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Post by Tinnus on Jun 15, 2007 3:29:43 GMT 1
Just to give a small report on how LJX's going (so anyone doesn't say I abandoned the project or something  ). I've been really really unable to work on it for the past month(s) because of classes and stuff. Especially now, I'm having lots of exams, but that means the holidays are near as well  We should have something cool to play with next month or so. I just don't know yet if I'll be able to show off the PalmOS version yet because I've yet to charge my LifeDrive (remember I lost my charger--I know someone with a compatible charger but I keep forgetting to borrow it ). |
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Post by hansschmucker on Jun 15, 2007 13:22:43 GMT 1
I'd send you one, but I'm afraid the shipping to you would cost more than the whole charger... In Germany, they cost about $10 on ebay...
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Post by tgwaste on Jun 15, 2007 20:50:09 GMT 1
ill paypal you the $$ needed for the charger.  |
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Post by Tinnus on Jun 16, 2007 2:23:24 GMT 1
That's not the problem either, I have the money, just hard to find a place to buy it as well (and buying internationally is a no-go because international shipping to here is usually a pain in the @55).
Don't worry, I'll remedy that when I have time to program ;D
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semi
Junior Member
Posts: 97
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Post by semi on Jun 16, 2007 8:43:37 GMT 1
Noooo~ Tinnus abadoned the project!!!!!! >________________<;;;; (LoL) Looking forward to the PalmOS version... |
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Post by _Em on Jun 18, 2007 17:02:08 GMT 1
What we really need is someone willing to SHIP a power supply to Tinnus |
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Post by countbuggula on Jun 18, 2007 17:40:47 GMT 1
I'm gonna rant for a second about Palm and their unwillingness to use an industry standard for their devices (they can't even stick to a standard on their own proprietary connector).
Mini-USB, Palm. That's all we want. Make it simple. Everyone can connect, and Tinnus wouldn't have to pay up the wazoo to get a charger shipped to him. Ergh.
</rant>
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Post by _Em on Jun 18, 2007 17:51:31 GMT 1
The problem with Mini-USB is that Palm would have difficulty supporting external add-ons with it. However, I feel that Palm really needs 3 plugs on the bottom: power, min-usb, and "feature expander". Sure, they could use mini-usb for all of those functions, but that would take a more expensive chipset, and the device would have to be plugged into a powered USB port in order to charge.
Actually, with Bluetooth and SDIO in all modern PalmOS devices, the third-party-plugin stuff isn't as important; it can be done via one of these methods.
I do like the simplicity of my T|X's pinout however; you can use the pinout to add just about anything to the Palm's bus. Doing this via USB would be a lot more cumbersome (Palm would need to add USB host chips to their devices, and you'd need to add software drivers for each device you want to load onto the bus).
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Post by countbuggula on Jun 18, 2007 20:35:51 GMT 1
what kind of things use the serial connection nowadays? I know some car cradles have built-in GPS that uses the connection, but that can be easily done with bluetooth (granted full bluetooth 2.0 with all the profiles implemented would really help as far as connecting things goes). What other kinds of 3rd Party plugins are still needed, just out of curiosity?
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Post by _Em on Jun 18, 2007 21:36:24 GMT 1
Microphones, stereo out via base, external vibrator, car docking stations (complete with pTunes mapping to the dash) to name a few. I'm probably missing a bunch. My company has software that works over the old serial cables, but of course that was broken with PalmOS 5 and the "universal" connector that doesn't talk RS232 or 485 directly.
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Post by countbuggula on Jun 20, 2007 16:28:29 GMT 1
Hmm. Ok I get ya. Most of those would be able to be done with correct full Bluetooth implementation though (maybe by the time Palm decides to put USB-mini into their devices they'll have given us the rest of the Bluetooth 2.0 profiles to use).
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Post by tgwaste on Jul 11, 2007 23:44:18 GMT 1
he said 'month or so..' so that means something should be ready NOW!  |
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Post by Tinnus on Jul 11, 2007 23:44:40 GMT 1
Note I never said "there will be something in exactly a month" |
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Post by tgwaste on Jul 11, 2007 23:51:09 GMT 1
d**nit! |
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Post by Tinnus on Jul 11, 2007 23:55:28 GMT 1
Yeah, I need to get my lazy ass to do something... Problem is, I'm in college holidays but I'm working around 10am-16pm everyday, and I get home already tired Ohhall right then. I'll see if I do something right now (no, that does NOT mean there will be something tonight ) |
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Post by tgwaste on Jul 12, 2007 0:08:37 GMT 1
no problem.. tomorrow is fine.. |
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Post by _Em on Jul 12, 2007 18:41:50 GMT 1
You'd make a good middle manager, tgwaste |
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Post by varnil on Jul 12, 2007 20:05:44 GMT 1
Right well, firsthand i appreciate the update, and am looking forward for the palm release, however you never mentioned how any of the other systems' versions are coming along (personally i wouldn't mind any news about the psp version), care to share some with us? (if u dont mind of course)
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Post by tgwaste on Jul 12, 2007 20:25:29 GMT 1
You'd make a good middle manager, tgwaste haha.. up to a few months ago I was one.. but then I moved to Network Operations because I was tired of being a di ck to people  stop reading this Tinnus and get back to work. <3 tgwaste heh |
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Post by Tinnus on Jul 13, 2007 15:10:39 GMT 1
Right well, firsthand i appreciate the update, and am looking forward for the palm release, however you never mentioned how any of the other systems' versions are coming along (personally i wouldn't mind any news about the psp version), care to share some with us? (if u dont mind of course) They go together. The way I'm doing it, if I add a new emulated system, it will work in all host systems. If I add a new host system, all currently working emulated systems will work on it (keeping in mind the limitations of the host devices of course, no PS2-in-a-watch situations ) I have a test version of the PSP backend (which you can find somewhere around here I think, as well as DCEmu and PSPUpdates) with the NES emulator. It's basically just a port of the SDL build I use for the PC and already runs VERY well considering it's completely unoptimized for the PSP. |
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Post by Tinnus on Jul 16, 2007 0:50:24 GMT 1
Actually I'm most likely going to redo the launcher, scratching what I had so far (the code is terribly overcomplicated). Even then, the design's still not very clear in my head... I should probably plan it all on paper before coding an interface. A configuration interface is something worth investing time into so as to avoid wasting time later answering questions I'm also trying to decide if the launcher and in-game configuration menus should be identical or not. They WILL have all the same options, different from the current state, but there are considerations to be made (example: in PalmOS the launcher will be 68k and the emulators ARM, so there are things you cannot, or are hard to do in both modes). |
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Post by _Em on Jul 16, 2007 17:22:14 GMT 1
I was thinking that a launcher similar to the Palm Application Launcher with a toolbar would be a neat interface... select your emulated system from the drop down menu, and screenshots can be used as icons |
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Post by vilmos on Jul 16, 2007 18:22:07 GMT 1
C'mon Tinnus you slacker. Where's the code! |
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Post by tgwaste on Jul 16, 2007 21:17:08 GMT 1
I think the in-game config is kind of redundant honestly. save game -> gui -> config -> return to game. thats like 1 extra button? having a real nice looking gui seems to me to be more important than making it work in-game, dontcha think? Maybe make a launcher button in the game that creates a .tmp save file so: in game select launcher tmp file created exit game and return to gui config go back into game loads (and deletes) the tmp file. most of that would be done by the system and not the user so not really anymore key presses for the user and you dont have 2 launchers. just my .02 |
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Post by hansschmucker on Jul 16, 2007 22:43:39 GMT 1
I agree with tg... ingame GUI is not exactly a priority... LJP loads a game so fast that a dedicated savegame slot should be all we need... About the GUI.... I couldn't help it... I adore _Em's idea to use a design similar to the Palm launcher... so I mixed the PalmOS launcher with the Zodiac's settings tab and the address book and this is what I got:  I (obviously) like it |
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Post by _Em on Jul 16, 2007 22:50:44 GMT 1
Great work, Hans! That's almost EXACTLY what I was thinking of.
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Post by tgwaste on Jul 16, 2007 23:26:12 GMT 1
i like a lot of that. especially the first (upper/left) window. that would also be a good window for the save states. I dont like the little logo and I dont like having the main config controls (vid, aud, controls) in their own seperate window (these could easily fit onto the windows with the actual controls) saving a step. overall, looks like a nice idea what I would really like is a good save state window. unlimited saves (that you can name yourself) plus a screenshot of the save displayed would be really really cool. |
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Post by hansschmucker on Jul 17, 2007 0:44:59 GMT 1
I would actually prefer to keep the options in a seperate window... the clutter on the left in LJP is pretty terrible and that's something I want to avoid at all costs. Of course right now it looks pretty stupid because there are just 3 little icons and a lot of empty space, but we'll probably end up with more categories anyway, so why bother with a nice design now About the logo: I like it... but it's way to early to make a call on that... I just put it together from two nice fonts, and haven't even checked their licenses. About the save states window... The way I imagine it, holding the pen down over a game for about half a second should take me to the game screen. I didn't imagine it to hold savegames, but you're right, they are important... so this would be my proposal for the Game screen. About the screenshots... I've created a 44x44 icon from the center 60% of the screen or so... Anything larger and you won't be able to fit a lot of savegames onto the screen (and besides, it will eat up lots of memory) and if we take the whole screen you won't be able to see anything (it will be pretty hard to identify anything but the level anyway). About titles... problem is, do you want to enter a title every time you hit save? Well, I don't. And we won't get any usable information from the game so that really only leaves us with the date and time (which I would also suggest to be used for sorting)  |
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Post by tgwaste on Jul 17, 2007 1:10:29 GMT 1
its not really a logo though.. its just some words. a mario brick exploding with 'JLX' coming out of the center would be cool Far as saves go.. the option to enter a title and the abiltiy to use quick-slots should all be incorperated together. I have an idea in my head on how this should work but unfortunately im not a graphic designer so its difficult to display. There should be a quick-save, then 'named' slots, where the default is how you have it currently (date/time). It would be nice to be able to use your own names though so you could do like: mario.3.5th.level so you know exactly what the save is for AND its really easy to share your saves with others. You could also do kewl things like offer an on-line save archive where you could download (using LJX) different saves from the library. .. just thinking aloud mostly... |
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Post by hansschmucker on Jul 17, 2007 1:20:48 GMT 1
I'm not a designer either, remember that, just an interested amateur About the online archive and exchanging savegames... The best I can think of would be a Bluetooth "beam" option, but an online archive? I don't think LJX would really benefit from that, people would download the "All Unlocked" savegame, then complain that there's nothing to do in the game... About savegame naming... that's really tough. "Ask for name when saving game" would be yet another option that only irritates people, we have to find something that will work for everybody. Right now we have to take care of a couple of save types: Auto-overwriting Quicksave slots, Non-overwrting History slots and Named slots. Of couse there could simply be three buttons in the ingame GUI, but that's not really elegant... Let's worry about the logo later... |
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