Applying Graphic Design to the Info Bar

[hurleybird]

I dont know if any one else has said this, but IMO the "level x" text would look better if it where white as well.

[Eleazar]

• I don't understand the order and indentation that the unit's name, description, and attributes have been placed in. Well, i guess i can think of a reason, but IMHO, it would be clearer in this order:
Name
Unit Type
level (indented)
traits, alignement, and abilites (indented, each on it's own line)

The guest essentially got this right,
the traits are associated with the individual unit. everything below the unit's type and above the attacks is associated with the unit-type. I am not particularly tied to the current layout, but I found that having everything beneath the unit-type led to having a really ugly large indented area.

I think what DFool (and others) are trying to do (weather he has thought about it this way or not) is create a theme suitable for advanced players. I, however, have been thinking more about the needs of new players. Though a lot of the things so far discussed apply to both kinds of players, some of the differences of opinion come from these different goals. Fortunately Wesnoth supports multiple themes.
The ordering and indentation of these five lines is a prime example. DFool's order makes logical sense, but i don't think new(ish) players would be familiar enough with Wesnothian concepts to see the reason behind it.

In general "basic" themes would be simpler, and present less information, while "advanced" themes can be more condensed and present more information. At least some of the AMLA icons should probably belong only to an "advanced" theme. (I haven't had much chance to play with the DFool theme to get a more solid feel for it)

[guest]

The guest essentially got this right,
the traits are associated with the individual unit. everything below the unit's type and above the attacks is associated with the unit-type. I am not particularly tied to the current layout, but I found that having everything beneath the unit-type led to having a really ugly large indented area.

I think what DFool (and others) are trying to do (weather he has thought about it this way or not) is create a theme suitable for advanced players. I, however, have been thinking more about the needs of new players. Though a lot of the things so far discussed apply to both kinds of players, some of the differences of opinion come from these different goals. Fortunately Wesnoth supports multiple themes.
The ordering and indentation of these five lines is a prime example. DFool's order makes logical sense, but i don't think new(ish) players would be familiar enough with Wesnothian concepts to see the reason behind it.

In general "basic" themes would be simpler, and present less information, while "advanced" themes can be more condensed and present more information. At least some of the AMLA icons should probably belong only to an "advanced" theme. (I haven't had much chance to play with the DFool theme to get a more solid feel for it)

I admit to being an "advanced" player. However, the ordering of the lines made perfect sense to me already when I started playing Wesnoth at 0.8.0. Let me rehash it once more: Traits belong to the individual, while alignment and abilities belong, in common, to all the units of the same type. In sum: Having all these bits of "lesser" information (from your example above, "traits, alignment, and abilities") may be unnecessary clutter, with too much seemingly insignificant information in one place to be able to easily scan through.

Also, I certainly hope you don't intend to "hide" information from new players - that will probably add to confusion, rather than reduce it.

Otherwise, I am for somewhat more flexible themeability, but as I am not a coder, I am aware of the task that this would present to the coders on those parts of the UI that are not currently "themeable".

[Darth Fool]

I think what DFool (and others) are trying to do (weather he has thought about it this way or not) is create a theme suitable for advanced players. I, however, have been thinking more about the needs of new players. Though a lot of the things so far discussed apply to both kinds of players, some of the differences of opinion come from these different goals. Fortunately Wesnoth supports multiple themes.
The ordering and indentation of these five lines is a prime example. DFool's order makes logical sense, but i don't think new(ish) players would be familiar enough with Wesnothian concepts to see the reason behind it.

In general "basic" themes would be simpler, and present less information, while "advanced" themes can be more condensed and present more information. At least some of the AMLA icons should probably belong only to an "advanced" theme. (I haven't had much chance to play with the DFool theme to get a more solid feel for it)

I admit to being an "advanced" player. However, the ordering of the lines made perfect sense to me already when I started playing Wesnoth at 0.8.0. Let me rehash it once more: Traits belong to the individual, while alignment and abilities belong, in common, to all the units of the same type. In sum: Having all these bits of "lesser" information (from your example above, "traits, alignment, and abilities") may be unnecessary clutter, with too much seemingly insignificant information in one place to be able to easily scan through.

Also, I certainly hope you don't intend to "hide" information from new players - that will probably add to confusion, rather than reduce it.

Otherwise, I am for somewhat more flexible themeability, but as I am not a coder, I am aware of the task that this would present to the coders on those parts of the UI that are not currently "themeable".

I don't think that there is any intention to hide information from any user, rather the efforts are aimed at making the information more accessible. Eleazer is correct that what seems accessible to an expert may differ from what seems accessible to the novice. Generally, icons are good for experts because they enable more information to be crammed into less space. Icons are not as useful for novices as they need to become used to them before they will readily recognize what they mean. In my mind, this indicates that icons should be used principally for things of lesser importance, like traits, but not for things of more importance, like abilities.
All of this can be addressed by novices being given a good tutorial and using tooltips, but how many people play the tutorial when they get a game?

There are actually many things which are themable in the sidebar at the moment, but the attacks are not one of them, since they require formatting within each attack. I have some ideas about how to make the attack list themable, but I am not sure that the benefits are worth it. Everything else (level, traits, abilities, hp, mp, xp, etc...) is possible to move using only the theme WML.

[elusivespoon]

It would make more sense to me to put a unit's name above its picture, both in the attack panel and the side panel.

Also it seems like most things (unit alignment, attack name, attack type, etc) should be capitalized. I've noticed people have capitalization in their text examples, so subconciously you know its better 8]

Code: Select all

16-2 Hammer
  Melee--Impact
 5-2 Faerie touch
  Melee--Impact
  Magical
3-10 Tentacles
  Melee-Blade
12-10 Super Kraken Tentacle Slap
  Ranged--Impact
  Marksman

[irrevenant]

PLEASE don't use this purple on the sidebar : It's practically unreadable! (This is from Wesnoth 1.1).

What do the different colours of xp indicate anyway?

[irrevenant]

Could I get a reply please?

(a) What do the different xp colours indicate.
(b) Can we please do away with that purple? It's awful hard on the eyes.

Thanx.

[Leonhard]

Well, I think you can find that somewhere, but the brighter the color, the nearer from leveling. If you are at maximum level, the color is no longer blue, but purple. You should search for the relevant thread, it is explained more properly. And for the AMLA color, I'm afraid I can't do much .

[Darth Fool]

Could I get a reply please?

yes.

(a) What do the different xp colours indicate.
(b) Can we please do away with that purple? It's awful hard on the eyes.

Thanx.

Once I have finished my move, hopefully this weekend, I can revisit the color definitions.

[Eleazar]

the current trunk version doesn't show a bar for AMLA at all. Is that intentional?

Perhaps if we implemented some other changes to the HP/XP bars, the colors could be changes to work better for both, since my proposed bars have a dark background as well.

[Darth Fool]

the current trunk version doesn't show a bar for AMLA at all. Is that intentional?

No. It did last time I checked, but that was > 1 week ago.