Retroarch: In-game widgets

[fr500]

Description

I'm working in something with @leiradel and we need a way to show widgets (we still haven't made any but think about the OSK widget for instance).

So we need a menu mode that allows us to show widgets in-game without blocking input to the core and without trigerring the menu.
Each widget that can be used in game should have a way to toggle it on/off (hotkey, programatically or menu entry) and a way to focus the widget (hotkey).

One such example now would be the OSK widget.
There should be a way to trigger it in-game, and a way to focus back and forth the widget so you can go back and forth to the game.

Another example would be achievements, we could have an in-game widget that shows achievements, move around the list to see the descriptions and maybe select one to be permanently visible on top of the game.

A third example, netplay chat. Should explain itself.

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[RobLoach]

In regards to Widget GUIs, I know @leiradel has already done some work with https://github.com/ocornut/imgui . It is C++, however, so I'm not sure it's an option.

[fr500]

No I'm not asking for widget toolkits. Widgets is the term being used for stuff like the OSK and the input binding dialogs. (the OSK is a "widget")

[fr500]

Really need something like this going.

What I have in mind for that dialog is:

(with a design that doesn't suck of course)

It should be in-game not in-menu, and shouldn't block input, it should have a hotkey and a timeout.
The current implementation is here but as you can see it triggers a menu toggle
https://github.com/fr500/RetroArch/blob/master/discord/discord.c#L185

[fr500]

Another use-case for in-game widgets is this:

Something like this to show the users connected to netplay (or a clock, or rich game presence information or how many gamepads are connected or whatever)