Gui

[colorrr]

I do have extensive experience with swing, and that also includes to a lesser extent user interfaces. I even did a course on that some years ago - how to make user friendly interfaces, which I put to use while making a windows based Oracle-made client interface to a project management tool.
Judging from Gonzalos experience I am sure he has a lot to contribute on this too. We could make a great team.

Judging from your response I guess you don't like the gui painters with generators that create a lot of connector methods to call different events on the screen in the way you painted them.

Thinking about the interface, has any considerations been made whether or not to use the full screen capabilites of the new 1.2.4 version of Java?

Jorgen

[Gary Thomas]

Judging from your response I guess you don't like the gui painters with generators that create a lot of connector methods to call different events on the screen in the way you painted them.

I don't think I have any preconceived ideas for implementation. What I do not like is a dirty great list of components in an extension of JInternalFrame, which is what you get from the drag and drop gui generators. Most of the frames we have now are several classes deep, and this, I think, is more manageable. I do tend to throw JPanel around a lot, just to keep things organized.

What I have in mind, is a player control interface, so designed that the implemnting code does not know whether the input comes from the player interface, or from an AI sub-program. From my point of view, I would much rather avoid spending my time on the gui, and be, for example, writing the AI code.

However, in order for me to hand over the gui, we need a developed plan of attack. We need to identify ALL the areas of player intervention, and decide how each is to be handled.

Cheers

[topcat_arg]

Helping with GUI...

I have some experience working with JAVA.. but not in an friendly user interface... Anyway.. I want to (and like to) get more in deep in the subject in the next few day...

my first goal (even to get something do for the project) is to try a tree type Econ screen, even stand alone, just to get more use with the GUI capacities for JAVA...

I want to learn it fast.. and try to get a demo in the next days...

if after that mark give me a green light, I will happy start with colorrr or any one else a more better interface in every aspect..

just gave me a few days.. and i will get something for you to check out...

Good luck...

Gonzalo

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Gonzalo:

You guys working together on the GUI stuff sounds good to me so long as everyone's happy with it.

Was your quickie econ gui demo going to have data in it, or be a concept with dummy data? I wasn't sure from your description.

Cya,

Mark

[Mark_Everson]

I have gone trawling for old interface-related threads. Just to have 'em all in one place for people to look over. Although both threads here are Ancient I think there are some decent ideas, and different perspectives presented. Mostly I'm putting these here in the hopes that they might stimulate current discussion on the important topic of guis and how we should approach them.

Numbers Available to players vs Hidden Numbers, a Poll

What do we want our user interfaces to be like?

I think there's more, specifically one on econ gui, but I couldn't find it in this pass.

Aha, stupid me, I had put my take on it on the Economy web page! Here is a link to the Economy Interface section.

[Gary Thomas]

Checked out these references, but there wasn't much in them to help our present situation, though the odd generality did come through.

Here are some of my basic assertions:

1. It should be possible to play the game without having to enter or read any numbers. This may not be achievable, but I feel that it is. For example, tax rate should be able to be set by setting a barometer from "None", to "Crippling", with stations in between, actual number being optional.

2. On the other hand, if you want an accountant's report, it should be available. But not compulsory.

3. The system should be, essentially, mouse-driven, with the keyboard providing short-cuts only (unlike Civ). Again, on the other hand, it should be possible to drive the whole system without using a mouse. This may be a later aim.

4. Everything should have a tool-tip and a right-click menu. Under normal circumstances, the right-click should not, in itself, implement anything, just provide information and possibly a menu which would provide action options.

5. Anything which confuses the user should be banished.

6. The economics screen should be arranged around actions not accounts. It should have a number of buttons which clearly indicate what clicking the button will achieve: "Set tax rate", "Order a military unit", "Build roads", "Build infrastructure", "Show economic situation", "Show building progress". This is not fixed in concrete, but I would imagine there would be a detail panel in the economics screen which responds to the button click, and provides more detailed options, such as a list of units to build, or a list of current tasks which can be edited, or cancelled. Any building of a single item should have a "Repeat build" option. I chose the economics screen here because it is the only one currently in existence, a similar approach should be used for the other models.

7. At a later stage, each choice button should have a automatic (that is AI) option to make the decision, with the possibility of checking the AI choice before accepting it.

8. All the model screens should follow the same visual system, and work similarly. The player does not want a whole new learning experience for each model user interface.

9. The main screen toolbar should be arranged down the side of the main window (rather than across the top), on the right hand side. There should be very strict rules about adding buttons to this list. Later we can use pretty icons instead of buttons.

10. The information frame is useless and should go. It is only a very poor debugging aid at present.

There will be other things to add to this list, but that will do for now. Comments are welcome.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Hey Gary:

Good post, I'm with you either mostly or completely on virtually all of it. Just a few comments

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
5. Anything which confuses the user should be banished.

Easier said than done...

6. The economics screen should be arranged around actions not accounts.

Especially high-level screens need IMO to be carefully crafted to show vital and most commonly used info and allow equally important actions. The most-commonly needed items of each should be accessable with ideally one or two mouse clicks. I think its important that any buttons allowing functions should be close to the information that allows you to decide whether you want to change the setting. Having all the buttons convenient on a screen is not particularly useful IMO if you need to go all over the place to find info to decide on what you want to do. Of course if the info is available in the main interface the info doesn't necessarily need to be duplicated.

Any building of a single item should have a "Repeat build" option.

I'd actually prefer to have a "Build X Many" control than a Repeat build that can go blundering off like the sorceror's apprentice. Of course one of the options for this could be your repeat, at least as I'm interpreting it. For the military side, in the future I think we will simply have a "Build an Army" gui element where the player specifies the unit composition of the army they want to shoot for, gives any geographic and time constraints, and then the army is built wherever it makes the most sense to do so within the constraints. The player wouldn't enter the econ screen to do it, although they would be shown the cost.

10. The information frame is useless and should go. It is only a very poor debugging aid at present.

Agree completely.


Come on Everyone, join in, this is a Vital Discussion!
Clash will be a Vastly more enjoyable game with a good GUI.
And Better interfaces = better recruiting = faster progress toward the game we all want to play!

[edited plea at bottom]

[RM]

tabbed pane

How about using a tabbed pane for displaying information?

You could have different tabs marked with names like "military", "population", "economy", "diplomacy" etc.
When you click on military you get information about the military units in the marked square, and any defensive bonuses for it.
When you click on population you get details about the population in the square ( how many, ethnic groups, religion etc).
When you click on economy you get information about the production on the square, perhaps how some details about merchants and such.
When you click on the diplomacy tab you get information about the civ that owns the square, if any.

I think this would be a good way of showing much information at the same time, but still only show information that is somehow related to each other and relevant at the moment. I can think of many occasions when you would have use for this, for example when you try to increase the industrial production in peacetime, you might not be interested in seeing the exact composition of forces, but want many details on the economy. Another example could be when you are at war and make your military moves. Then any other information than the terrain and military forces are for the moment not interesting.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi RM:

The general idea is one that we're likely to use. But in terms specifically of tabbed panes, I think they turn off a lot of people because they make it look like a business application.

One other thing, you mentioned squares a lot... I just want to state clearly for others that Very little if any management and information access should take place at the square level in Clash. About the only exception I can think of is where your Civ is only a few squares, and you want to treat them individually and very carefully.

I think we will have failed in design if players need to do much with squares, except in the military area where moving around troops by hand has appeal for a lot of people. The richness of the square models should give benefits that are visible at higher levels of administration without the player needing to hand-hold them IMO.

[RM]

Hello Mark.

The tabbed panes does not have too look more businesslike then you want them to. You can always make them pink, if nothing else helps ;-)

In the current demo both the detail frame and the unit frame give square details, so I assumed it was that kind of information that was going to be given.
Still, if there is a good way to deal with only higher level information, I am all for it, but it seems a square is always selected anyhow, in the current demo.

[Gary Thomas]

The problem that pretty much eliminates tabbed panes is that only one is visible at a time. The system we use, of button driven internal frames, allows several to be visible at a time if desired, which is useful for comparison purposes.

Cheers

[Gary Thomas]

I am not too sure of my ground here. At present the internal frames can be minimized (within the main Clash window). Unfortunately the minimized icons are normally hidden under other frames. This tends to make feel that minimization is confusing and not useful and should be removed. The views button always allows hidden frames to be brought to the front.

In my list of assertions, I omitted numbers 11 and 12:

11. The game should run in a window, rather than in full screen mode. This is so there is access to other programs while the game is being run, and also so a single click can hide or exit the game when the boss walks in.

12. Accessing and leaving the game should be simple and direct. To resume a game in Civ3 requires 2 double clicks and three single clicks. To leave a game in Civ3 requires 5 single clicks. We can, I believe, show a much greater degree of sophistication here. Running in a window allows one click to exit the window, and hence the game. It is my belief that every time the game is started it should load the most recent game that was being played. If anything else is wanted (start a new game, or load a different version, and so forth), then there will be a game options button or menu item to provide the needed facilities.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
At present the internal frames can be minimized (within the main Clash window). Unfortunately the minimized icons are normally hidden under other frames. This tends to make feel that minimization is confusing and not useful and should be removed. The views button always allows hidden frames to be brought to the front.

Hi Gary:

I think the minimized views icons would be useful if they worked as one might expect. Can one bring the minimized icons to the front? I personally dislike going to the views menu, but it's something I'd get used to pretty quickly when I had to use it a lot.

[Gary Thomas]

I suppose we could add a minimized icon bar across the bottom of the main window, on analogy with the taskbar for windows.

Cheers

[Gar]

Wanted to say hello, this looks like a fantastic project that y'all have going on. Been out surfing for a new hobby last few days and ran across a link here from the gamedev boards.

I've been putting around with making games/reading about making games/developing skills for game development/playing games for over 20 years. My biggest develpment interest is in interface issues, though I don't do a ton of it at work as I write mostly business code for e-commerce apps. I do alot at home with graphics and animation.

Anyhow, just a quick intro there; I'd be interested in getting involved in your project in whatever way, but as your call to arms was for GUI issues, that is what got me over here.

Taking a quick read through this thread without sampling the demo yet, wanted to throw a out a quick idea:
Single column formatted information with drilldown/collapsing menus that preserves previous views and automatically expands threads with 'hot issues.'

If you are using right-clicks, then any information item could get relevant shortcuts to areas that can be controlled or viewed relating that topic.

Just some thoughts, I'll be back through and take a look at the demo tomorrow.