[Feature request]: Scaled down UI tailored for launching games

[smorsked]

Game launcher UI

PSA this might be against the design philosophy of the Swiss army knife of GameCube home brew.

I really love Swiss, it is amazing with all of its features. y primary use case for Swiss is launching PAL games in progressive scan and launching GBI. I frequently use some of the features but i have felt that most of the UI elements shown are left unused by me when just launching a game.

What i would love is an alternate more tailored UI specifically for launching a games and browsing the game library. Perhaps it could be possible to toggle menu style in the settings. Perhaps this is not in line with the design philosophy of Swiss sense this is a UI with just one specific use case and quite the opposite of Swiss army knife UI.

These are some features ( in no particular order ) that I think would be nice in such a front end:

1. On the settings page just before launching a game: have a scaled down list of settings by default, perhaps group different setting items into basic and advanced. by default only the basic settings could be shown and a more advanced menu could be toggled on the system wide settings page.

Why? I feel that most of the settings in there are rarely used when i use Swiss, less items in the list by default would increase readability of the page.

2. when browsing files: only show DOL files and remove the ".DOL" suffix fom the file name in the menu

Why? When specifically launching games those are the only ones that are useful for the user and if we only show dol files we do not need to specify the file type in that case

3. When browsing the game library: somehow show the box art in some way(box scans need to be provided by the user in this case) A more low hanging fruit of this might be simply to remove the file size from the existing menu and perhaps enlarge the banner icon.
   (Examples of cool designs of browsing games: Nes/Snes classic mini menu, or perhaps a 3D representation of game cases with box scans as textures)

Why? it gives an impression to the user much like browsing physical game collection witch in my opinion would be nice :)

4. when booting into Swiss: a Swiss boot screen in essence of the GameCube boot sequence bit with its own flare and logo

Why? for aesthetic reasons,

5. everywhere: intuitive and fitting sound effects

Why? it gives audio input for the user what occurs for each button press. example: a "swoosh" effect when moving the cursor, a sound for accepting/selecting/proceeding actions, a sound for reverting/canceling/redoing actions etc.

6. when launching a game: a fitting loading screen that hides all of the clutter of the rest of the menu interface while loading the game

Why? Hiding the rest of the UI with a loading screen makes sense here because at this point in the user experience the user only waits for the game to load so a fitting loading screen( with a progress bar and perhaps with an animated Swiss army knife flipping about? ) would focus the user experience.
a more fitting menu for games with multiple DOL files when forcing video modes ( Zelda collectors edition for example ) would be needed here as well. perhaps a similar browsing menu as the main menu but only for the browsing

8. when browsing the main menu: a menu theme or ambiance

Why? cozy feelings

9. when in the main menu: remove the option for selecting what media type to use and have the media type setting be a one time setting in the main menu and on each proceeding boot use the same media type by default. We could leave the option to change media type in the system settings page.

Why? Most people use only one media type so we could eliminate one step in the UI by storing the preferred media type

I hope this is somewhat useful for someone, perhaps more ideas or input on my ideas could be discussed in the comments.
I hope this did not come out as negative in any way, I really love Swiss and all the work everyone does here <3

Add screenshots

No response

[emukidid]

Probably worth breaking these down into separate requests honestly.

1. "Hide Advanced" could be implemented.
2. This could be a setting to "hide filename extensions"
3. Yes, there's plans for this.
4. With picoboot and forks of cubeboot-tools I believe this is being achieved somewhat.
5. This one is probably a "no" from me at this stage but could be optional later on when the UI gains a "theme" system.
6. Could be handled in alternate theme.
7. what happened to 7?
8. Again, theme system.
9. Yes there's a separate issue for this already.

[smorsked]

Thanks for the input @emukidid. I will make separate issues of those that seemed relevant. I will skip the ones regarding ambiance audio.
The picoboot screen seems cool :)
I will skip the "Theme" system as well, it is perhaps a bit too big of an issue for me to write
I must have forgotten 7 :p