, using platform as an example: Maybe when a platform is selected the sidebar changes to show some advanced sorting/searching/filtering/whatever options for that platform, with a button to go back to the full platform list at the top. This would need to be optional though, because I could see it getting annoying. Hmm.. more options Or, maybe have a little charm at the end of the platform name (when selected or hovering), that when clicked shows some advanced options for the selected platform. So powerful sorting is fine and all, but Wikipedia searching is a must. That said, and I'll put this in the Beta Post too, but I changed over to the new version, and even though I imported all my images, they are all gone. Whats more is that TheGamesDB has some games, but no images. So I also think that if an image is missing it can populate the game system with it saying something along the lines of "No Image Available" especially since even with Wikipedia searching, finding images is still going to be a pain. I agree, the scraping options available are not great and TheGamesDB is not adequate as a sole scraper option. It is a shame a gamefaqs scraper is not possible, because I have not come across a game I could not find on there. However DOS games are categorized under the "PC" umbrella, so that would probably cause problems. I don't know about Wikipedia so I can't comment on that, how would it work? Do they have a games DB? If so, i would imagine that it is one of the most complete ones available? Edit: Also, sorry I haven't been saying much recently. My images bug pissed me off, but there has been some stuff I've been thinking about for LB, and bugs I've been needing to talk about. I've just been really trying to focus on my YouTube and my other stuff... I need my YouTube to finally take off and im sure Jason can agree, trying to make your own way and not work for someone else, like a YouTube channel or creating your own program, is very hard. Sometimes I get really depressed and reclusive for a while. I saw this and thought of you: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/join-the-xda-developer-tv-team/ You said you love tech and you would get to play with all the latest mobile devices. You know your way around video editing apps and you probably have a camera. It is voluntary work so you don't get paid but you may get to keep some of the gadgets and you could probably find a way to push traffic to your youtube channel. XDA currently has 5,728,116 registered users and who knows what it could lead to? It would probably improve your confidence too and in turn, squash that depression. Trust me, the hardest part is doing something about it, but once you get going it gets much easier and you will be glad you did. I realize you probably disagree and it is not that simple for you, but why not give it a try and see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Actually I don't have a camera... that is the only problem. >< I am sure I could find one or borrow one... And no, im honestly not that closed minded. If someone has a method or an idea, I am all for hearing it. It is just that I've worked so hard for little pay off. It gets to be a lot sometimes. My girlfriend has to watch me go through that too, and I am sure she hates it. It then makes me not want to do anything around the house. X_X Anyways, about the program. All great ideas and addendums to my thoughts BD. All I agree with. We also keep saying "make it a choice", but at a certain point there needs to be a design decision. We cant have LB cluttered up with 40 options. We may like that approach, and maybe there can be a fork of LB for the extreme power users in the future, but for a mass audience we need to try and make it as intuitive as possible. I think the side bar would be the best choice. Clicking a system, then it replacing the systems with options to refine the search is perfect and a back button to take you back. There would also need to be options for the entire library in one go. So keeping it similar to the way it is now, but adding the powerful sorting as well. We'll figure it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bd00 Posted July 22, 2014 Author Share Posted July 22, 2014 Well I am glad to hear that and I know what it feels like and how it affects the people around, I have been through it myself. It's good that you have not closed up too much. Remember, your girlfriend works hard to support you through this, so a little house work won't kill you it will actually make you feel better. Anyways, about the program. I agree with the options thing and I am probably the biggest culprit, I need to stop. I agree, sidebar is definitely the best choice in my opinion. It would be much easier/user friendly to use than any of the other proposed suggestions. I am not sure about the sidebar changing automatically, this could get very annoying for some users. I think this will depend on the size of the users library. People with large libraries will definitely prefer this feature because they would use it a lot. However users with smaller libraries probably won't use them and would more than likely find it annoying. They would just want the platforms to remain down the side most of the time and when an occasion arises where they need the extra options, they could just click a button to access them. I'm still torn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlantico Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Love the dark color scheme and have to admit that the OpenEmu look is really appealing. Anything that is tasteful and practical gets my vote. In fact the current layout is very good in most respects, a sidebar to sort different systems makes a lot of sense. I think this frontend has a lot of appeal to it already and any improvement to its looks and practicality can only make it more popular. It is the most obvious "weakness" of other Windows frontends that they are rather unappealing and Launchbox is clearly breaking that trend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtrain Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 Awesome work guys, love the mock-ups. To add my 2 cents: I think the sidebar idea looks the best (and would be the most functional) when using LB from my desktop. However I would actually prefer the layers approach when using LB on my HTPC in my living room. I have a pretty big TV but I sit quite a ways away from it, and I think a sidebar would be too hard to read. I think the layers approach would look the best and be the easiest to navigate with only a 360 controller. I prefer the one that shows a grid of platform icons, which the user could modify if they so chose. Of course the best of both worlds would be a way to choose between the two depending on preference, but this creates a lot more work for those doing the dev! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 jtrain said Awesome work guys, love the mock-ups. To add my 2 cents: I think the sidebar idea looks the best (and would be the most functional) when using LB from my desktop. However I would actually prefer the layers approach when using LB on my HTPC in my living room. I have a pretty big TV but I sit quite a ways away from it, and I think a sidebar would be too hard to read. I think the layers approach would look the best and be the easiest to navigate with only a 360 controller. I prefer the one that shows a grid of platform icons, which the user could modify if they so chose. Of course the best of both worlds would be a way to choose between the two depending on preference, but this creates a lot more work for those doing the dev! That is partly what I was thinking of too, or for a Windows Surface Tablet. A Bigger Icon would be nice. My thought is to still keep it in the side bar. There could be different themeing options. Just the regular here is your sidebar with a list and icons, pick what you want or leave it alone and your result on the right. Or you can choose to switch it to Icons. So no words, just an icon and pressing the icon will show the result on the right. Honestly, there is no ideal set up. Some set up somewhere is going to have its draw backs. Like I said above too, you don't want 50 options that get lost then someone just quits because its too much to wrap their head around. As much as Jason wants to keep the program portable, I think it is going to work against us. I honestly think forking it from portable to a regularly installed program with saved config files is best, or find a way to include them in with the exe so it can still be portable, but you need the folder instead of just the exe. When the program launch it can be plainly laid out and ask if you want a regular Desktop / Laptop interface or do you want a Controller / Touch interface. The settings can also assign several different values that we've been talking about, like a voting system etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinicius256 Posted July 22, 2014 Share Posted July 22, 2014 I prefer the OpenEmu based style, and I agree that it's not that great to use on HTPC's or Large TV setups, so the best choice is to make the OpenEmu interface first, and then go after the big screen style, so the users can choose what's best for them to use, just my opinion though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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