F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

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scorpsportal
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F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by scorpsportal »

Hello there!

I own a Samsung Galaxy S10+. I have played ScummVM games on older Samsung phones, usually without many problems. With this phone I have tried different things to get the ingame ScummVM menu (F5) to show up, but nothing has worked so far.

The Galaxy S10+ has three buttons at the bottom (touch screen, no physical buttons): one for switching between apps (hamburger button - the one with three stripes), one for the home screen, and a back button.

Pressing and holding the back button does nothing. Pressing and holding the home button brings up the Google Assistant. Pressing and holding the hamburger button still brings up the list of open apps. When I disable the Google Assistant, holding down the home button will give me the 'you can enable the Google Assistant!' message...

As the onscreen keyboard is present via a small icon, I tried installing the Hacker's Keyboard, as it actually has F5 on it, but it seems that F5 is physically disabled in the app, as it yields no results (space for pause, period for skipping dialogue, and even Ctrl+ a number for loading a game do work though).

In another post I saw an app for having buttons overlaid on screen, but they give the exact same results as the native buttons.

I've tried this with the ScummVM version available in the Play store, though the extremely high resolution of the phone makes the main menu virtually unreadable without a magnifying glass, and I had to switch to a lower resolution every time to make it somewhat readable but still difficult. And no in-game menu.

I now have the latest overnight build installed, which luckily downscales the resolution of the main menu by quite a bit. Nevertheless, same results - no menu. :(

What can I do to get the menu and give me the possibility to save any of my games???
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Praetorian
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Re: F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by Praetorian »

scorpsportal wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2019 8:41 am Hello there!

I own a Samsung Galaxy S10+. I have played ScummVM games on older Samsung phones, usually without many problems. With this phone I have tried different things to get the ingame ScummVM menu (F5) to show up, but nothing has worked so far.

The Galaxy S10+ has three buttons at the bottom (touch screen, no physical buttons): one for switching between apps (hamburger button - the one with three stripes), one for the home screen, and a back button.

Pressing and holding the back button does nothing. Pressing and holding the home button brings up the Google Assistant. Pressing and holding the hamburger button still brings up the list of open apps. When I disable the Google Assistant, holding down the home button will give me the 'you can enable the Google Assistant!' message...

As the onscreen keyboard is present via a small icon, I tried installing the Hacker's Keyboard, as it actually has F5 on it, but it seems that F5 is physically disabled in the app, as it yields no results (space for pause, period for skipping dialogue, and even Ctrl+ a number for loading a game do work though).

In another post I saw an app for having buttons overlaid on screen, but they give the exact same results as the native buttons.

I've tried this with the ScummVM version available in the Play store, though the extremely high resolution of the phone makes the main menu virtually unreadable without a magnifying glass, and I had to switch to a lower resolution every time to make it somewhat readable but still difficult. And no in-game menu.

I now have the latest overnight build installed, which luckily downscales the resolution of the main menu by quite a bit. Nevertheless, same results - no menu. :(

What can I do to get the menu and give me the possibility to save any of my games???
The nightly builds offer the option to switch the functionality of the system "back button" between "Escape" (default) and "Menu". (This is also possible in the (old) Google Play Store version, by the way).
This option in the nightly builds is available through the ScummVM launcher:
Options -> Control -> Swap Menu and Back buttons

Ideally we'll eventually implement support to have both, or at least re-enable the "long press" alternate mode.
scorpsportal
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Re: F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by scorpsportal »

Praetorian wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:21 amThe nightly builds offer the option to switch the functionality of the system "back button" between "Escape" (default) and "Menu". (This is also possible in the (old) Google Play Store version, by the way).
This option in the nightly builds is available through the ScummVM launcher:
Options -> Control -> Swap Menu and Back buttons

Ideally we'll eventually implement support to have both, or at least re-enable the "long press" alternate mode.
Hello there, I wanted to add that in my original message just now, that I found that the buttons can be swapped. Now at least I can save my game (because I also found out that Alt + a number won't work for me, even though Ctrl + a number does), but I'll have to do without any cutscene skipping for now...

Thanks for the quick answer! I'm good for now, though I hope a better option will be implemented soon.
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Praetorian
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Re: F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by Praetorian »

scorpsportal wrote: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:00 pm Thanks for the quick answer! I'm good for now, though I hope a better option will be implemented soon.
Starting with tomorrow's daily development build long press of the back button will result to in-game ScummVM menu being toggled. Short press will behave as "Escape".
If you have switched Back and Menu buttons from the Options->Control tab, then long press and short press behavior are switched (long press will be Escape and short press will be Menu).
goetz
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Re: F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by goetz »

This issue of having no escape key (or no way of launching the menu for saving/loading) is not only restricted to the S10+, but also happens on other recent devices, like the Google Pixel devices, which have a swipe from left/right screen border instead of a back key. Here, no long press of back key is possible. I just tried this with the latest development build which starts up fine and finds all the games (thanks to mass add feature! :) ) after having to clear the cache of the app after the first start, or otherwise it would complaing having issues accessing the internal storage.

When configured that way, accessing the menu via "back" gesture works fine, and so does opening the keyboard via the on-screen button/icon, but no way of an escape/skip cut scene key (also not with emulated right mouse click two finger tap). As there are probably more devices around with no physical/software keys, I had an idea:

How about implementing an alternate escape/menu method via long press of the on-screen keyboard icon top right?

That way, the back gesture can launch one of the actions (e.g. escape key), and long press of the keyboard icon the other (e.g. menu). They could be swapped at the user's convenience by the existing option in the menu. This may hopefully also be a change that is small enough not to cause too much implementation work.
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Praetorian
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Re: F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by Praetorian »

goetz wrote: Sun Dec 15, 2019 11:16 am This issue of having no escape key (or no way of launching the menu for saving/loading) is not only restricted to the S10+, but also happens on other recent devices, like the Google Pixel devices, which have a swipe from left/right screen border instead of a back key. Here, no long press of back key is possible. I just tried this with the latest development build which starts up fine and finds all the games (thanks to mass add feature! :) ) after having to clear the cache of the app after the first start, or otherwise it would complaing having issues accessing the internal storage.

When configured that way, accessing the menu via "back" gesture works fine, and so does opening the keyboard via the on-screen button/icon, but no way of an escape/skip cut scene key (also not with emulated right mouse click two finger tap). As there are probably more devices around with no physical/software keys, I had an idea:

How about implementing an alternate escape/menu method via long press of the on-screen keyboard icon top right?

That way, the back gesture can launch one of the actions (e.g. escape key), and long press of the keyboard icon the other (e.g. menu). They could be swapped at the user's convenience by the existing option in the menu. This may hopefully also be a change that is small enough not to cause too much implementation work.
I don't own a Pixel device to test on, but isn't this true?
If you want 3 button navigation back, you can go to Settings->System->Gestures->System navigation, and choose whichever option suits you.
https://support.google.com/pixelphone/t ... 9214?hl=en

Your suggestion is fine, however. It is only complicated by the existing ScummVM option to remove the keyboard icon, so we'd have to have some redundancy there ie keep the long press for back button too.

There is another idea we're considering, which would be to have the ScummVM virtual keyboard (which supports more keys) instead of the Android one, but I'm not a big fan of this. If I'm not mistaken the ScummVM virtual keyboard also causes the game to pause when it's brought up. It I guess could be implemented and enabled/disabled as another option, maybe. I'll look into it.

For future requests and improvement suggestions though, better to issue them on our bug tracker which make for easier reference for development tasks.
goetz
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Re: F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by goetz »

Praetorian wrote: Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:51 pm I don't own a Pixel device to test on, but isn't this true?

If you want 3 button navigation back, you can go to Settings->System->Gestures->System navigation, and choose whichever option suits you.
Yes, you are right, thanks for the reminder. This option exists and could be used as a temporary workaround, with some drawbacks: The screen size is reduced by permanently displaying these buttons (for ScummVM and some other apps) and this option changes the operation of the whole device. So starting ScummVM would require a temporary configuration change, e.g Start Settings, Navigate to the Gestures Option and change, Start ScummVM, Play a game, End ScummVM, Navigate to Settings and change option back. That is why I only call it a temporary workaround. ;)

My main point is that there are other devices than the S10+ that require a workaround, and I am not sure how Google will handle things with the back button in the future. At least there is a tempoary workaround now for Pixel devices. :)
scorpsportal
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Re: F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by scorpsportal »

Praetorian wrote: Sat Dec 14, 2019 2:34 pm Starting with tomorrow's daily development build long press of the back button will result to in-game ScummVM menu being toggled. Short press will behave as "Escape".
If you have switched Back and Menu buttons from the Options->Control tab, then long press and short press behavior are switched (long press will be Escape and short press will be Menu).
Wonderful! I downloaded the build and happy again, thanks!
Praetorian wrote: Sun Dec 15, 2019 12:51 pm There is another idea we're considering, which would be to have the ScummVM virtual keyboard (which supports more keys) instead of the Android one, but I'm not a big fan of this. If I'm not mistaken the ScummVM virtual keyboard also causes the game to pause when it's brought up. It I guess could be implemented and enabled/disabled as another option, maybe. I'll look into it.
An idea could be to have a transparent keyboard overlay (maybe transparency can be set in options), without the need for the game to pause.
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Re: F5 menu not appearing on Galaxy S10+

Post by Bluddy »

Praetorian wrote: Sat Dec 14, 2019 2:34 pm Starting with tomorrow's daily development build long press of the back button will result to in-game ScummVM menu being toggled. Short press will behave as "Escape".
If you have switched Back and Menu buttons from the Options->Control tab, then long press and short press behavior are switched (long press will be Escape and short press will be Menu).
This is truly wonderful. Thanks for adding this.
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