D327 - Categories along a row, children down a column

decided · 2026-08-27 · asked for by name, built as a shape

A row of headings with the selected one's children underneath is how console shells have presented a library for twenty years. It is a shape rather than a design - it falls out of having a directional pad and more things than fit on a screen - and it earns its place here for a reason beyond familiarity: the whole shell becomes reachable with four directions and one button, which is what makes a controller a way to use this rather than something the emulator merely reads.

What is somebody's design is the artwork, the motion, the sounds and the proportions, and none of that is copied. The name is not used either: D313 settled that this tree says "shell", and adopting a vendor's name for its own presentation would give back the position the clean-room work exists to hold.

The navigation is a pure type over a shape - one item count per category - because all four rules are edges: the ends of the row, a column shorter than the one beside it, a category holding nothing, and a shape that shrinks underneath the highlight when a rescan finds fewer titles. Nothing wraps, deliberately: somebody navigating by feel counts presses, and one press too many should rest against the end rather than start a journey back around.

One highlight, moved by both. A pointer and a pad move the same value, and confirming runs the same match a click runs - so neither can reach something the other cannot.

Verified by driving it: right moved to settings and drew its three children; left and three downs landed exactly on the fourth title.