Modifying the loader

Libraries, utilities, bootloaders...

Re: Modifying the loader

Postby Sorunome » Mon May 18, 2015 8:53 pm

If you want to make a better default icon, go for it! But please don't make it a normal INF file but rather screenshot the pixelart or something.
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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby erico » Tue May 19, 2015 4:58 am

If it is about icons, you could check this forum on what it has to offer.
You could use the favicon or the derivatives for such, or maybe someone kicks in with better stuff?

I´m not sure I understand what you mean, can you clarify what you need?
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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby Sorunome » Tue May 19, 2015 11:53 am

Oh, just some icon in some whay that has the correct pixel dimensions. It's just that INF files aren't read out straight-forward by living beings, so a BMP or something would suit the job perfectly
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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby erico » Tue May 19, 2015 4:15 pm

oh, I see, thanks for clarifying.
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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby clement » Tue May 19, 2015 6:32 pm

I thinck the probleme is not realy the default icon.

It's for this is why I have make .inf for all existing game I have in my gamebuino.

I edit my previous post for list game : http://gamebuino.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3073&start=40#p9201

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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby rodot » Sat May 30, 2015 9:21 pm

I started working on Sorunome's loader, and changed a few things, tell me what you think :)
- I changed the layout to have large icons, it's based on erico's mockup :
erico wrote:Here a 4x2 grid example...
mock3.gif
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- I created a java based inf generator which can import jpg,bmp,png or any picture files
- I made a drawBitmapFromSD that could come in pretty handy in the core library
- Larger icons allow more spaces to draw whatever you want, plus it displays the file's name in the square if there is no .INF file
It indicates if there is an existing saved game by drawing a small floppy in the bottom right corner
- When you select a game, it opens a windows where you can scroll through slides (84*32px for now). You can use them as a game description, title screen, tutorial/help, or whatever. This way you can preview a game before you flash it. Also it will allow to save space in you hex files as it allows you to take the help, story, etc. from the .hex to the .inf
- Overall better GUI

To do
- add the possibility to delete .sav, .inf and .hex from the loader
- improve the inf encoder to be able to re-organize slides after importation
- finish to polish the GUI (mockups welcome !)

If you have any suggestions or mockups don't hesitate to share before it's too late :)

PS: I volontarily don't share the source yet because I don't want you guy to start creating .INF because they would probably get broken during the development, as things are not fixed yet
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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby Sorunome » Sun May 31, 2015 8:38 am

As I already got to try this I must say, I love it! Make sure that once you implement deleting a HEX file it'll auto-delete the SAV and INF.
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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby erico » Sun May 31, 2015 9:24 pm

As proposed it looks quite nice. The 4x2 slots I think is a good compromise between space for art and amount of games shown.
We could have a ´netflix´ type, but then we loose the ´list´ ability for a bigger slot.
Now, since are going to have the slideshow thing, then I start to think the icons as a front list is a bit redundant.

I have a few ideas about a visual boot loader, including a little bit of disk access, that is quite different from that.
It does make sense in my gamebuino dream land, but I´m not sure if it would not be a too big step right now.

I will try to summarize and mock it up sometime this week, but before I have a few questions.

What would be the limitations we are looking at?
Prior ones were related to buffers (overlay gfx?) or code space, are there any others I should consider?
On code space, could the settings hex be together with the loader or would it be too much?

Cheers, looking awesome so far.
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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby rodot » Mon Jun 01, 2015 6:37 am

Hey erico, thanks for your feedback :)

I agree on the 4x2, it's way more comfortable than the 5x3, and allows to write game's names when the icon is missing.

I don't think icon are redundant, because when you look for a game in a grid, it's way faster if you are looking for a known picture than if you have to read every single label.

The difficulty with a visual bootloader will be to fit it in 2KB of flash... don't you think that showing a picture of the game when it's loading is enough ? At least, it's better than before :P

The pictures are not buffered so if you overlay some gfx the data will be overridden, but as it's fast you can re-draw the bitmap from the SD card pretty easily. So it's not a big limitation.

I don't know if the settings hex would fit, I'll look into that, good idea.
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Re: Modifying the loader

Postby Sorunome » Mon Jun 01, 2015 9:45 am

Well, I must agree that the icons are not redundant as they greatly improve speed on recognizing which game you want to chose.

Also, the bootloader only has about 12 free bytes which makes it next to impossible to squeeze any extra stuff in there.
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