Fullscreen on startup

Archived bsnes development news, feature requests and bug reports. Forum is now located at http://board.byuu.org/
hiero
Rookie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:43 am

Fullscreen on startup

Post by hiero »

Hi there, I use a launcher for Vista media center called 'emucenter' and would like to get bsnes to load automatically in fullscreen mode, rather than having to press f11 on the keyboard each time a rom is loaded.

I've had a search on the forum to no avail and was hoping someone knew a way as I can't seem to find one. A cmd line parameter would do.

btw - Nice one for allowing the ESC key to be bindable to a button, very helpful for people that use launchers. I wish all emulators did this.

Using bsnes v.0.032a
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

Perhaps bsnes should just save what mode it's in on exit...
dvdmth
New Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 9:12 pm

Post by dvdmth »

The Mac port of BSNES (with Emulator Enhancer) has a config option called "Auto Full Screen" which causes games to start up in full-screen mode regardless of what mode the emu was in previously.
byuu

Post by byuu »

Yeah, I think an option would be nicer. Few people would want it to remember the state, whereas front end people would probably want it to always start in the same manner. Worst case, we'll leave it in the advanced panel.

I'll try and get this in for the next release, then.
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

byuu wrote:Few people would want it to remember the state
Really? I thought it was a pretty safe assumption that users are closing the emulator in the mode they most often use. Whereas an option can be missed...
augnober
Rookie
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:29 am

Post by augnober »

Automatic fullscreen without request (via remembering state) could be a pain. My mode of use is generally to start windowed, switch to fullscreen for extended play (only for extended play, which is less than half the time, I'd say), and then quite possibly quit while the app is fullscreen. It would be one of those things where a program tries to be clever and keeps getting in the way. It also opens up some design concern over bug possibilities - since it is possible that the reason that the exit occurred is that the display went blank in fullscreen, or menu placed itself in the wrong place on a multi-monitor config.. in which case, the last thing you'd want is for it to automatically load up with those settings again (and since it's automatic, you may not even know where the config option is stored and will have a harder time correcting it). Such things have happened to me before - hard lessons learned :) (well, I never starved or anything because of it, but it is annoying).

Config option is decent. For many apps, allowing a commandline argument to override it would be good too (for troubleshooting or frontend convenience).. but if it's not bsnes's style, then it's reasonable to hold off on adding that and see how it goes.
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

Automatic fullscreen without request (via remembering state) could be a pain.
I think it's a mathematical wash. With a perma-startup mode, if you intend to switch 30% of the time, you're performing a toggle 30% of the time. In a system that saves the mode on exit, you're still performing a toggle 30% of the time. The only difference is that the perma-mode startup system makes people who almost always use fullscreen find and enable an option.

And I don't see how the perma-mode is immune to a broken fullscreen. What's the difference between toggling there or setting it up to start there? They both go there and can be toggled out.
hiero
Rookie
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:43 am

Post by hiero »

great,i'll look foward to seeing it
Verdauga Greeneyes
Regular
Posts: 347
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:32 am
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Verdauga Greeneyes »

FitzRoy wrote:And I don't see how the perma-mode is immune to a broken fullscreen. What's the difference between toggling there or setting it up to start there? They both go there and can be toggled out.
You wouldn't enable perma-mode until you know the fullscreen mode works.. it's probably not immune, but it's much better than switching to full screen mode only to find it locks up the application, then having to change an option in the config file (or delete it altogether) to stop it doing that every time. (snes9x, I'm looking at you)
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

Right, but he was implying that his scenario was only a concern on the save-on-exit system which has nothing to do with it. Neither system is going to tell you if fullscreen works or not or prevent your from entering an unrecoverable fullscreen state. I didn't mean "perma" as in only allowing that mode, I mean "perma-startup" as in it always starts in a certain mode.
augnober
Rookie
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:29 am

Post by augnober »

FitzRoy wrote:Right, but he was implying that his scenario was only a concern on the save-on-exit system which has nothing to do with it. Neither system is going to tell you if fullscreen works or not or prevent your from entering an unrecoverable fullscreen state. I didn't mean "perma" as in only allowing that mode, I mean "perma-startup" as in it always starts in a certain mode.
The difference is that if you enter fullscreen and there's a problem, then it's fine as long as the setting doesn't get saved (if you start the emu again, you're in windowed mode -- and you remember not to try fullscreen again). If the setting is saved, then you'll get fullscreen again and you might not even be able to see the option to get it back to windowed mode. So not saving the mode automatically is a safety feature (you get to test before manually finalizing).
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

augnober wrote:The difference is that if you enter fullscreen and there's a problem, then it's fine as long as the setting doesn't get saved (if you start the emu again, you're in windowed mode -- and you remember not to try fullscreen again). If the setting is saved, then you'll get fullscreen again and you might not even be able to see the option to get it back to windowed mode. So not saving the mode automatically is a safety feature (you get to test before manually finalizing).
And if you enabled the option before going in? I've never even heard of this issue you're talking about anyway, it's little use coming up with hyopthetical doomsday scenarios that have never been reported and would likely be the system's fault if they were.
Verdauga Greeneyes
Regular
Posts: 347
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:32 am
Location: The Netherlands

Post by Verdauga Greeneyes »

FitzRoy wrote:And if you enabled the option before going in? I've never even heard of this issue you're talking about anyway, it's little use coming up with hyopthetical doomsday scenarios that have never been reported and would likely be the system's fault if they were.
If you enable the option before ever testing the mode, you're an idiot :P Seriously, considering the amount of platforms bsnes caters to, I think it would be a bad idea to assume something will always work.

Snes9x, for instance, completely refuses to test modes for me, so I just have to try it and hope for the best. It works with some settings, but I always forget which - and then I'm stuck with an application that gets into an infinite loop until I change the config file.
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

Verdauga Greeneyes wrote:If you enable the option before ever testing the mode, you're an idiot :P Seriously, considering the amount of platforms bsnes caters to, I think it would be a bad idea to assume something will always work.
You could pretty much apply that rationale to anything that currently saves on exit, though. For all we know, multipliers above the screen resolution are still crashing on .01% of systems. Does that justify changing to perma-startup options?
byuu

Post by byuu »

Can we please just unanimously agree on one thing? Please?? :)

If so, I'll buy everyone a box of cookies. A variety pack, so everyone gets which kind they want.
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

byuu wrote:Can we please just unanimously agree on one thing? Please?? :)
Darn it, I was getting there before you came along with your cookies.
augnober
Rookie
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:29 am

Post by augnober »

I'll just say that the kind of scenario I'm talking about has hit me a bunch of times before. Maybe I use weird configs.

Actually, before I fully fixed up my Ubuntu multi-monitor configuration, I could only see half of the game display in bsnes whenever I tried fullscreen because it was cut off. I also didn't notice that fullscreen had a bsnes menu, and I hadn't noticed that the fullscreen scaling settings were separate from the windowed ones. So I stayed with windowed for a while until my configuration was fixed up and I figured out what was going on. This story may mean that I'm a moron, but that is why I prefer it when programs/machines don't do things unless I tell them to. It keeps things predictable and makes it so I don't have to think as much :). Added cleverness (such as auto-saved configs) is likely to cause pain for both the developer and some users (who are constantly doing things to counter the cleverness -- more frustrating than a dumb machine).

Really, it's not too big of a deal in this case. It might cause trouble for a few users, but at the same time, some people might like the autosave. I think I feel pain when I think of the autosave idea because it's like an engineering/design rule of thumb that I've picked up being violated. A flag goes up and tells me there is danger, though that may be a bit irrational :)
creaothceann
Seen it all
Posts: 2302
Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2005 5:04 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Post by creaothceann »

Just let the user choose between "start windowed", "start fullscreen", "display yes/no dialog" and "remember from last session", with the commandline to rule them all.
vSNES | Delphi 10 BPLs
bsnes launcher with recent files list
byuu

Post by byuu »

creaothceann wrote:Just let the user choose between "start windowed", "start fullscreen", "display yes/no dialog" and "remember from last session", with the commandline to rule them all.
But what if they have two monitors and want to control which one it goes fullscreen on? And what if they want that to be determined based on which monitor the mouse cursor is over at the time? Or what if they want it to be dictated based on the time? Fullscreen on the left monitor during the day, on the right at night. And what if one monitor is 4:3, and the other is 16:10? And what if they want it to span both monitors and center between them? And what if Pluto is reclassified as a planet, aliens land on earth, and force everyone to use SNESGT, instead?

I'll put a true/false option in the advanced panel to start in fullscreen mode. Good enough.
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

creaothceann wrote:Just let the user choose between "start windowed", "start fullscreen", "display yes/no dialog" and "remember from last session", with the commandline to rule them all.
Where would it go? The advanced menu has true/false functionality, but that's four selections.

Oh well, I suppose it doesn't help now to point out that every other program I have saves the minimized/maximized/size states on exit. At least bsnes will save the latter. I guess pseudo-fullscreen isn't technically the same thing as maximized...
byuu

Post by byuu »

Oh well, I suppose it doesn't help now to point out that every other program I have saves the minimized/maximized/size states on exit. At least bsnes will save the latter. I guess pseudo-fullscreen isn't technically the same thing as maximized...
Sigh, my ultimate goal is to make everyone happy, but I just can't. I definitely like FitzRoy's approach more because it's one less option the user has to look at. I'm all for less options, but without following the GNOME "my users are idiots" philosophy. Heck, I don't like the idea of a volume slider, either. That's why Windows and Linux have volume controls. Who the hell wants to listen to Winamp and an emulator at the same time??

Maybe we should just hire a professional UI designer person and go with whatever he says :P

At the very least, it's telling that I've gotten to a point where very few things are a matter of everyone saying I should do something one way, to a 50/50 split. I should be happy about that at least.
FitzRoy
Veteran
Posts: 861
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:43 pm
Location: Sloop

Post by FitzRoy »

Sigh, my ultimate goal is to make everyone happy, but I just can't. I definitely like FitzRoy's approach more because it's one less option the user has to look at.
Sometimes I think people object without really understanding what they're going to get. Someone thought auto-saving was going to make them toggle more. It's not. All it does is give people like the OP the kind of functionality they want out of the box without having to dig for an option that they may not even know is there in the most cryptic menu.

Besides, it's not like the next version is the last. If enough people complain, it can be changed back. What did you think about the "Toggle Menubar/Statusbar" suggestion, btw? Don't you think that would eliminate a lot of confusion to lock them together as a hotkey only?
augnober
Rookie
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:29 am

Post by augnober »

FitzRoy wrote:Sometimes I think people object without really understanding what they're going to get. Someone thought auto-saving was going to make them toggle more. It's not. All it does is give people like the OP the kind of functionality they want out of the box without having to dig for an option that they may not even know is there in the most cryptic menu.
It's a small detail. I have enough experience with these things to have seen some pros and cons. I've just gotten to the point where I prefer to see things consistently laid out in the configuration space and to not have the app surprise me. It's easy to understand and it works.
creaothceann
Seen it all
Posts: 2302
Joined: Mon Jan 03, 2005 5:04 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Post by creaothceann »

FitzRoy wrote:
creaothceann wrote:Just let the user choose between "start windowed", "start fullscreen", "display yes/no dialog" and "remember from last session", with the commandline to rule them all.
Where would it go? The advanced menu has true/false functionality, but that's four selections.
In the "video" options screen. Maybe only visible in the "advanced" mode.
byuu wrote:Who the hell wants to listen to Winamp and an emulator at the same time??
Why not? You could for example play Lost Vikings 2 with traditional scandinavian war choir music (if it exists).
vSNES | Delphi 10 BPLs
bsnes launcher with recent files list
F-3582
Rookie
Posts: 40
Joined: Fri Jan 21, 2005 5:17 pm

Post by F-3582 »

creaothceann wrote:Why not? You could for example play Lost Vikings 2 with traditional scandinavian war choir music (if it exists).
Yeah, like Finntroll or Manowar.

</offtopic>
Locked