interface ideas

[elio]

i felt a new creative phase and started drawing

energy, base, fogofwar, tech-level, alliances are buttons you can click and they change the state (ex. no bases, bases, advanced bases)

map has the same behaviour as now (showing "maps" instead of "players")
the same with the pliers&gear-icon, it's used for mod selection/activation. shown like the maps plus there is a little checkbox to activate/deactivate a specific mod.

well it's only an idea, hopefully someone can be inspired

remark: i forgot the 'build restrictions'-button (have you ever used it?), but i would propose something like the no-bases, bases, advanced bases button, like no-vtol, no-cyborgs, no-tanks ...

[DevUrandom]

Looks quite good to me! I like it.
And I think it is doable in the game, since it seems it does nothing that is not currently done anyway.

[elio]

i also was thinking about when you click on a flag on the map and then on another, they will replace each other.

[winsrp]

same as elio, this way we can have fixed positions on the map... i hate starting a map, and having my friend all across the map... lol.

[Per]

I like it already.

[Buginator]

Unless we move to 800x600 for menu screens, we got a problem.

Without text, it is non-intuitive... well, let me show this example.

[winsrp]

cant you just make a tooltip text pop up each time you put your mouse on an icon?

[Buginator]

cant you just make a tooltip text pop up each time you put your mouse on an icon?

Yup... but we are still starved for space.

[kage]

cant you just make a tooltip text pop up each time you put your mouse on an icon?

Yup... but we are still starved for space.

then i would suggest moving the alliance, visibility, starting bases, and other similar options to another "tabbed" page -- that would give more than enough room.

[winsrp]

why don't you make a tab as kage says, but in one tab put the options, and on the other put the map... so this way you can leave the map in first plane, so everyone can see, options on second plane... and you no longer have to put the map on the back ground.

[elio]

first i'm happy you like the layout

Unless we move to 800x600 for menu screens, we got a problem.

hmm, with the current gui yes, and the (planned) gui afaik is resizeable? then there wouldn't exist this problems, would they?

Without text, it is non-intuitive... well, let me show this example.

why shouldn't it be intuitive.. if you clicked trough everything, everything is clear, or else you can consult the manual. tool tip is okay for me.

the player name should only appear once on display. so i would propose to edit the name right in the 'player's list. (indicating by some pencil or so, or the GO button)

[Buginator]

why don't you make a tab as kage says, but in one tab put the options, and on the other put the map... so this way you can leave the map in first plane, so everyone can see, options on second plane... and you no longer have to put the map on the back ground.

If only it was that easy, or should that be easier said than done?
While it is possible, the GUI code is still a huge PITA to work with.
It is very limiting in what can/can not be done.

I am just not sure it is worth it to hack what we need now, or just wait for the newer GUI code.

[kage]

not that anybody likes this idea, but...

for the *main menu* (not necessarily in-game stuff), we could use a gui tk that has a native opengl backend. i know that fltk and qt4 have this, and possibly gtk2 since its recent integration with cairo (not that i'm at all a fan of gtk performance), and i still think that qt4 is a bit heavy (but this is a game, so whatever), and fltk, although my personal favorite amongst the lot, does not have C bindings (only C++), which i consider unfortunate, since the last thing i think warzone needs is a reason to start a full conversion to C++.

[Giel]

not that anybody likes this idea, but...

for the *main menu* (not necessarily in-game stuff), we could use a gui tk that has a native opengl backend. i know that fltk and qt4 have this, and possibly gtk2 since its recent integration with cairo (not that i'm at all a fan of gtk performance), and i still think that qt4 is a bit heavy (but this is a game, so whatever), and fltk, although my personal favorite amongst the lot, does not have C bindings (only C++), which i consider unfortunate, since the last thing i think warzone needs is a reason to start a full conversion to C++.

As for C++ (I personally can see a lot of places where Warzone could benefit from it), it is possible to compile Warzone using a C++ compiler (specifically G++ with the -fpermissive flag). But right now it produces binaries that *will* crash on startup. (I know it used to work some 3000-4000 revisions ago though...).

[Per]

You do not need to convert the "gnarly old C" of Warzone to C++ just to use a C++ library. Just write wrappers for the parts you use. I've been thinking about using Qt4 before, since its excellent style sheets would probably allow you to theme the widgets to look just like Warzone's. Although this is a digression. Rewriting this dialog using the old GUI code is probably much faster and more feasible in the short run.