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BigBox: Unmap 'Esc' key?


Shaeree

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Is there any way to un-map 'esc' from going back to the BigBox menu? During configuration and testing, due to the combination of it being the button you use to exit an emulator and latency, I'm like constantly accidentally hitting it when I totally don't want to be in the menu, and it's extremely disruptive to my workflow.

I'm also thinking that it might be confusing for small children and less tech-savvy people.  So can we bind 'menu' to something else, or maybe even have a kiosk mode?

 

Edited by Shaeree
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Escape doesn't just go back to the options menu it allows you to go back from any menu so unmapping it would make the program unusable. If you wanted to propose that the options menu be a separate button besides back it would be best if you clicked the issues/request link up in the sites header and created a ticket. Many users use BB with a controller only and mapping such an important function to its own button would limit the control of BB through their controller.

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14 hours ago, DOS76 said:

unmapping it would make the program unusable

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it wouldn't make BigBox unusable, so much as un-configurable... and for my use case, that's desired behavior.  I'm looking for a sort of kiosk mode, where the user can't accidentally get to the options menu or quit.  But that's a tangent.

What bugs me most, I guess, is the inconsistency--'Esc' quits the emulators, but once you get back to BigBox, it doesn't quit--it goes to the menu, which seems counterintuitive to me for a couple reasons:  First, 'Esc' should never be a way to get in to something, and second, getting into the menu should always be a deliberate action, not an accidental one.

I know what's going on here: The developers see the menu as being the starting point for everything you do with BigBox, so when you hit 'Esc', it's going "back" to that starting point. But the users see their list of games as being the starting point, and the menu as a place you go from there... so when a user hits 'Esc' from their list of games, what they intuitively expect to happen is BigBox exits.

I created a request to update BigBox's workflow here.

So are there any keybinding settings for BigBox?

11 hours ago, kpop said:

I was asking the same question about this, as I've just put BB on my bartop, when I had mala and maximus on it,they had the option to just right click and access the options of the FE.

I'm not sure what any of those things are... What's a Bartop? Or mala, or maximus? LOL.  New to the emulation scene.

Edited by Shaeree
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The way it is ow it would make it unusable like I said because when you left the platform view to go to the games view and then the game view how would you get back out  that is why it would be unusable you could go right now into the settings probably and set the back button to backspace or any other button you want you can probably map it as null but then you wouldn't be able to leave the menu. What I was getting at was that this could only be possible if the menu and the back button where completely separated

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14 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

the game view how would you get back out

That's what I'm saying. I don't want to get out of the game view, at least not accidentally.

The problem is 'Esc' is also the emulators' exit button.  Sometimes, while exiting an emulator, 'Esc' would get pressed multiple times or queued up in the buffer multiple times, and I'd end up in BigBox's menu instead of my list of games, which is pretty annoying.

I submitted a request for the devs to re-evaluate BigBox's workflow from a more user-centric perspective.  In the interim, I just re-mapped 'back' to some keyboard-only button, which is kludgy, but does keeps me from accidentally ending up in the menu when I don't want to be.

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Ok, maybe im being stupid here but I don't understand what the issue is.

I looked at the bitbucket ticket and from what I see there it looks the problem is accidental exiting of games using the controller. But if you bind this to a combo not easily pressed by accident such as "select + start" or "L3 + R3" this really is not a problem at all.

If you don't people to access the options and changing settings in BigBox mode put in a pin code and lock it to prevent accidental changes which is essentially the same as the "kiosk mode" suggested earlier.

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18 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

it looks the problem is accidental exiting of games using the controller

That's kind of a tangent, actually.

I see that as being a symptom, where the actual problem is that the 'back' functionality shouldn't be dumping me into the menu, because the starting point should be the games view, so while you're in the games view, there shouldn't be any place to go "back" to.  You should be able to go into the menu, and then back to the games view, not the other way around.

Like if it were a flowchart, the games view would be the root object.

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear at first--Honestly, I wasn't sure anyone would listen to "Hey, I think your UI workflow is backward" without coming up with a reason for why that's a problem.

Edited by Shaeree
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But if you make the "starting point" the games view where all your systems are like it is currently all you see are your game systems and nothing more unless you choose to go "back". You go back if you want to access the options and other features that you do not want straight forward access from the "systems" and "games" list.

To do it the way you are asking for (or at least  what I think you are asking for) means you are either now putting extra stuff in the "systems" and "games" menu which you do not want people to access and gets in the way of picking your games. To me going back makes the most sense especially when you can lock users out of the options menu with a simple pin code and you can back up one menu where you can pick different ways of viewing your library and a search function. This menu gives you extra functionality without cluttering up the main "systems" and "games" lists and you don't need to worry about some extra hidden hotkey to bring you into the options.

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Okay I'm confused now when you say games view what do you mean? How can you start in the games view you have to start in the platform view I believe some of the confusion might be that you are calling everything that isn't the menu the games view which is inaccurate because it consist of the Platform view which shows your lists of systems and then the games view which shows all of the games available for that platform and then it goes to the details view where you see the option to play the game, mark it a favorite, view all of your images so on and so forth that is why you need a back button to navigate up and down through those menus.

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1 hour ago, lordmonkus said:

But if you make the "starting point" the games view where all your systems are like it is currently all you see are your game systems and nothing more unless you choose to go "back". You go back if you want to access the options and other features that you do not want straight forward access from the "systems" and "games" list.

To do it the way you are asking for (or at least  what I think you are asking for) means you are either now putting extra stuff in the "systems" and "games" menu which you do not want people to access and gets in the way of picking your games. To me going back makes the most sense especially when you can lock users out of the options menu with a simple pin code and you can back up one menu where you can pick different ways of viewing your library and a search function. This menu gives you extra functionality without cluttering up the main "systems" and "games" lists and you don't need to worry about some extra hidden hotkey to bring you into the options.

Because I can't figure out how to break the quote markup into parts:

You go back if you want to access the options and other features that you do not want straight forward access from the "systems" and "games" list.
I understand that's how it is now, and that's how you've been visualizing it.  I'm asking you/the devs to consider thinking of the Games view as the root node of the UI workflow, where everything else you do stems from the Games view (or whatever their Default Startup View is), because I think that's where the users are usually going to want to start.  In that scenario, 'back' to get to the menus doesn't make sense.

To do it the way you are asking for (or at least  what I think you are asking for) means you are either now putting extra stuff in the "systems" and "games" menu which you do not want people to access and gets in the way of picking your games.
No, no no.  The menus are fine.  I just want a separate key binding for the menu(s) that isn't/aren't the same as 'back'.

you can lock users out of the options menu with a simple pin
The only reason I've considered disabling the menu is because I couldn't figure out how to prevent accidentally getting into the menu.  I don't have any reason to lock people out

you can back up one menu where you can pick different ways of viewing your library and a search function.
Again, this isn't (in my opinion) back-style functionality.  Other apps don't work like this, and using 'back' this way breaks cohesiveness.

This menu gives you extra functionality without cluttering up the main "systems" and "games" lists
I use the 'CoverFlow' view for 'All Games', and when I hit 'back', there aren't two levels--just one monolith menu with all that stuff in it.  Maybe search/sort/change view should have its own keybinding too.

and you don't need to worry about some extra hidden hotkey to bring you into the options.
My Spidey-sense tells me you think having individual keybindings for separate functionality is a bad idea?  I disagree, on the grounds that BigBox, by its very nature, needs to play nice with other apps and various human interface devices.  So the more keyboard/controller binding options you can give it, the better.


>> To sum up: How about independent key bindings for the menu and search/sort/view functions? <<

 

 

1 hour ago, ckp said:

Everyone has their own preferences. So does @DOS76 suggestion about changing the key solve the problem for you? It seems to me that this would solve the problem you originally stated, which is accidentally hitting "escape" after exiting a game. 

As I mentioned, that's a symptom of a systemic problem.  It works for that one specific scenario, but then suddenly my binding for 'going back from submenu to menu' isn't the same as my global 'back' any more.

Edited by Shaeree
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30 minutes ago, DOS76 said:

Okay I'm confused now when you say games view what do you mean? How can you start in the games view you have to start in the platform view I believe some of the confusion might be that you are calling everything that isn't the menu the games view which is inaccurate because it consist of the Platform view which shows your lists of systems and then the games view which shows all of the games available for that platform and then it goes to the details view where you see the option to play the game, mark it a favorite, view all of your images so on and so forth that is why you need a back button to navigate up and down through those menus.

I set my Default Startup View to 'All Games'.  BigBox launches in CoverFlow view, displaying every game, because I'm not interested in hierarchies or lists or folders on my 10' interface.

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4 minutes ago, Shaeree said:

As I mentioned, that's a symptom of a systemic problem.  It works for that one specific scenario, but then suddenly my binding for 'going back from submenu to menu' isn't the same as my global 'back' any more.

Sure, I understand what you're saying, but you see how it's designed at this moment. So for the time being, I was hoping we could provide you with some settings that may help you to achieve a happy-medium. 

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7 minutes ago, ckp said:

Sure, I understand what you're saying, but you see how it's designed at this moment. So for the time being, I was hoping we could provide you with some settings that may help you to achieve a happy-medium. 

An option for separating the 'menu/options' and 'search/sort/change view' functions from the 'back' key/button binding, as well as the ability to create independent key/button bindings for those functionalities, would be sweet.

Edited by Shaeree
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