GZdoom for dummies

[Xaser]

Might be worth reviving this topic, since the menus are kinda the crux of the issue really.

[Guest]

Hey folks, I did not mean to ignite some major argue here. What I think is that some of you, bearing developer standpoint, may have different sensibility to that of a lay user. I do understand, hopefully, that developers have certain philosophy or method of making and tailoring their product {"product"}, but we must acknowledge that some other people, especially target recipients, may see it other way than developers do. GZDoom is to serve the community, do I get it right? Great majority of the community are players. People who just want to boot and go, maybe just tweak this or that, in a whim, to be ready. Modmakers are crucial to the deal, but as I proposed, they will find their way in a new setup, where certain options will be available through a config file. They may enable these things in a refashioned setup of their own creation or make it transparent on how to use console input for further tuning up, in the worst instance.

My sensitivity is that of a lay user and I was put off by the overly elaborate set options, both in the amount and the meaning behind some of them. What I think for the strategy of changes, on the other hand, is that you would confuse people suddenly cutting down the only existing setup to that comparable with "vanilla essence" mod, brought here some posts earlier. But doing anything less, is fooling oneself, taking the half way go. That is why, "developer mode" should be a separate thing, not even available through the main game, at least if to take that there would be another launcher for the user friendly {noob friendly} mode.

I say the ideal is to stick as close to the minimalist perspective as possible, because the vanilla game itself, was minimalist, while the current day baroque array of settings, is way overdone.

[gramps]

This reminds me of the old Gnome vs. KDE debate.

KDE's UI is very user-configurable, with menus and buttons everywhere. "Power user" stuff. This is sort of like the current state of the menus.

Gnome is much more... streamlined. The default configuration is supposed to be good enough for general use, and if you really needed to configure it, you could use a special "tweak tool" or edit some config files.

As more of a Gnome guy, I could see ditching a lot of the stuff from those menus, taking a look at default configuration for stuff that might need to change (looking at you, texture aliasing and Baratus disembodied arm) and maybe even beefing up the console with some kind of cvar manual pages. But I guess these kind of design issues are pretty subjective.

[Graf Zahl]

The difference being that Vanilla had nothing to configure - and let's not forget that to change key bindings you couldn't even do it in the menu, but had to use an external tool!

But if we got to lighten the menu, here's 3 I'd immediately vote for:

Sound Backend is pointless with OpenAL being the only one.
OpenAL options doesn't contain anything a normal person would ever change.
Sound in background is a specialty item I don't think has any place being this prominently featured.

[Guest]

@Graf Zahl, for the vanilla game being minimalistic, well of course, you may say, as it is the trademark of times it was made in, but by contemporary standards, the GZDoom has very - if not overly - technical feel to it, embracing the other side of the spectrum, regardless of whether it is necessary - as you admit - or even compared against the contemporary standards, which are utilitarian, in the end. Seriously, if you know what certain advanced features are and how to apply them in particular to your machine, first, you are probably okay to remotely change it via config file, second, probably it is even better to do it outside of the game, to avoid possible glitching out, scrolling through various options. What is my intent, clearly put, is to suggest making GZDoom a plug-and-play mod for casual players, without loosing the usefulness to the modders, who in turn, due to nature of their activity, will dig around in the code.

@gramps, when it comes to design, this is typically subjective, what do you want to feature, what to hide. Someone has to make a decision. Some people like to have all at once in sight, some people are more minimalist or essentionalist orientated. Middle way is probably going to end up unsatisfactory to both sides.

Speaking of Linux, personally, I use LinuxLite and find it of perfect aesthetics and layout. This is XFCE desktop type.

[Rachael]

@ Anonymous: It is rare to have an engaging conversation with someone who doesn't have an account, and I do appreciate you sticking around to try and iron out the details. Most anons hit and run and are never heard from again.

As someone who tends to favor a more minimalist approach for the menu since I access everything from the console, anyway, I really don't think we're going to get anything that goes as far as you want. But in an effort to attempt something anyway, I am going to propose something to Graf:

@ Graf: What would you say to removing many of the menu options in the base distribution, and having an autoloaded zd_menu.pk3 file that has all the menu options restored? For the distribution we can just stick it in the "optional" folder and a user can just put it in their main folder if they want it. Mod authors intending to release a copy of GZDoom with their mods would obviously just remove the file, as it would be largely vestigial for their audiences.

As for the options that would be in the bare minimal menu, it would simply be sound volume, resolution scaling, render mode, possibly SSAO and anti-aliasing options, customize controls, and not much more than that.

[Graf Zahl]

That would defeat the options menu protection so it's probably not the right way to do.

First we should compile a list of options that really should go away, there's certainly quite a few of them. The 3 I mentioned just popped up immediately when I opened the sound menu to change the volume for a test I made.

[Guest]

Probably this is not much of an issue, but it should be confirmed that most popular mods keep compatibility with the vanilla state, easy go version of the GZdoom sourceport.

[Graf Zahl]

The sound menu should be a lot better now. I moved everything non-essential to the "advanced" submenu so that the top level can focus on the important stuff like volume settings and number of sound channels.

[Guest]

Okay guys, so my argumentation you already know, as well as the issue of overloaded section of game settings. I believe you will do what is going to seem most reasonable. I wish you luck, thanks for the conversation!

[Trusty McLegit]

While the menu is pretty bloated, and like Rachel said there are a number of things that can go, I don't know that 2 separate menus are necessary. As far as having it plug and play, there are really only a couple options you need to touch. Resolution, controls, and immediately disabling the unsightly texture filtering. After that the average user should be good to go. There have been a couple suggestions similar to this, but I think adding a couple more options to the startup menu like classic or wasd controls and texture filtering could go beside the full screen and bright maps check boxes. Also, maybe mouse look should be enabled if they choose wasd over classic controls

[Guest]

If I may kick in for one more, that is what I was somewhere trying to suggest, as not to even show the players parts of the setup that could make them have bad conscience about going into game not having mastered these settings, especially if these are non-crucial for them.

[wildweasel]

If I may kick in for one more, that is what I was somewhere trying to suggest, as not to even show the players parts of the setup that could make them have bad conscience about going into game not having mastered these settings, especially if these are non-crucial for them.

Which still needs consideration as to what is and isn't crucial, and unfortunately the answers to that are going to vary wildly between players.

[Guest]

The idealist standpoint is that as few options as possible should redirect to another screen, featuring more details. Majority ought to be doable right where they are and best if they all fit in one standard viewpage.