Feature request: Children Friendly/Kiosk/Party-Mode Menu

[mhartman]

Ok, the “no change is good change” zealots can now throw stones.

I'm not going to throw stones, but what is stopping you, and all the others in this thread who want things simpler, to download the sources, and make a front-end for yourselves ?

As mentioned above, I’d chip in some cash if someone with the skills wants to do it. I don’t have the skills and it’s not worth it for me to spend the time developing them. That being said, what’s the harm in someone wishing that a feature exists? Obviously it was painful to you for the original poster to even mention that he wished that the feature existed. Your over-reaction to the thread was frankly a bit shocking.

[Mr. Encyclopedia]

This is ultimately how I feel about it too. It's valid to want a friendlier UI for the MiSTer, and it's great if someone decides to take up the job, but don't whine and beg the folks currently working on development to do it for you. It's been made abundantly clear that none of the most prolific contributors to the project are interested, but the MiSTer community is growing and it's only a matter of time before someone with the desire and know-how comes along. Be patient, or better yet start learning how it works and gain the know-how yourself.

[MiSTer_Kirk]

Your over-reaction to the thread was frankly a bit shocking.

As opposed to those who newly come to the forum, contribute NOTHING to the forum, or help anyone, but demand that others work for them for something that, quite frankly, isn't needed.
Why should anyone work for you for free ? What have YOU contributed here ?
To me, it's kind of rude to make your first posts as demands for something simpler, just because you can't be bothered to learn something new. It would take you a few hours of your time, as opposed to the weeks/months the devs put in to the cores.
Perhaps it was a bit of an overreaction, but I bet I'm not alone in my thinking. Especially when those things RMC Youtube guy will be selling, and all the newbies that will be coming here moaning about this, and that, and why isn't it more like Retropie, or Launchbox. This will happen, at some point.

Try using REAL hardware for a few days, then you'll soon see how damn easy the Mister is. When an Amiga 500 with a ram expansion, and an external floppy dirve causes many games to not work. Back then, there was no internet, no forums for help. You had to try shit to get things to work. Remove the floppy drive - nope. Remove the ram - nope. Remove the lot - maybe. Perhaps it's the kickstart revision ? Then we had the A500+, oh man. The A1200, the A600 - rabbit hole, down we go. You lot have never had it so damn easy. The Mister does mostly everything for you.

[mhartman]

Your over-reaction to the thread was frankly a bit shocking.

As opposed to those who newly come to the forum, contribute NOTHING to the forum, or help anyone, but demand that others work for them for something that, quite frankly, isn't needed.
Why should anyone work for you for free ? What have YOU contributed here ?
To me, it's kind of rude to make your first posts as demands for something simpler, just because you can't be bothered to learn something new. It would take you a few hours of your time, as opposed to the weeks/months the devs put in to the cores.
Perhaps it was a bit of an overreaction, but I bet I'm not alone in my thinking. Especially when those things RMC Youtube guy will be selling, and all the newbies that will be coming here moaning about this, and that, and why isn't it more like Retropie, or Launchbox. This will happen, at some point.

Try using REAL hardware for a few days, then you'll soon see how damn easy the Mister is. When an Amiga 500 with a ram expansion, and an external floppy dirve causes many games to not work. Back then, there was no internet, no forums for help. You had to try shit to get things to work. Remove the floppy drive - nope. Remove the ram - nope. Remove the lot - maybe. Perhaps it's the kickstart revision ? Then we had the A500+, oh man. The A1200, the A600 - rabbit hole, down we go. You lot have never had it so damn easy. The Mister does mostly everything for you.

Wow. I feel very sorry for anyone who has to interact with you in real life, let alone here. I am genuinely sorry for flaring your temper. I hope that you have a nice evening.

[kolla]

As a nerdy elitists who nobody should have to interact with in real life, I oppose the idea of dumbing down the front-end even more than it already is. Feel free to add more nerdy elitist options and info instead (ssid, encryption method, ipv6 address..).

[ToothbrushThreepwood]

I like this idea. Don’t see what it would detract.

I could think of a budget solution to this though:
Would write-protecting your SD card prevent guests from bugging your set-up? I never tried it, maybe it won’t work as read-only?
From there your guests would be safe to mess about the OSD menu at least.
It should be possible to instruct people how to select cores and games with a few lines of text on the screen. Maybe just in bullet form on a background image? Off to the side so it doesn’t get obscured by the OSD.
They would have to reboot to get back to the background, if they have ADHD and need to read it again after they’ve selected a core, of course.

[bazza_12]

Try using REAL hardware for a few days, then you'll soon see how damn easy the Mister is. When an Amiga 500 with a ram expansion, and an external floppy dirve causes many games to not work. Back then, there was no internet, no forums for help. You had to try shit to get things to work. Remove the floppy drive - nope. Remove the ram - nope. Remove the lot - maybe. Perhaps it's the kickstart revision ? Then we had the A500+, oh man. The A1200, the A600 - rabbit hole, down we go. You lot have never had it so damn easy. The Mister does mostly everything for you.

totally agree with this.. and what's more when you did sus it out for yourself you got an enormous buzz (don't mean electrical shock although maybe that too! lol) cos you figured out the problem alone.. i recently bought an old speccy 48k off ebay, I wanted a bit of nostalgia from when I was 10 years old. anyway I opened the box and looked at the manual.. I'd totally forgotten what a joy having a manual was.. one that actually taught you how to program, how to use the machine, even schematics if you wanted to repair it. amazing.. i remembered thumbing through those pages as a kid and typing in programs.. making mistakes and having to work out why, which line was the error on.. (mostly in those massive data strings.. lol..) then when you ran the program it just drew a rainbow or something.. haha I love that aspect of the MiSTer - that it's just not about games, it's about spectrum basic, bbc basic, amiga workbench, ST gem, dos on the a0486.. i'm rambling here, sorry..

[Funkybunch]

Try using REAL hardware for a few days, then you'll soon see how damn easy the Mister is.

I agree with you. I can still remember how often I was desperate about the one or other thing. The amiga was still really user friendly. My first computer was an Atari 1040ST that my father gave me as a little child, but I can still remember how easy it was to start games on my neighbor's Amiga. Put the floppy disk in, switch it on, and off you go.
 If you wanted to do more than playing games, it was of course not as user-friendly like today, but if you booted directly from floppy it was easy for everyone.

Anyone who uses the images of old computers on the MiSTer does not care about the menu.
Like many other users i'm really interested in the game console area. My NES only has 1 switch and 1 button. Switch for switching on and button for reset. Even my mother could master it to play tetris. Or the Atari 2600 with a game selection button. I can't say that about the MiSTer menu. That's why old televisions all had the same resolution, frequency and aspect ratio, you didn't need any options on the old console.

but as I said, if everyone have said “it has to stay complicated”, Apple would never have written the idea of ​​the Xerox Altea further developed.

I also like to experiment with analog modular synthesizers, but this is an experimental kit for electronic music. To make music it is more practical to sit down at the piano, where every key has fixed frequency and you just play.

And that is the point. Some people like to experiment and others only just play and that's ok.

Because the request is more likely to be rejected. I thought about changing and compiling it myself.

I'm not a coder, but luckily I work for a software developer and hopefully one of the developers is willing to support me. My idea is simply to reach the options only via a function key, to hide the arrows, etc.
It doesn't look difficult, but who knows what kind of side effects it will have.

[mhartman]

Try using REAL hardware for a few days, then you'll soon see how damn easy the Mister is.

Owning several vintage arcade games, I use and repair REAL hardware all the time. I've debugged and fixed dozens of vintage PCBs over the years (yes, real hardware). I've repaired several failing CRTs. I replace dried out capacitors constantly. Old unreadable schematics, obsolete ICs, lifted traces, logic probe, scope, solder fumes... Yes, a complete pain compared to MiSTer. I own two MiSTers because they are simple and often very accurate compared to the real thing.

What does any of this have to do with this conversation? Do we win a medal or get some kind of street cred for having been there, done that with vintage hardware?

Some of us like the idea presented, some don't. So be it.

[Funkybunch]

Owning several vintage arcade games, I use and repair REAL hardware all the time. I've debugged and fixed dozens of vintage PCBs over the years (yes, real hardware). I've repaired several failing CRTs. I replace dried out capacitors constantly. Old unreadable schematics, obsolete ICs, lifted traces, logic probe, scope, solder fumes... Yes, a complete pain compared to MiSTer. I own two MiSTers because they are simple and often very accurate compared to the real thing.

That is absolutely right. If an eprom is broken or a conductor track is damaged, the effort is considerably higher. No question at all.
I own a Tekken 3 pcb where I only had to bridge some contacts for replacing the kick harness and fits to jamma standard and as long the circuit board is running everything is ok. Switch on, play, have fun.

The one who is playing does not have access to the menu. He doesn't even have the option to restart. So I can let everyone alone and don't have to worry (except the fact that someone hit the buttons so hard that you always need some in reserve )
If you use a MiSTer which several titles running in the cabinet it is great to select a game, but it should not be possible for the visitor to change dip switches, run the update_all script, change the .ini etc.

[MiSTer_Kirk]

What does any of this have to do with this conversation? Do we win a medal or get some kind of street cred for having been there, done that with vintage hardware?

II am merely putting things into perspective. Mister takes all the hassle of those difficult, and often frustrating times, and puts it all into a simple box, with a simple UI - it can't get any simpler.
And, you don't have to use the parts of the menu you don't like, or don't understand. You can freely just click on a core, load a game, play. I can be in a game, for almost any system, quicker than I could on real hardware. Even my NES, which you would think would be easy, can be a pain - those carts aren't the easiest to fit in, and take out. And, wait until you have to keep blowing on the connectors, or get a cotton bud soaked in contact cleaner, and scrub away. None of that you have to do with Mister. Just switch on, select core, load rom, play - HOW CAN THAT GET ANY SIMPLER ????

But like I have said, and you already know this, this is an open source project. So get together with those who want things simpler, come up with a plan, then do what is required yourselves - you can then share it with others who might want this, and it becomes an optional download.

If you use a MiSTer which several titles running in the cabinet it is great to select a game, but it should not be possible for the visitor to change dip switches, run the update_all script, change the .ini etc.

Look, I kind of agree. But, like everything in life, you need to educate these people on what NOT to do. I occasionally have to leave some of my family's kids in my car while I get some shopping, I don't expect them to lift the handbrake up, keep pressing my horn, open all the doors and boot - I tell them not to do things, and they listen. I don't expect Ford to design a car that only has a steering wheel, and a pedal, and nothing else. On their Dad's PC, there are two different SSD boot drives, one with Windows for Dad, one for them. They know this, they know how to boot their SSD. Dad isn't expected to hide the mouse, keyboard, joysticks, steering wheels, speakers, etc... You could have two SDCards, one for you, and one for your guests - then, if they screw-up their SDcard, just clone yours back to the guest SDCard, and BINGO !! You're back up and running. SDCard storage is cheap, really cheap, you have no excuses not to do this, as long as you keep a backup of your own SDCard on your PC, then you are good to go.

[zakk4223]

Try using REAL hardware for a few days, then you'll soon see how damn easy the Mister is.

I agree with you. I can still remember how often I was desperate about the one or other thing. The amiga was still really user friendly. My first computer was an Atari 1040ST that my father gave me as a little child, but I can still remember how easy it was to start games on my neighbor's Amiga. Put the floppy disk in, switch it on, and off you go.
 If you wanted to do more than playing games, it was of course not as user-friendly like today, but if you booted directly from floppy it was easy for everyone.

Anyone who uses the images of old computers on the MiSTer does not care about the menu.
Like many other users i'm really interested in the game console area. My NES only has 1 switch and 1 button. Switch for switching on and button for reset. Even my mother could master it to play tetris. Or the Atari 2600 with a game selection button. I can't say that about the MiSTer menu. That's why old televisions all had the same resolution, frequency and aspect ratio, you didn't need any options on the old console.

but as I said, if everyone have said “it has to stay complicated”, Apple would never have written the idea of ​​the Xerox Altea further developed.

I also like to experiment with analog modular synthesizers, but this is an experimental kit for electronic music. To make music it is more practical to sit down at the piano, where every key has fixed frequency and you just play.

And that is the point. Some people like to experiment and others only just play and that's ok.

Because the request is more likely to be rejected. I thought about changing and compiling it myself.

I'm not a coder, but luckily I work for a software developer and hopefully one of the developers is willing to support me. My idea is simply to reach the options only via a function key, to hide the arrows, etc.
It doesn't look difficult, but who knows what kind of side effects it will have.

I took 5 minutes yesterday and compiled a version of Main_Mister that has a config option that disables all the Option/Toggle style menu items in the core configs. I probably need to make one exception for 'Reset' entries since those are still somewhat useful. It also still allows people to change roms/cds since it doesn't block the file loading config items.

Unfortunately some of the older computer cores (AtariST/Amiga/ao486/Archie) have their menus controlled almost entirely in the Main_Mister code (not sure why, but I'm sure there is a reason). So for those I have to go through individually and modify that code. I also have to deal with the other menu screens. And the arcade menus.

It's not hard work, just fiddly work. I'm willing to finish it, but not if it's just going to get rejected. However I'm also not so passionate about this that I'm willing to push very hard to get it merged. So if someone else wants to champion that cause with Sorg, there is someone standing by willing to finish up the changes that are required.

The current WIP of what I did is here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zakk4 ... -WIP.patch

[Funkybunch]

I took 5 minutes yesterday and compiled a version of Main_Mister that has a config option that disables all the Option/Toggle style menu items in the core configs. I probably need to make one exception for 'Reset' entries since those are still somewhat useful. It also still allows people to change roms/cds since it doesn't block the file loading config items.

Unfortunately some of the older computer cores (AtariST/Amiga/ao486/Archie) have their menus controlled almost entirely in the Main_Mister code (not sure why, but I'm sure there is a reason). So for those I have to go through individually and modify that code. I also have to deal with the other menu screens. And the arcade menus.

It's not hard work, just fiddly work. I'm willing to finish it, but not if it's just going to get rejected. However I'm also not so passionate about this that I'm willing to push very hard to get it merged. So if someone else wants to champion that cause with Sorg, there is someone standing by willing to finish up the changes that are required.

The current WIP of what I did is here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zakk4 ... -WIP.patch

Thanks a lot you for your commitment.

You have made the changes in the "8 bit main menu” to deactivate the settings. With my amateur knowledge, I would probably have looked for a solution somewhere from line 5628 and following (system menu).

To make it available directly in .ini as a variable is of course really good. I would have had no idea where to start either.

Unfortunately I don't have a development environment to compile and test. I currently have very little free time, but I will test it as soon as I have the opportunity.

Thanks again for your support
If it is a bonus with no drawbacks that many will gladly accept ... I am certainly not the only one looking forward to it