Gui

[Gary Thomas]

The military model command structure is designed and written (but not yet tested). In the immediate future I will probably keep the (bad) system using the TF box to organize TFs, just to get things working. However, pretty soon I would like to do it properly, with a drag and drop tree similar to that in Windows Explorer. When you click on a node in the left panel you get its name in the panel at the top and a breakdown in the panel at the right. To move a command to another command, drag and drop it. Right click to rename or delete.

When the government command structure is coded (soon), the same system will work there.

What do you think?

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

Sounds pretty cool! I'm game to check it out when it comes to a demo near me. Should fit in well with our micromanagment philosophy too. If you want to avoid details you issue orders, and scope things out, near the trunk of the tree. If you're a micromanagement freak you can twiddle the leaves .

[Gary Thomas]

That is pretty much the idea.

However, the depth of the tree will be fixed (for a given tech level). Also commands cannot be moved to a different level (to prevent an Army Group being subordinate to a Brigade, or a Province subordinate to a map square).

Cheers

[LDiCesare]

Seems cool, Gary. Would it be possible to somehow highlight the corresponding units on the map when you select their command (change power circle color)? Maybe allow to center on next unit of the command?
I stop my suggestions before you ask me to code them .

[Gary Thomas]

Seems cool, Gary. Would it be possible to somehow highlight the corresponding units on the map when you select their command (change power circle color)? Maybe allow to center on next unit of the command?

There will certainly be some way of identifying the units on the map. Not yet quite sure what.

I stop my suggestions before you ask me to code them

Damn.

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

I just wanted to mention that I just posted a link to an old discussion on GUIs in my first post in this thread.

[Richard Bruns]

Copy from the old thread I posted in:

I think that we do need an overview screen that shows the highlights of all models. This would provide a single look at the most important aspects of the civ. It could also be the information panel that pops up every turn, replacing the info box.

Here's a possibility. Note that it is smaller than the real one would be, in order to fit on the forums. There would be a frame for each model, and each frame would need to be bigger to accomodate more information. The real overview would probably fill the whole screen:

[Richard Bruns]

Oops

Apparently you can't attach a file when you edit a post if the attachment wasn't sent the first time.

[LDiCesare]

Richard, I like your image a lot.
I am not sure how to get the texts as pretty as you had, but that is another matter.
It could be good to add flavor texts when "nothing happens" ( in a special color/font)
Example for the military:
"Our regiment XXX won the inter regiment race this year" (could even give the name of strongest unit here).
For science:
"This year nobel prize went to Dr Burns for his experience on explosives. By blowing up his whole lab, he proved explosives had great potential as a weapon."

[Gary Thomas]

Richard's screen is very close to what I had in mind, except that he split them up into categories - a good idea!

My will look quite similar. However, each panel will be a scrolling panel, and each entry will lead to an expanded view (with more information) if clicked.

On the other hand I will not put in anything "for later". I would rather add things as they become functional.

Oh, Richard, congratulatons on cracking the table spaces problem!

Cheers

[Mark_Everson]

The Events Display is the current version of what Richard suggested above, and Gary has implemented for D6. Everybody will see it in D6 soon. In playtesting I've come up with some opinions on how this should evolve in the near future.

Presently the Events box is arranged like Richards example above with four roughly equal size boxes in a 2x2 arrangement. It comes up on the upper right portion of the screen, over the Units and Details boxes. It also covers about 1/4 of the main map. My simple proposal is that Events should be presented instead in a column format 1x4 or so, on the right side of the screen, and cover none of the main map. (I find myself continually having to take actions to make Events disappear since Events is covering the part of the main map I'm interested in.) This rearrangement would also be beneficial in allowing a bit more length to the line describing each event. (Each box (Military, etc) could be a bit wider than present) Since there are rarely more than 5 events in any one sub-box it should fit ok.

Opinions?

[Richard Bruns]

That sounds good. But what happens when more models come online and there are more than four boxes? We may have to find a way to shrink and expand the boxes.

I really liked the interface in the Zeus game in the Impressions city building series. All the information and action buttons the player needed were on a group of panels in the right side of the screen, and the city view was the rest of the screen. Mark, what you describe seems quite similar.

[LDiCesare]

Each event list could be displayed only if something happens if se have a 1x4 box, and when there are more models, that would be true too. I guess some models have fairly rare events anyway, like government or foreign ministry, at least not one every turn (rather, the foreign advisor amount is inversely proportional to the number of military). So this display could be OK.
I also think that showing more than 6 items in any event display category would be too difficult (cluttered) to read, however we present them. Either a (more) button could be an option then?

[Gary Thomas]

I will implement Mark's (all in one column) and Laurent's (only show if something happens) suggestions. I was going to anyway...

Cheers

[Gary Thomas]

*bump

Color mentions in his coder description that he has extensive experience in Swing, and Gonzalo has a lot of experience with user interfaces. And they both speak Spanish (while on the subject, don't forget Fiera, from Hispania, and Emporer level, still posting to the Apolyton CS Forums/HostedSites/HS-The Spanish Civilization II Site, who did most of the art to date). Perhaps we can get a subsystem here to work on the gui, while I get onto other things.

Mark and I have been exchanging emails expressing concern at the state of the user interface. Maybe we can use the expertise expressed here to improve the situation.

As I understand it, Color has the deeper understanding of Swing, but Gonzalo's is experienced with user interfaces, but not, I think, in Java. Is this the case? If so, I don't really think that VB experience is going to help with coding (it is only two and a half years since I was employed as a VB expert).

Another thing is that we will not use autogenerated gui code, which tends to give a huge and incomprehensible list of components, all at the top level for the generated component.

That said, I would dearly love for someone to improve the system we have.

There are two immediate problems I have. One i sthat the scroll bars in the task force window do not work correctly, the other is that if you put a slider on a JInternalFrame, then bring it to the front the slider is invisible (it still works though, if you know it is there).

Ideas on fixing these would advance the cause.

Cheers