Demo 7.2 Proposal!

[Martin the Dane]

Re: 10. When I use it, it does change the capital, or rename the province, but the popup menu stays open. But I guess that's what you mean by it not working.

[LDiCesare]

Funny, for me the popup disappears, the capital changes but the bug is that the map doesn't refresh automatically (you must select another square, then the new capital).
I strongly dislike the right click interface, though.

[Martin the Dane]

Oh the popup disapears all-right, but it does not close, it moves to the back, so if you minimize the game window, you'll se a stack of popup windows.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Guys:

I see the problem Martin talks about with the right-click menu, but that is not my real problem. I simply can't get it to change the #@%@# capital.

I do this:
Start delenda as Romans
Click on Marsaglia, and verify it is the capital of Gaul
Right-click on Marsaglia, which pops up the menu
Select "Change province capital"
Select a map square, in this case one sq to left of Marsaglia.
Select same square a second time, just to be sure the map had focus...

And the end result is that Marsaglia is Still the capital of Gaul, not the square I selected [3,1].

I agree that to be really useful the menu needs some feedback to the player, but I can't get it to work at all.

Any suggestions? For those of you for whom it works, when you go thru the steps I outline above, does it change the capital of Gaul?

[LDiCesare]

Mark, did you click on the square before right-clicking? It sounds like you expect the right click to act upon the square you click after choosing select capital, whereas it works on the one you had selected when you right-clicked.

[Martin the Dane]

Mark,

If I do as you list it Nothing happends, but try this

Start delenda as Romans
Click on Marsaglia, and verify it is the capital of Gaul
Select a map square, in this case one sq to left of Marsaglia.
Right-click on the square, or anywhere else in the map for that matter.*
Select "Change province capital"

Now the selected square is the province capital, only the Detail frame etc. isn't updated, so you have to select a different square, and then the new capital square.

* Wouldn't it be more logical if right-clicking selected the square under the mouse pointer.

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks Gents, now that I understand the magic it works fine. For Demo 8 we should work out a spec that's more intuitive and gives the player feedback on what has happened. I'm sure Gary just put it in as a quickie debugging aid, but its time to go beyond that.

Anybody have ideas for the best way to do it?

[Martin the Dane]

Well the current way is close to the best, but the text on the popup sould be changed, to make it more intuitive: "Move province capital here" or "Set to province capital"

Furthermore right-clicking should highlight the square under the pointer and open a popup menu, with valid commands, next to the pointer. This will make it more obviouse what's going on. This way the "move capital" will be grayed out if the selected square is already the capital.

[Mark_Everson]

Thanks for the suggestions Martin, I think they're pretty good.

I've improved the set province capital and related stuff a bit today, including the simple "Set to..." change. The detail frame now updates properly, and I fixed some bugs in that code. Some we didn't even know about before

I don't know if I can easily get the popup close to the selected square, or implement the right-click-selects suggestion. Will look at it tomorrow.

Basically D7.2 coding is wrapped up. We did everything on the list but 4 and 6. Hopefully we can get the demo out early next week.

I also tweaked the AI for Jericho a bit. We'll see if its tougher to beat now!

[LDiCesare]

I don't like the right clicking at all. IT should not select another square IMO, and it shouldn't be the only way to do an action. It should limit itself to information gathering when nothing particular is active / cancelling stuff when in a mode (like roads/moves).

[Gary Thomas]

Using a right click to select would be a giant step backward. It will lead to inconsistent behaviour.

The problem described is a coding problem - the new capital should be selected after the right click, but using a left click. The way it works now arises from my rush in trying to get too many things to work.

Cheers

[Martin the Dane]

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
Using a right click to select would be a giant step backward. It will lead to inconsistent behaviour.

I guess it's to late to implement that now, and my wote does not count enough anyway, but the way I'd preffer it was: Right-click would allways bring up a menu to maipulate the object being right-clicked. No mater what is being right-clicked, eg. if you have a TF selected and rightclick a different TF or Unit the menu would let you

• add that TF/Unit to the currently selected TF, display information on the Unit/TF being right-clicked (not the currently selected TF/Unit),
• disband the Unit/TF being right-clicked,
• Split the TF being right-clicked,
• etc. etc.

To make this available to users with only a one-button mouse, the same behavior should be available when holding down some function key while clicking.

Originally posted by Gary Thomas
The problem described is a coding problem - the new capital should be selected after the right click, but using a left click.

Then it should not be done by right-click at all. Standard program behavior on Windows and XWindows (Unix/Linux) is that right-click brings up a menu to manipulate the object being right-clicked, in this case a map square. Only exception is when right-click cancels or ends previouse left-click eg. in setting a path or drawing a line.

[Mark_Everson]

Hi All:

Once I saw Laurent objected to the right-click-selects I didn't do anything about it. I just made it so the popup comes up near the selected square. That will have to do for D7.2.

[Gary Thomas]

Then it should not be done by right-click at all. Standard program behavior on Windows and XWindows (Unix/Linux) is that right-click brings up a menu to manipulate the object being right-clicked, in this case a map square. Only exception is when right-click cancels or ends previouse left-click eg. in setting a path or drawing a line.

There are some menu entries which do not manipulate an object. Moving the capital of a province is one such. There are others, though I cannot remember them offhand.

The present system is a hybrid, and not the result of a carefully worked out system. For example, Mark originally wanted all the menu operations to be key clicks. That system really was not workable. I introduced the idea that a left click selects and a right click brings up a menu. However, I did this by coding, not by systematically designing the way in which mouse clicks work. You must also remember that there are state variables in action - behaviour changes when you are moving a unit or building a road. This is coded in an OOP manner. The basic paradigm, insofar as there is one, has been borrowed from the game Space Empires IV.

Personally I would accept any user-friendly and consistent system - I am not blindly committed to the present one.

Cheers