Notices

I thought a little bit about it. A symetric layout is not the best for Screen Buttons. 80 pixels on each side are not really much.

I created a little and fast artwork. The maemo Site shrinks image attachments to a width of 620 pixels. I'm sorry. The Original has 800 x 480 pixels. But I think you can see what I mean.

In the middle we have a 640x480 pixel area for the games. On the left you have on the Top the Taskswitcher Button in a normal width... so you mustn't remove it. If you want colorize it green, the ScummVM color.
Then the ESC Button, 4 user customizable Buttons for the games (any game could prefer other ones) and in the bottom left the Mouse Modifier.

Additional we could use the proximity sensor and the Camera Button for the right mouse button. Not as modifier, hold it down for right button, release for the normal left. Hmm... okay, this should be configurable. It should also be possible to switch it off. (to use this Buttons by other Programms, like our new task switcher tool)

The Volume Buttons can still be the Volume Buttons. Sometimes it is important to regulate fast the volume of the device.

On the Right side there is a flip in Slider. When you tap on it the ScummVM Settings known from any other system apears. There could restist the Buttons F1 to F12, you can configurate the 4 userdefined buttons there and you can reach the Game Menu.

Could this be a good Solution for everybody?

So, there is now only one simple problem. I'm only a small windows programmer. I'm new at linux and I can only contribiute this idea. I hope a smart guy that could develop this will love it too.

It looks great. Thanks for your thoughts. Idea of using the black space was there before. The only 'problem' is developer time to implement it and also doing it in clever way without reinventing the wheel inside scummvm. I was quite satified with current way but your picture reminded me how much better it could be.

Is it a known problem that in "The Curse Of Monkey Island", in beginning of the game there is a cannon-shooting scene. The cannon cannot be controlled, only fired and thus missing the targets.

It is a bit harder but possible. You need to push and drag.

Helmuth, your mockup looks great. I know there's not much space, but if there was room for a fullscreen toggle button, and a top-right X (possibly smaller than usual), that would be great.

Longer term, it would be good to make the rest of the ScummVM frontend more usable on small devices. I realise that while playing point-and-click games, one will need a stylus, but still, some of the menu entries and buttons would be more confortable if made larger in the main menu, options, and save/load screens.

OK, here is scummvm that works a bit better on N900
http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/scummvm_1.0.0-2_armel.deb

- volume keys are taken, works same as N810 now (mostly right click and some additional action or game menu)
- shift+backspace is mapped to Escape key
- shift+enter mapped to 770/N8x0 Menu key (mostly brings up game menu)
- optified to save space in internal flash, main binary is moved to /opt/scummvm/bin/

Great!

I'll try in a couple of days!

Virtually perfect! In a little try, I can see that games are playable well!

MI3 and FT skip both intro/animations (ESC works great) and in FT I can switch punches / kicks

No more test for now, but WOW

Thank you very much, fanoush!

Oh, yes. You're totally right. A Close button is missing. Thats needed to get fit with the rest of the Maemo UI. But, it's dangerous. With a simple close button it is needed to integreate a "fast save without question" into ScummVM. I don't know the code behind. But it could be hard. With the upper solution a integration of the close Button in the Option / Setting Screen could be a good solution. So closing ScummVM by accident is well enought avoided and you can click in the same area like the normal close button to reach the close button.

In my opionion a Button to toggle to fullscreen is not really needed. But it's not my decision.

Thanks a lot, fanoush.

Yes, I know. It could be hard to integrate such a onscreen Menu into the ScummVM Code in a clever way. Totally rearranging the code inside SchummVM could be needed and it needs a lot of Time...

I thought about it the whole weekend. I think I have now a solution that could be done without big changes on the ScummVM Code. In a not so good case without touching the ScummVM Code, but with more work for hopbeat and the hope he would help us.

We need only a solution to send keycodes to ScummVM to cover everything we need, is this correct?

I know it's a long text and many to read. But I think it worth.

The BEST solution:

Integreate the Code to react with the proximity sensor and the Camera Button inside of ScummVM.

• Press and hold it for right Mouse Button interaction
• Double tap or click: The ScummVM freeze (you need it anyway during the screen is turned off)
  After the ScummVM iss freezed a UI appears (it can be totally seperated from the rest of the ScummVM code)
• Click again during the UI is shown close it and activate the ScummVM again

We can create the UI, seperated from the SchummVM Code. It's only a Menu with Buttons. The ESC Button, a Button for Options and Settings, one for Menu, 4 userdefined buttons, the Close and the Button for Multitasking and everything else we need. Easy to access for the user without the knowledge what keykombination does what and you can play with closed keyboard. After clicking a Button the UI disappears, the freezed ScummVM comes back to live and a integrated mechanim sends the needed Keycode from our UI to ScummVM.
It could be a background daemon, or a in ScummVM intergreated interface.

Fanoush, what do you think about the needed work?
Could it be done without reinventing the wheel inside ScummVM?

Its not the best solution. But it's near at my upper dream.
Only a compromise. But I think a good working.

The (for us) EASIER solution:

Here we must hope hopbeat and hqh would like it also and find a solution to integrate this in their daemon. Btw: Are there more people working on this?

They try for us at the moment to integrate the right click solution for us in their programm. Am I Correct?

So they cold also integrate the Double Tap (okay, it only works when the single tap is the right click modifer or something else, not the multitasking) in their background working daemon.

At the double tap event: Open a overlay Menu with Buttons. Tap at one Button closes the Menu and sent's the Keycode to the running Application. Press the Camera Button or the proximity sensor again closes the Menu without sending a keycode.

The ScummVM is the whole time running. With this solution its not needed to touch the ScummVM Code. The only hard part is how to bring a overlay Menu from a Daemon to the currently running programm. It's the hardest part I guess and I don't know... is this possible, hopbeat?


I think other programms could use such thing also. There are some weak known Keycombinations at the Browser, the STRG+i Buttoncombination at the Shell for Tab and some other things. But the double click would only work without the Taskswitcher at the single tab. Without a waiting time after the first click the taskswitcher appears before the daemon knows that this sould be a doubleclick. And with waiting the UI reaction of the daemon is even to slow.
Hmm... what does the others think about this?


I'm sorry. I couldn't work on this myself.
I'm new at linux. And I just started to get familar with the Linux Shell.
In the past I wrote some ANSI C Programms for embedded devices and actually I write Windows programms at work using the .NET Framework.
After getting familar with Linux I have to learn C++ again, C is about 4 years ago and my C++ knowledge is very weak. So to do this myself before the end of the maya calendar is nearly impossible.

If you think I can do something to help to integrate somethink like this, let me know!