Post by lovercommodore on Oct 27, 2021 15:05:58 GMT
Hello,
I love PCUAE! PCUAE rocks !
I have been enjoying now for a few days PCUAE and would like to share my thoughts with the developer and offer some constructive feedback and suggestions for future releases (request for feature enhancements).
Requested PCUAE Features:
1. Auto scrolling of description text > 512 characters
2. Handle multi disk (multidisc) games without using the basic command prompt
3. Fix glitching / buggy PCUAE settings / configuration built-in menu system (glitchy behavior about 50 percent of the time.
4. Cover flow mode where the original cover artwork is zoomed in and you simply navigate by flipping through the covers. Not sure if this is possible given that the PCUAE seems to piggyback on top of the original TheC64 firmware structure.
Requested PCUAE Game Manager Features:
1. Full Support for C64 Demo Scene demos within the PCUAE carousel system. Allow users to browse and launch C64 Demos directly from the carousel. Allow importing from online databases including description and other metadata fields such as demo group name, year released, popularity, rating, etc. Not sure how to handle the “cover image” aspect of this as Demos were typically not originally Released as shrink-wrapped software with hardcopy paper packaging or documentation. Perhaps this will spawn a new movement for amateur artists to create cover semi-official artwork inspired by demos. Sort of like how The Movie Database and other media metadata providers allow different movie posters and cover art to be associated with particular films, TV shows, etc.
2. Batch Scrape metadata. Currently to scrape metadata , you have to update each game in a collection individually by finding the URL from mobygames and pasting it into the screen. It would be much nicer to be able to do this sequentially as a batch process and update description and other fields for multiple games simultaneously in a fully or partially automated batch process. In other words , continue to refine and Automate this task as much as possible.
3. When exporting a game list to carousel, there is a modal dialog box with a checkbox, that says, delete subfolder data. It is default checked box. This actually messed up my usb drive because I think It deleted some critical “do not delete” files in the Games directory. So I think this should be set to default UNCHECKED check box.
Miscellaneous/ Other thoughts:
Installation and configuration of this software is difficult for beginners such as myself. I stumbled across this by a combination of Google searches and reading old posts. My confusion partly stemmed from the fact that I assumed the packages “All in One” and “Standalone” included games bundled along with the installer. (This is due to the fact that many Google search for PCUAE return posts and threads and announcements corresponding to earlier revisions of this software like 1.5.2). So may I make a friendly suggestion that the package name should make reference to the fact that the installer program NO LONGER INCLUDES games? Such as “1.7.2 NO GAMES installer” or something to that effect. Alternatively, perhaps the old threads can be somehow deprecated or flagged to point to the newer version. Furthermore, the names “standalone” and “all in one” are also somewhat confusing, I feel like there are so many different instruction guides floating around out there and I felt so lost going around in circles until I could find the right set of instructions to follow . There are “layman’s guides”, “walkthroughs “ , “tutorial YouTube videos”, “Wikipedias” and all are slightly different for different versions and not always up to date with the latest release version. I guess this is really more a symptom of PCUAE’s tremendous success, but it is really more of an issue for the uninitiated novice. Once you become more familiar with the terminology I think it becomes easier to understand. At any rate I am not trying to be negative or critical but just offering some friendly ideas and thoughts.
Sorry for the long-winded post. I just wanted to make sure and write down all the thoughts bouncing around in my head before I forget them. And Also let me know if I can help with this in any way. I have some programming skills but I am sure setting up a developer’s environment to compile the project is very tricky and complicated. ( Not even sure if this is considered an open source software either)
Well that’s all I have for now. I will continue testing and experimenting on the new release and provide any future comments in the future.
I love PCUAE! PCUAE rocks !
I have been enjoying now for a few days PCUAE and would like to share my thoughts with the developer and offer some constructive feedback and suggestions for future releases (request for feature enhancements).
Requested PCUAE Features:
1. Auto scrolling of description text > 512 characters
2. Handle multi disk (multidisc) games without using the basic command prompt
3. Fix glitching / buggy PCUAE settings / configuration built-in menu system (glitchy behavior about 50 percent of the time.
4. Cover flow mode where the original cover artwork is zoomed in and you simply navigate by flipping through the covers. Not sure if this is possible given that the PCUAE seems to piggyback on top of the original TheC64 firmware structure.
Requested PCUAE Game Manager Features:
1. Full Support for C64 Demo Scene demos within the PCUAE carousel system. Allow users to browse and launch C64 Demos directly from the carousel. Allow importing from online databases including description and other metadata fields such as demo group name, year released, popularity, rating, etc. Not sure how to handle the “cover image” aspect of this as Demos were typically not originally Released as shrink-wrapped software with hardcopy paper packaging or documentation. Perhaps this will spawn a new movement for amateur artists to create cover semi-official artwork inspired by demos. Sort of like how The Movie Database and other media metadata providers allow different movie posters and cover art to be associated with particular films, TV shows, etc.
2. Batch Scrape metadata. Currently to scrape metadata , you have to update each game in a collection individually by finding the URL from mobygames and pasting it into the screen. It would be much nicer to be able to do this sequentially as a batch process and update description and other fields for multiple games simultaneously in a fully or partially automated batch process. In other words , continue to refine and Automate this task as much as possible.
3. When exporting a game list to carousel, there is a modal dialog box with a checkbox, that says, delete subfolder data. It is default checked box. This actually messed up my usb drive because I think It deleted some critical “do not delete” files in the Games directory. So I think this should be set to default UNCHECKED check box.
Miscellaneous/ Other thoughts:
Installation and configuration of this software is difficult for beginners such as myself. I stumbled across this by a combination of Google searches and reading old posts. My confusion partly stemmed from the fact that I assumed the packages “All in One” and “Standalone” included games bundled along with the installer. (This is due to the fact that many Google search for PCUAE return posts and threads and announcements corresponding to earlier revisions of this software like 1.5.2). So may I make a friendly suggestion that the package name should make reference to the fact that the installer program NO LONGER INCLUDES games? Such as “1.7.2 NO GAMES installer” or something to that effect. Alternatively, perhaps the old threads can be somehow deprecated or flagged to point to the newer version. Furthermore, the names “standalone” and “all in one” are also somewhat confusing, I feel like there are so many different instruction guides floating around out there and I felt so lost going around in circles until I could find the right set of instructions to follow . There are “layman’s guides”, “walkthroughs “ , “tutorial YouTube videos”, “Wikipedias” and all are slightly different for different versions and not always up to date with the latest release version. I guess this is really more a symptom of PCUAE’s tremendous success, but it is really more of an issue for the uninitiated novice. Once you become more familiar with the terminology I think it becomes easier to understand. At any rate I am not trying to be negative or critical but just offering some friendly ideas and thoughts.
Sorry for the long-winded post. I just wanted to make sure and write down all the thoughts bouncing around in my head before I forget them. And Also let me know if I can help with this in any way. I have some programming skills but I am sure setting up a developer’s environment to compile the project is very tricky and complicated. ( Not even sure if this is considered an open source software either)
Well that’s all I have for now. I will continue testing and experimenting on the new release and provide any future comments in the future.
