Managing Focus Across Different Platforms

With the upcoming release of FGF/Thrust comes the return of a more traditional GUI. One of the most problematic requirements of a large GUI system is the notion of focus. The question remains how do you efficiently determine who has focus and how do you pass focus between controls? On Windows this is incredibly easy because we have the mouse pointer. Focus is changed whenever your mouse acts on a control. What about on the Zune or the Xbox 360 though? On both of these systems their is no mouse (although Thrust supports a virtual mouse).

The answer is to look at what Thrust currently supports. What built in system supports all three systems seamlessly? (~ means some support, X means full support)

The problem is we can’t rely on each individual hardware controller being present and useable. For example we can’t rely on a keyboard being a focusing mechanism on the Xbox 360 because it isn’t a guarantee it exists. Likewise, we cannot rely on the GamePad on the Zune because of the lack of buttons.

To get to the point, the UniversalButton system was meant as a virtualization of the various hardware supported for each platform. It turns GamePad, Mouse, and Keyboard events into simple events like Up, Left, Down, Right, Select and Cancel. Because of this we can rely on it and implement a few more events.

• TabPreviousLocal
• TabNextLocal
• TabPreviousGlobal
• TabNextGlobal

You can consider local tabbing to be much like you would on a Windows form: hitting the tab key (or shift-tab) will move you from one control to another based on some order and only in the context of the global focus point (you never tab to a control in another window). The global tabbing can be considered like an Alt-Tab (or shift-alt-tab) where you can switch between windows.

So how do we implement this? We need a managing class (sorry Bjoern) to produce a bottleneck for the input events. As events are channeled through this class, it massages the data and figures out what to do. For instance if a global tab next event is received it has to switch focus to the next window in the system on the same level as the current window. If it receives a local tab event it will pass a message to the current focal point to tab to the next control.

What does this do for us? For one, it unifies the approach to focusing across all the UI subsystems. This means that a Window/Form implementation will focus in much the same way a simple screen will. Unfortunately it also means a complexity requirement for implementation developers. The age of the simple StateManager class is coming to an end. Elements on the screen now need to have a basic state for animation as well as a state for focus (or lack thereof). While it may still be possible to simply unload an element through the StateManager, the reality is that UI elements will have to do a little more management under the hood. Whether this is exposed to the user / developer is still to be decided.

Xbox 360 Support Sucks

They may have retooled enough to become efficient at repairing red ringed Xbox 360 consoles, but boy do they suck at general support. A week or two ago my 360 stopped being able to play NetFlix video over HDMI, stating that a “secure HDCP link could not be found.” Contacting NetFlix has been resourceful in the past, so I did this with no luck. After explaining I was in a preview program for the new dashboard, they redirected me to Microsoft. So that is where I went! I didn’t feel like calling them and waiting on hold for hours and hours and thus emailed them. Here is the response I just received.

Hello John,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft online support for XBOX. I am XXXXXXXXX and I will be helping you today with this issue.

As I understand it, when you use an HDMI cable to connect your Xbox 360 to your HDTV or monitor, you experience one of the following display issues:
. A green or purple tint to the video
. Extensive flickering for more than several seconds when you play video, use the Xbox Guide, or switch from the Dashboard to a movie
. Image “ghosting”

I know how disappointing it is that the cable you’re using is not working properly. Please be assured that I will do my best to help you resolve the issue.

Wow. So problems with this response? Well it doesn’t actually restate my problem but attempts to and fails miserably. I also love how they immediately blame the cable, as if that was the problem here. The email then goes on to suggest connecting to live to obtain automatic updates, unplugging my HDMI and plugging it back in as well as adjusting my HDTV settings to obtain “optimal resolution.”

Fortunately NetFlix did something internally because a day or two later the problem resolved itself. It turns out that some videos aren’t allowed to be streamed to the Xbox 360 and I just happened to be trying to play some of them. Movies that had stopped working that were working started working again like magic. And they thought it was my cable…. ha! Cables don’t just break, hardware that is known to go bad does.

Fable II Glitches Are Funny

My friend and I decided to take a break from CoD:WaW to murder the entire town of Bowerstone in Fable II for fun. Well we ended up finding a funny glitch with the artifact quest woman. Because you can’t kill her, you just knock her down. The problem is the animation gets cut short and restarted if you keep shooting her. This is just one of the small problems of Fable II and shows the gigantic lack of polish in the game.

NetFlix on the 360, How It Works!

How does NetFlix on the 360 work exactly? Ok, so when you sign up on NetFlix, you get access to the gigantic vault of movies and TV shows they have built up. Each piece of media on the site can be one of a few things: an instant play, a DVD, or both. It is important to know that the instant collection is nowhere near the girth of the DVD collection.

On the NetFlix site you will have two lists, your Instant Queue and your Standard Queue. In the Standard Queue goes movies you want to obtain through the mail on DVD. The Instant Queue is what you will be able to see on your Xbox 360. Perhaps they will change this in the future but you can only see what is on the Instant Queue.

Why is it important to know this? Because the instant collection rarely contains newer movies. You will usually not be able to get a movie on instant until a few months after its DVD release if not a few years.

Furthermore, if you plan on playing NetFlix over HDMI be sure you have a compliant monitor or TV because DRM will be used. Currently I am having a lot of problems getting it to work on my Dell 2408 even after it worked 2 weeks ago. Hopefully it is fixed by NXE launch.

Mixed Feelings on Fallout 3

Oh Fallout 3, how I love thee. The game is fantastic. A must buy for anyone interested in shooting people, leveling up, causing massive destruction or any combination of the above. But oh how the main story is just one let down after another. I have mistaken this game for a game made by Bethesda; a game where your actions directly influence the story at pinnacle moments. Instead this is a game where you are built up to a high and then let down when the story takes a sudden left turn and you have no choice but to follow it. And these sudden left turns, oh how predictable they are, are so basic that it just makes you bleed with agony over what could have been.

But in the end, I am going back to start a new character and do it all over again. That is how good this game is.

Fable II is NUTSO

I am having so much fun with the game whether it is spending money on hookers, beer or scaring the townsfolk. That’s right, I went evil with my first character…

Wtf CoD4?

Pictures say it all:

Castle Crashers FTW!

Castle Crashers is easily the best XBLA game of all time. In fact it is the only XBLA game to actually make me want to keep playing more and more of it. So much that my thumb now feels numb from all the button mashing! For those who do not know, Castle Crashers is a side scrolling button masher RPG that is cartoony, funny and 4 player coop over Live. At least when it works it is!