UI Adjustments: Battlescape

[H-Hour]

I am sorry, I think i already missed to read some text.

I think you touched on the main points that needed addressing. Unfortunately, I think we disagree about most things. This may not work out very well.

* I dont see the point of changing the shoot task with that. I mean spliting user action 1) select the fire mode and 2) shot something. We can talk about that only point in a separate thead cause it evilly affect the GUI result.

Well, firing and selecting a fire mode are not the same thing. I don't want to have to re-select a fire mode every time I shoot. The only reason I can see to force the extra click is to prevent players from accidentally using the wrong firing mode, but it's not a sufficient reason for me.

* This current fire mode do not easily help to select a fire mode (you must select one by one everything to compare), especialy the TU (which is, i think, the more important)

I could definitely see the benefit of adding TU to the end of the name of the fire mode, so that all fire modes had TUs visable for comparison.

* I dont see a bar (like that) for bullets as an improvment (2 bullet instead of 3 is an important information, anyway the weapon can contain 200 bullets or not; or 100/200 is not the same as 1/2).

Hmm, maybe tomorrow I will try and work out a compromise. Is it possible to have a vertical bar that also has a number written on top of it? I want the bars primarily for the ability to quickly scan. Not every activity involves adding up all the numbers, especially reloading, and while some math will always be involved in tight situations, I think the play experience will be smoother if it's not forced on every action. The number 10 could mean I'm almost out of bullets or it could mean I'm fully loaded. It depends on the ammo, and usually corresponds to the types of fire modes available (only weapons that use lots of bullets at once will have ammo that holds 200 bullets). So I still think the bar is a more immediate measurement of the state of my ammo supply, even if the actual number will become important as it gets close to running out.

* I dont see this TU bar position as an help for the "understandability" (IMO TU have nothing to do near the weapon). Maybe it is the same for the inventory button.

But with the fire mode you suggested that TU was the most important thing. I guess I would want to know first and foremost how the TU of a given firing mode compares to my available TU. But I see no reason to labor over this. If it's not desired it can easily be discarded. The inventory button: where could it possibly be more useful than next to the "hands", where most of the inventory shuffling will occur (drop weapon, hold med-kit/grenade)?

* About right click use, i would like we continue to use it as an option (i mean it can be a shortcut for something, but we should anyway allow to do the same action with another way and without right click use).

I can definitely, fully agree with you on this point!

[H-Hour]

Attached is a revision showing some of the changes that you suggested. But the inventory button is still there and the separation of fire mode and fire is also still there.

With the fire mode / firing, you could make it so that when the user selects a fire mode it automatically sets it to fire, just like in the game. Then the player has two options: 1) Select fire mode and fire (2 clicks as it is currently implemented) or 2) fire with existing fire mode (one click).

[Bartleby]

ok, other try to explain. anyway. nothing really knew about ui-design .
there are 2 different things:
- graphic (atm the worst thing)
- funktionality (more important)

graphic
Removed by moderator. Artwork will not be discussed in this thread, as mentioned in the first post.

funktionality
- should work with 16, but shoudnt show 16 icons whole time. as much icons viable as soldiers are on the battlefield and no frames or borders that show the "missing" soldiericons.
- the panel right with the floors should automatically be hidden and pop up, when mouse moves to the right.
- dobbleklick on small soldiericon opens soldiers inventory
- rightklick on soldiericon opens stats.

well.. maybe i should make a paint on the weekend, but i think that all new ideas are good and every change would be great.

[mor2]

@H-Hour, i disagree that we need to concentrate on each control, design is functionality and you cannot design without seeing the whole picture at best we are doing tiny adjustments, anyway i made a few quick changes to your revision:



1. made buttons bigger.
2. changed buttons order, it makes more sense that fire mode selection which is more commonly used than reload, be placed closer to the center.
3. the firemode should show TU and ammo consumption as before (its the single most important thing there) the rest of the stats are mostly weapon stats (for those who didnt memorized the whole ufopedia),  i also added spread.
4. since we are trying new things i put the stats under the weapon panel and made the firemode panel open up to the right, the question is where will be the rest of the controls.

i also attached the PDN file (paint.net) i worked with, so if anyone else want to give it a shoot its very simple and free program, every control has its layer so you dont have to be a graphical wiz to make something.

i support right clicks    

[mor2]

ok, other try to explain. anyway. nothing really knew about ui-design .
there are 2 different things:
- graphic (atm the worst thing)
- funktionality (more important)

graphic
1. should be minimalistic (as much of battlescape visual)
2. if there is a background it should be semitransparent
3. one main color (atm green/gray. i really like the brown)
4. small borders (1px black around an icon and  semitransparent background, brown, if needed, with a small border, also brown and a bit transparent.)

functionality
5. should work with 16, but shoudnt show 16 icons whole time. as much icons viable as soldiers are on the battlefield and no frames or borders that show the "missing" soldiericons.
6. the panel right with the floors should automatically be hidden and pop up, when mouse moves to the right.
7. dobbleklick on small soldiericon opens soldiers inventory
8. rightklick on soldiericon opens stats.

well.. maybe i should make a paint on the weekend, but i think that all new ideas are good and every change would be great.

personally i dislike semitransparent hud, i prefer sharp clear ones, with good color contrast and little gradients for highlights.
5. agreed.
6. good idea but you need some kind of "place holder" for it, people need to know its there, take for example the log on geo scape.
so may be we can make a panel showing the current floor and expand when you want to choose a new one?

7. possible but we are not working on the soldiers bar yet.   
EDIT: correction i didnt see any double click Callback functions so onlyleft/middle/right, over and wheel.

8.  this one will be very easy to do, few lines at best but see 7.


right clicks is the shit  

[Borsti67]

I vote for right clicks also.
(And double clicks are sh*t!)

Could reduce the number of icons whilst being intuitive (IMHO):
Weapon: Left click = fire, right = reload
Fire Mode: Left click = set fire mode, right = set FM for reaction fire
...

[bayo]

Fire Mode: Left click = set fire mode, right = set FM for reaction fire

IMO the RF and reservation is the thing need the bigger rework. I dont play a lot, but ATM i dont understand all this things... then there is a problem.

About http://i52.tinypic.com/nwet0w.jpg
* The firemode popup is not at a very good position, or the design do not help to see it at the right position.

7. possible but we are not working on the soldiers bar yet.  
EDIT: correction i didnt see any double click Callback functions so onlyleft/middle/right, over and wheel.

Yes, we dont feature it, then we use it nowhere, then we should not use it somewhere.

* I dont see the point of changing the shoot task with that. I mean spliting user action 1) select the fire mode and 2) shot something. We can talk about that only point in a separate thead cause it evilly affect the GUI result.

Well, firing and selecting a fire mode are not the same thing. I don't want to have to re-select a fire mode every time I shoot. The only reason I can see to force the extra click is to prevent players from accidentally using the wrong firing mode, but it's not a sufficient reason for me.

In my self experience, I mostly never use the same firemode, it depend a lot of the TU and movment i do. Then i dont see how separating this 2 aspects can't be a mess for players.
What we mean by "firemode" is not a weapon status but mostly the way the soldier will use the weapon (a compromise between accuracy and number of bullets we shoot). I think we can talk about that if we only separate weapon status from our "firemode" list (and maybe only in the case of changing weapon status will use some TU (cause it became an important action), or if our firemode list became very big), or if most of player dont play like i said.
In the case of a gameplay for shoting like Jagged Alliance or Fallout, i think it is good too (i mean accuracy became an independent parameter). We can change the gameplay, but it is out of my scope.

[mor2]

About http://i52.tinypic.com/nwet0w.jpg
* The firemode popup is not at a very good position, or the design do not help to see it at the right position.

its because i left space for a bottom and side bars, beside that its in perfect position, the text is out of the way and after clicking you move right to the selection.

What we mean by "firemode" is not a weapon status but mostly the way the soldier will use the weapon (a compromise between accuracy and number of bullets we shoot). I think we can talk about that if we only separate weapon status from our "firemode" list (and maybe only in the case of changing weapon status will use some TU (cause it became an important action), or if our firemode list became very big), or if most of player dont play like i said.
In the case of a gameplay for shoting like Jagged Alliance or Fallout, i think it is good too (i mean accuracy became an independent parameter). We can change the gameplay, but it is out of my scope.

i am not sure what you mean, can you sum up what you suggest that we do?

IMO the RF and reservation is the thing need the bigger rework. I dont play a lot, but ATM i dont understand all this things... then there is a problem.

i know what you want UI guy, the problem is that you dont know how much i dont want to give it to you
my guess that you want to leave every as is with little adjustments to the  RF/stance reservation, well here it is BUT some other changes are still include

[H-Hour]

Well, this has gotten as out of control as the other thread now. Thank you mor2 for continuing to raise new issues before we resolved the old ones, even after I asked you not to.

If I thought this was going in a productive direction I would just moderate the posts, but it seems that bayo and I do not really share much common ground on how the UI ought to function. I don't think our back and forth is getting anywhere that bayo couldn't get to himself. Unless other devs want to get involved in the decision-making process, I think my involvement will only cause more headaches for bayo and he's the one doing all the work.

I will lock this thread but bayo or another moderator is welcome to reopen it if there is something here they want to follow.

[bayo]

i am not sure what you mean, can you sum up what you suggest that we do?

I only argued why i think the proposed task for firing is not better, i can draw an image. But i dont suggest anything.

Anyway, as i already said many time, i can be wrong, It is only human thinking, and we dont have cheep way to tests solutions.

BTW the battlescape screen is the only one window everybody can easily hack, cause we can parameter the name of the window with a cvar.
* For little changes, it is easy to test it, and you dont break the current screens, cause you work on another things
* For big changes, like this firemode selection, it need to rework the protocol between (server-)client-gui, i think we can work on that, but it must aim a more generic way (i think Duke already said is somewhere). I mean, we (at least me) can help people to work on this solutions, but i dont think we will fully implement the solution.

I am not the only one working on the GUI, geever usually work more than me. Then you can find people with knowledge to do some job.

I will lock this thread

hoo... oups