A couple of folks asked about the new menus branch Nathan Woods (MESSdev?) started and whether there was much difference noticable in the main build. Just today the branch got merged with mainline: assuming it gets good feedback I expect it'll be in next MAME release.
When you move the mouse around in the window/anywhere in fullscreen you can just see the boxes in top-left, pressing TAB makes them fully opaque and you can navigate with arrows etc just like before. Doesn't look pretty but it seems certainly more usable now and has more options that were accessible only as hotkeys.
I compiled a MAME build and uploaded it here for those who are keen to give it a spin.
Is there an option to stop the menu box outlines from showing up when you move the mouse? There are many games where the average user is going to be playing mouse-driven: lightgun titles - like Lethal Enforcers or Under Fire; touchscreen games like Midway Touchmaster series; trackball games like Snacks 'n' Jaxson. I also don't really like the idea of those boxes showing up if I bump my mouse while using the keyboard.
There's currently nothing. I spotted a "ui_active" option in my newly-made mame.ini but it didn't do anything for it. You're right though, I can see this getting annoying fast, especially for touchscreen game/lightgun users.
Apparently this has caused a whole lotta issues in MESS side as well (I just asked about it on Bannister Forums, smf mentioned loss of keyboard control and mouse clicks on the menu going through to the emulated system), I imagine they'll get fixed soon or worst-case scenario do what they did to Haze's multi-slot Neo Geo MVS support and just revert it outright.
Get it so it can just be turned on/off globally then you can have the best of both/either world.
I guess the idea [aside from someone taking the time to do it] is that this make's it more accessible/user friendly - especially to those picking it up for the first time?
... however for those more familiar with it I'd perhaps suggest best usability comes from simply accessing these commands via bound buttons and regular menus. So yeah letting users turn it on/off should avoid upsetting anyone, and provide a work around should there be any bugs with the implementation.
Appreciate the effort and difficulty of introducing a new/alternative feature, but you really want to retain user control/choice as far as is practical.
Considering the amount of modifications done to make this happen I seriously doubt the likelihood of it becoming a simple toggle off/on situation, but remember this is in SVN rather than in official builds - plenty of time for them to fix their shit or decide to revert back to the old version (since that much is made easily possible with SVN functions).
