diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/banner.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/banner.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..0b6715e2 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/banner.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_dark.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_dark.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b12e278b Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_dark.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_midnight.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_midnight.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f3998440 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_midnight.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_new.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_new.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..b3301c2a Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_new.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_old.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_old.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..9406e382 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_old.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_white.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_white.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ca2a0a93 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/error_white.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/index.md b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/index.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..315d4c19 --- /dev/null +++ b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,109 @@ ++++ +date = "2021-04-03T01:00:00+05:30" +title = "New Feature Release - Applet Overlays" +author = "CaptV0rt3x" +forum = 387809 ++++ + +Hey there, yuz-ers! +Have you ever thought of enjoying yuzu on your TV, relaxing on your couch, but found our user interface cumbersome? +Thanks to the efforts of our developers [Morph](https://github.com/Morph1984) and [Rei](https://github.com/Its-Rei), yuzu has taken a massive step forward in making couch gaming comfy. +Let's dig in! + + +# What is this about? + +For a while now, users have complained that yuzu's couch setup (full-screen, TV, controller) experience isn't as comfortable as it could be. +One pain point was that pop-ups of any kind can't be addressed with a controller. +On top of that, these pop-up windows were separate background processes that wouldn't appear until you exited full-screen mode. +As you can guess, you always had to have a keyboard and mouse handy. + +{{< imgs + "./error_old.png| Old error applet" +>}} +{{< imgs + "./error_new.png| New controller friendly error applet" +>}} + +To fix this once and for all, Rei started work on eliminating all pop-up windows and to make it possible to control all system messages with a controller. +It was during this time that Morph began working on rewriting our software keyboard applet. +And since the software keyboard applet wasn't controller friendly either, they both collaborated and redesigned it from the ground up. + +{{< imgs + "./swkbd_old.png| Old software keyboard applet" +>}} +{{< imgs + "./swkbd_new.mp4| New controller friendly software keyboard applet" +>}} + +# The Software Keyboard + +As many of you might know, the Switch has a software keyboard that allows players to input text into games. +What you might not know is that there are multiple variants of keyboards implemented within the Switch's Horizon OS. +For example, there is the full-screen keyboard, which pauses games and allows input, and there is the inline keyboard, which allows input while the game is running. + +Our old software keyboard implementation was just the bare minimum required by the full-screen variant and, due to its design, was difficult to add support for the other variants. +It also quickly became outdated due to the newer revisions of the applet that shipped with later Switch firmware updates. +Equipped with the knowledge and expertise from previously rewriting two other applets - namely, the browser applet & the controller applet - Morph set out to rewrite the entire software keyboard applet from scratch. + +Rei had meticulously designed the new overlays for the keyboard applet and they turned out to be absolutely stunning. +Now, all that was left was to implement the keyboard applet backend and connect it to the frontend — but then came the challenges. + +{{< single-title-imgs + "The new software keyboard layouts for each yuzu theme" + "./osk_ssbu_line_white.png" + "./osk_ssbu_line_midnight.png" + "./osk_ssbu_line_dark.png" +>}} + +# Challenges + +As mentioned earlier, our old implementation was not designed with multi-variant support in mind. +With the rewrite, our foundational goal was to ensure all keyboard variants were supported. +A major challenge was figuring out how the inline keyboard variant worked. +In contrast to the full-screen variant, this one worked asynchronously. + +Applets run as separate processes on the Switch, but games have a habit of pausing their processes, invoking the keyboard applet, and making it seem synchronous. +There are several more applets that work asynchronously in addition to the inline keyboard variant. +As such, Morph spent a lot of time and effort on testing how the applet worked on original hardware — figuring out how all the pieces fall into place, making optimizations, and thus slowly perfected the backend implementation. + +{{< imgs + "./mhgu_line_swkbd.mp4| Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate - Inline Keyboard in action" +>}} +{{< imgs + "./swsh_num_swkbd.mp4| Pokémon Sword/Shield - Numeric Keyboard in action" +>}} + +With the backend in place, a new set of challenges arose due to yuzu's frontend library, [Qt](https://www.qt.io/). +Qt has a **lot** of annoying quirks, such as window positioning, transparency, and more. +These took several days of testing to track down and resolve. +For the frontend, Morph and Rei also had to plan and account for various other things like game specific keyboard scaling, high DPI displays, and higher resolutions. + +The final and most important challenge was figuring out how to make the applet controller friendly. +Thanks to the efforts spent in planning and testing at various stages of development, our devs were able to overcome these challenges. + +# Extra + +Although the overlay dialogs were initially designed with the keyboard applet in mind, the devs soon discovered its potential as a replacement for pop-up windows. +Thanks to this, the error applet has now joined the list of controller friendly applets, with more to come soon. +The error applet is used by games to crash and report back error codes to the user in various scenarios, which was previously done via a pop-up window. + +{{< single-title-imgs + "The new error applet overlays for each yuzu theme" + "./error_white.png" + "./error_midnight.png" + "./error_dark.png" +>}} + +# Fin + +Both the new keyboard applet and the controller friendly error applet are now available in the [latest Early Access build](https://yuzu-emu.org/help/early-access/). +Since these are currently still under development, we would like to hear more about your experiences and any bugs/issues you might encounter. +Please don't hesitate to reach out to us on our Discord server's Patreon support channels to report any findings. +That's all we have for today but, we're sure to be back with more exciting news soon! + +  +

+Please consider supporting us on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/yuzuteam)!
+If you would like to contribute to this project, check out our [GitHub](https://github.com/yuzu-emu/yuzu)! +

diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/mhgu_line_swkbd.mp4 b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/mhgu_line_swkbd.mp4 new file mode 100644 index 00000000..bfa53d2b Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/mhgu_line_swkbd.mp4 differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_dark.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_dark.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..872d87af Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_dark.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_midnight.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_midnight.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..64ecab27 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_midnight.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_white.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_white.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..71a07b62 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/osk_ssbu_line_white.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/summary.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/summary.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..afba96ae Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/summary.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swkbd_new.mp4 b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swkbd_new.mp4 new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a0d6155c Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swkbd_new.mp4 differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swkbd_old.png b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swkbd_old.png new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f51f72a1 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swkbd_old.png differ diff --git a/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swsh_num_swkbd.mp4 b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swsh_num_swkbd.mp4 new file mode 100644 index 00000000..3b8c1328 Binary files /dev/null and b/site/content/entry/yuzu-applet-overlays/swsh_num_swkbd.mp4 differ