Shannon V. OKeets
Posts: 22095
Joined: 5/19/2005
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Froonp
quote:
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I need to take the summary information from the Units Under Cursor form and reproduce it in the top part of the Naval Review form (not shown). I might also add the Lock function to the Naval Review form (e.g., small symbol in the lower right corner of the UUC form) so the player can manipulate individual units in the Naval Review form. It's not that important here but will be crucial in the Detailed Task Force form which will be a close clone of the Naval Review form. I believe what will be important for the NR form is the check boxes from the UUC form for Allied & Axis, so you can see one or the other or both.
The NR form is the best to review Naval units. I say YES to your suggestion of having it lockable as the Unit in hex form. This is invaluable. I also say YES to the reproduction of the summary informations.
To improve it, I would wish for :
- It being resizable in height, so that if the TF is small (as in your screenshot), I can shorten its heigth.
- Why not having it zoomable from say, zooms levels 3 to 6 ? It will be at the expense of readability, but the player can prefer to see more ships in a large TF, and not caring of the names.
- It having filters for movement (is range necessary too ?) so that I can arrange the ships by speed, which is one of the main feature of ships who are in the same task force. It will be usefull to create task forces from a port.
- If a sea hex (not sea box) is hovered upon by the mouse, will it show all the ships at sea, independently of sea box section and side ? If yes, it needs to have the filters that the unit in hex form has.
- Maybe there is an information missing : is the unit disrupted or not ? But adding the little information light may eat too much room ? Note that this is the same for the flyouts, and I think this is not good overall that this information is absent.
This said, I like the "More units in hex" in the flyouts. If it is clicked does it have an effect ? Maybe it could call the Unit in hex form, if it is not yet displayed. If it is displayed, it could put it on the foreground.
About the unit in hex form's summary of informations, I would like its content to be replaced by the informations relative to the particular unit on which the mouse is hovering upon in the form when it is locked, if one is hovered upon. Do you see what I mean ? This should be the same in the NR form. To help understand what I mean, the information I talk about is shown when hovering a unit in the scrap screen or the unit in game form (who should have the "units in game" title rather thant simply "units" as it is called that way in the menu).
Also, about the eye candy things, would it be possible for the graphic artist to improve the look of the game's forms by, for example, adding fadded out (fadded out ? blanked out ? I'm not sure about the term. You see, so that the pictures are in the background, not overwhelming the datas) WWII pictures in the places that are left white in the forms ? The picture would cover all the white spaces's backgrounds in a single form, and have the form's structures, the units, the datas, standing out across it. Those pictures should be related to the form. Here in the NR form, we could see a fleet cruising at sea. In the Unit in hex form we would see an overall picture of a land unit in action (land units are the core of the game after all, everything else is here so that they gain ground), for example German Panzers advancing in Ukraine, you see ? I say that because I feel that the game lacks WWII imagery as of now.
Resizeable height - sure, both less and more units visible. Are you suggesting I make it 'automatic'?
Zoom level 3 doesn't strike me as reasonable, at that size units are very difficult to see, especially if you are trying to click on individual units and do something with them. I have put in code to accommodate Z4 through Z6, but for now I will stick with Z5 and only add more flexibility if it seems warranted.
Creating task forces is another form. It will be very similar, but I want to think of the Naval Review and Create TF functions as different and make specific forms for each. My main reson for this is that the NR form can be used for displaying enemy units while Create TF form can not. since they have to be different for that reason, then I think it will be a cleaner design if we restrict what can be done on each form to the form's intended purpose.
Yeah, disruption and other status indicators are missing (e.g., damaged). I begrudge the room for showing them though. Along the same lines, the section box for the units in a sea area are not shown (usually done in a text area under the unit). All this stuff (including zoom levels) could be made toggle switches and the form designed as a be-all-and-end-all for reviewing naval units. But that is a lot of work and I am unconvinced of the need. If placing the cursor over the unit shows the unit's information in the unit data panel, then all that information will be available. And the units under cursor panel does it as well. At this point my preference is to make the NR form more of a visual summary, rather than a detailed examination of each unit's particulars.
Clicking on More Units in Hex to achieve some effect is a good idea. I am not sure what should happen though. Perhaps the naval review form should be displayed?
Eye candy is not on my list of things to program. I am focused on designing for functionality - pretty much exclusively.
EDIT: I forgot to provide this answer. If the cursor is over a hex with naval units, then the units in the hex are shown; this is what happens if the cursor is over a sea area section box which contains units. If it is over an empty hex in a sea area, then all the units in the sea area are shown (regardless of section box). If it is over a land hex that contains units but no naval units, then the display is not updated.
Right now, the display remains visible as you move the mouse around, continuing to display what was in the last hex that had something to display. I am not sure whether to make the NR form disappear as soon as the cursor leaves the hex - that is how the Flyouts work. Having it disappear is good because then the whole map area become visible again and a new location (e.g., a port) can be selected. But it is also bad because it will flicker on and off as you peruse different ports. I'm just not sure which is better.
< Message edited by Shannon V. OKeets -- 11/11/2007 8:32:21 PM >
_____________________________
Steve
Perfection is an elusive goal.
|
Printable Version
RE: MWIF Game Interface Design - 
.
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread