Gfx help needed

[Olrox]

Ok, I've never really understood the ping time traffic light, I didn't even know for sure that that is what it was. It was just a little light next to the players name to me.

I agree, perhaps the "traffic light" logic should be used for ready check instead of ping? Ping could be shown as a normal number on mouse over, as a tooltip.

[Buginator]

Quite frankly, the whole interface needs a cleaning, and more room.
The blank checkbox is just plain silly. Nobody has a clue they should check that, until they investigate it.
(We also have the same problem with the 'start hosting' button, a computer with arrows all around it??? ack!)

The "GO!" / "Ready" (current) button is a bit better, but as I said a long time ago, the best thing is to label the column, and be done with this issue. For that to really work, we need to redo the lobby screen, and I much rather have it default to 800x600 so we can add/display things much better.

[Olrox]

Quite frankly, the whole interface needs a cleaning, and more room.

That couldn't be more true.
I really hope that we can see elio's talents with interface during the development rush we're going to see during the summer vacations. I say that because I myself will be working like mad with the Art Revolution, and I bet that most of the active, productive segment of the community will be producing content daily or at least weekly as well.

If I could, I really would expand the Art Revolution to the GUI, but currently the 2-man team of ours (Me+Mangust) really is rather full of scheduled work already.

While we are only remaking ingame models, I can only offer my comments with occasional examples.

I really think that those icons should have a text label, with language distinction. Every one of them, except for the player color/starting position/ team, of course. Games with exclusively graphical buttons can turn it into a TERRIBLE game. And that's the most terrible kind of "terrible", because the essence of the game can be good, but it'll be nevertheless frustrating everytime you have to click a button. A good example of what I'm saying is the UFO: Alien Invasion game, which is GNU GPL licensed. The interface is so horrible that I couldn't play it for more than 30 minutes without closing it with ctrl+alt+del because I didn't even want to search for the "exit" button. I really wish I could give a clone of mine to go working with them, with models, textures and GUI.

Of course, Warzone is indeed a very good game, considering the fact that so many of its features were put together quickly and released, and after that, the development was made by voluntary work. But we, the community, and mainly the Warzone 2100 Project development team, just can't let it loose its value due to minor flaws. Because we simply love this game, and (at least I) have endless frustration that it didn't reach the due proportions and popularity. And I really think that "Yes, we can"

[Zarel]

Sadly, Warzone doesn't have very many buttons with text labels, since the interface code is completely horrible.

Case in point: I just spent three hours trying five different methods to get the word "Ready?" near the ready checkbox. Couldn't do it.

I think tooltips will be the closest we get in the near future. :/

And, of course, we can't have text in the image, either, 'cause then the i18n/l10n guys complain.

[Olrox]

Sadly, Warzone doesn't have very many buttons with text labels, since the interface code is completely horrible.

Case in point: I just spent three hours trying five different methods to get the word "Ready?" near the ready checkbox. Couldn't do it.

I think tooltips will be the closest we get in the near future. :/

And, of course, we can't have text in the image, either, 'cause then the i18n/l10n guys complain.

Hmm... well, as you surely agree, seek-and-find isn't effective as passively-displayed labels. Maybe we shouldn't stick to the near future solution, which is unfortunate. Are the chances of creating new interface codes absolutely abysmal?

[Zarel]

Hmm... well, as you surely agree, seek-and-find isn't effective as passively-displayed labels. Maybe we shouldn't stick to the near future solution, which is unfortunate. Are the chances of creating new interface codes absolutely abysmal?

Actually, I might be able to rewrite the interface code to support text labels.

[Olrox]

I think that it's our best bet, because it solves problems with many other buttons than don't have a clear meaning yet.

[Berg]

I don't know if you found a start Icon but I was thinking this might be usefull
Just an Idea

run.png

(6.76 KiB) Downloaded 409 times

I think its meaning is plane.
The PNG itself is not so good but an icon like this instead of a pc with arrows pointing outward to start the war might be better?

[Olrox]

The walking man is going to start a war?
That's real mean.

[Zarel]

I don't know if you found a start Icon but I was thinking this might be usefull
Just an Idea

run.png

I think its meaning is plane.
The PNG itself is not so good but an icon like this instead of a pc with arrows pointing outward to start the war might be better?

Erm, an octagon is standard "stop sign" shape. How is that plainly "start"? o_O

[Berg]

The running man is the symbol thats relevant the rest of it is not Note I said its only an idea!
Where I come from stop signs are round also.

[Zarel]

But that means "start". We need an icon that means "host".

[Olrox]

What about a hand, depicted horizontally with some little men atop it, meaning "taking care of other people"?
Of course, with text labels, any idea would work much better.

[Berg]

2.jpg

(2.09 KiB) Downloaded 393 times

[Olrox]

Yeah, the hand position is pretty much like I was thinking of, but I don't think that the computer is any better: The hands means that "you have", "you aretaking care of" or "you are handling", and then, the most intuitively connection to "host" would be other people, because to host means to "take care of", or even "handle" people (I know "handle" isn't the best word, but the idea is "what you do with that is your responsibility" and "you are in charge of it", at least for the hand)
But that's just me, we must hear as many people as we can to get the best idea.