^Manu Posted July 20, 2019 Author Share Posted July 20, 2019 I'm surprised people don't see the value in this. Imagine if you tried to take the user profiles away from any games console... it'd be a non-starter. It's the same here. I share a computer with multiple people; how can I possibly do without a user profile system? I can't possibly be alone on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
^Manu Posted July 20, 2019 Author Share Posted July 20, 2019 I mean, in addition to my primary issue in my OP (launching Steam games), I also want scores and saves and save states, and all that good stuff bound to my profile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 You aren't alone, you are just in the small minority. For what it's worth I agree it should be added but I just have 1 vote and it carries just as much as anyone else. I don't outweigh the masses or Jasons decisions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 3 minutes ago, ^Manu said: Imagine if you tried to take the user profiles away from any games console... it'd be a non-starter Taking it away from a product that already had it is a completely different situation to a product never having it in the first place. My SNES never had user profiles and we did just fine without it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
^Manu Posted July 20, 2019 Author Share Posted July 20, 2019 Just now, neil9000 said: My SNES never had user profiles and we did just fine without it. It's not like that now. Even for emulated old games, modern emulators extract scores and log them on leaderboards and all the modern stuff. Profiles feel like a very natural (necessary perhaps) part of that. Anyway, I've made my case, it seems there's nothing more I can do. Is the code available? Can we contribute? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 2 minutes ago, ^Manu said: Is the code available? No, it's closed source. 2 minutes ago, ^Manu said: Can we contribute? You can write a plugin to do it if you have the skillset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 2 minutes ago, ^Manu said: Is the code available? Can we contribute? No, it is closed source as this is a business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
^Manu Posted July 20, 2019 Author Share Posted July 20, 2019 Just now, neil9000 said: No, it is closed source as this is a business. There's nothing incompatible with businesses and open-source. Taking advantage of free labor is an excellent business strategy in my books! We made money from Stepmania way back in the day. 1 minute ago, Lordmonkus said: You can write a plugin to do it if you have the skillset. Is the plugin architecture capable of inserting foundational features like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 5 minutes ago, ^Manu said: Is the plugin architecture capable of inserting foundational features like that? I don't know, i'm not a programmer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 There are strengths and weaknesses to open source projects, but I personally don't believe that open source would suit this project well, neither from a development perspective nor from a financial/business perspective (the latter being the most negatively affected). I know I'm biased, but I see the issues that so many open source projects struggle with consistently that we have never struggled with, because of our different approach. The plugin system is powerful, but not likely extensive enough to create an entire profile system. But regardless, if you're sharing your system with other people, all you have to do is create separate instances/copies of LaunchBox for each person. You can even just copy the entire LaunchBox folder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
^Manu Posted July 22, 2019 Author Share Posted July 22, 2019 On 7/20/2019 at 11:36 PM, Jason Carr said: But regardless, if you're sharing your system with other people, all you have to do is create separate instances/copies of LaunchBox for each person. You can even just copy the entire LaunchBox folder. That's not even a remotely satisfying solution. Here's the expected flow: press power button, computer boots directly into front-end which is operable with a gamepad. User powers on the gamepad, chooses their profile and gets on with it. If you micromanage an install of launchbox (or might as well just juggle steam installs at this stage), then you need a mouse and/or keyboard nearby. It's possibly easier to micromanage windows user accounts; click start logout, switch user, etc. Once you reach this place where you see the windows desktop, and a mouse/keyboard are in the room, then we have failed. This is no longer a gaming device, it's a PC, and what it *really* wants to do is boot up excel. The PC desperately needs a user-experience that's competitive with games consoles, and god knows Steam is not up to the task; its multi-user is broken, you must find a phone, open lastpass, type long passwords, and do 2FA auth whenever we want to switch users. If you could approach the console experience on a PC, you would win the market. I think you're close, and user profiles is the only major missing element. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 1 hour ago, ^Manu said: Once you reach this place where you see the windows desktop, and a mouse/keyboard are in the room, then we have failed. This is no longer a gaming device, it's a PC, and what it *really* wants to do is boot up excel. The thing is though, it IS a PC and not a console. Launchbox only runs on Windows currently, and is a program for that operating system, therefore you are always going to need a mouse or keyboard at some point in time, thats just the nature of PC's. 1 hour ago, ^Manu said: The PC desperately needs a user-experience that's competitive with games consoles, and god knows Steam is not up to the task; its multi-user is broken, you must find a phone, open lastpass, type long passwords, and do 2FA auth whenever we want to switch users. Well if a multi billion dollar making company with thousands of employees cant even do this in a satisfactory way for you then what hope does a program with only one developer have? It is probably just down to the underlying architecture being that of a PC and not a console which means some things are more difficult. Console OS's are designed out of the gate to be used with a controller only, this is obviously not the case with a PC where the OS IS designed for a mouse and keyboard and not a controller. They are completely different products with different goals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
^Manu Posted July 22, 2019 Author Share Posted July 22, 2019 (edited) I think you know that your first point is not interesting. It's obviously possible to have a really great launcher front-end on Windows PC's, we just don't have one. Valve are not a good example of releasing a great product, they can't even make Steam's core experience not-suck. There's still DPI issues in 4k all through the UI. Money isn't it, 'underlying PC architecture' has nothing to do with it, they just don't care; they're rich as hell anyway, and they all roll around their offices each day working on fun hobby projects that usually go nowhere (really, that's what they do). Many launchers have a big-screen style mode which can be controlled with a controller, this is not an OS thing, it's just a front-end thing. What you're saying doesn't address my point at all; I said that a user profile system would add a key missing piece, and that's clearly possible. It's not even particularly hard, it's a well-understood piece of tech and UI. There's no innovation there. It's just work to be done, and I'll stop here, but I was just trying to make a case that I think it would be valuable work to do, and really close the gap on offering a seamless experience. If there's a profile system at the core, and there is a plugin architecture (with access to some profile APIs); then users may be able to contribute things like steam-user switching and stuff. Edited July 22, 2019 by ^Manu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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