Opened 4 years ago

Closed 4 years ago

#11747 closed feature request (invalid)

Add an option for adding some black bars at the sides and bottom in windowed mode

Reported by: onpon4 Owned by: (none)
Priority: normal Component: Common
Version: Keywords:
Cc: Game:

Description (last modified by onpon4)

Some games routinely require clicking on the very edge clicking for moving between screens, where even e.g. being a pixel above the bottom will cause your character not to walk into the next screen. I don't know how common this is, but I know it happens at least in King's Quest V and King's Quest VI (both SCI games). This is not different from the original engine in both cases I'm aware of. However, at least the Windows version of King's Quest VI (and I think King's Quest V as well) had a mitigation measure: a small, roughly 8-pixel black border surrounded the left, right, and bottom edges of the game. (In fact, it also would extend that black border on the right and bottom sides if the resolution was above the minimum 640x480 resolution, but that's neither here nor there.) The border effectively increased the range at which you could click the mouse and have it register as the edge of the screen.

ScummVM, however, does not have these black bars. A result of that is that games that require edge-clicking are very difficult, bordering on impossible, to play in windowed mode. I'm mostly familiar with King's Quest VI, so I'll speak of that: when playing on ScummVM in windowed mode, I have to slowly edge the cursor to the exact spot on the screen where the cursor is as far right/left/down as it possibly can be (pixel-perfect) before the OS starts using the cursor on the window below the ScummVM window. It always takes at least a second or so and it takes a lot of concentration. Again, this is for routine movement between rooms; KQ6 has a very large number of screens that are entered only by clicking on the extreme edge.

Adding an option in ScummVM for black bars on the sides and bottom of probably 16 pixels (possibly user-configurable), and making it so that clicks on these bars are registered as right on the edge of the screen, would greatly enhance the experience of playing these games in windowed mode in ScummVM. It still wouldn't be perfect, but it would at least be as good as the original engine and not require pixel-perfect clicking precision.

Change History (3)

comment:1 by onpon4, 4 years ago

Description: modified (diff)

comment:2 by criezy, 4 years ago

It looks like you are unaware of the possibility for the ScummVM window to capture the mouse (so that it does not leave the window). You can toggle mouse capture on/off using Ctrl+m.

Also you can actually get black bars on the side using the Center or Pixel perfect stretch mode, and then resizing a bit the window.

I just tried both options (mouse capture or black bars) and either of them allow me to easily click on the edge of the window.

comment:3 by onpon4, 4 years ago

Owner: set to (none)
Resolution: invalid
Status: newclosed

Ah, yes, you're right, I wasn't aware of Ctrl+m and that should be very helpful. I didn't notice a stretch mode option, but I assume that's either just because I didn't look in the right place or maybe because of the version of ScummVM I have.

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