New theme, DFool

[Darth Fool]

I have attached a new theme for wesnoth which incorporates a few changes that I have suggested previously, and one change in response to a request by Sanna. The theme tries to put items that are conceptually close near to each other. For example, the turn number is now located next to the time-of-day graphic, where as all the gold information is located next to each other in the center. This was motivated primarily by a desire to move the defense and move value number that in the default theme was hidden in the upper-right corner to some place where newbies would see it and associate it with the selected unit. I have attached a screen shot of the theme in 800x600 mode with the canonical elvish shyde selected to show that everything fits. There is no 320x200 mode as I don't have tiny gui to test out how it looks and verify that it works. There are some advantages to the mechanics behind the new theme. The bg graphics for the TOD, minimap, and unit/hp/xp graphic have all been turned into their own seperate graphics which makes moving them around easier.

I personally find having the Time-of-Day images at the top quite pleasing (the sky meeting the top of the terminal, the bottom meets the map), but the key feature that I would hope gets moved into the default above all others is relocating the terrain-info.

edit: to those who don't know, to use this theme, you will need to untar the tarball and move the images in images/misc into the images/misc in your wesnoth install. You will then need to copy the dfool.cfg file in data/themes into the appropriate wesnoth directory, and finally you will need to edit your .wesnoth/preferences file to use theme=DFool

[Jetrel]

I am not so keen on the movement of the time-of day image, as it provided a nice, visual separation between the map (often largely black, as demonstrated in your picture) and the rest of the info.

However, I REALLY LIKE the new position of the terrain data.

I would like more than any other, a mod that was exactly like this, but had the time of day below the map.

[turin]

I actually like the new placement of the time of day time of day image. This looks like a 100% improvement to me.

[Darth Fool]

I am not so keen on the movement of the time-of day image, as it provided a nice, visual separation between the map (often largely black, as demonstrated in your picture) and the rest of the info.

However, I REALLY LIKE the new position of the terrain data.

I would like more than any other, a mod that was exactly like this, but had the time of day below the map.

Actually, this is pretty straightforward to do:
in dfool.cfg just change;

Code: Select all

   # rightside panel
        [panel]
        ref=screen
        id=time-of-day-panel
        image=misc/timeofday.png
        rect=-142,=,=,+49
        xanchor=right
        yanchor=fixed
        [/panel]
 
        [panel]
        id=minimap-panel
        image=misc/minimap.png
        rect==,+0,=,=+154
        xanchor=right
        yanchor=fixed
        [/panel]

to

Code: Select all

   # rightside panel
        [panel]
        ref=screen
        id=minimap-panel
        image=misc/minimap.png
        rect=-142,=,=,+154
        xanchor=right
        yanchor=fixed
        [/panel]

        [panel]
       id=time-of-day-panel
        image=misc/timeofday.png
        rect==,+0,=,=+49
        xanchor=right
        yanchor=fixed
        [/panel]

note that the rect lines are slightly different

[Na'enthos]

In the same line of thought, I'd put the number of units and number of villages adjacent to eachother.

[Darth Fool]

In the same line of thought, I'd put the number of units and number of villages adjacent to eachother.

Yeah, I had trouble with that one, because, your income = #villages - upkeep, and upkeep = max(#units-#villages , 0 ) , it wasn't quite clear to me where to put them. In some respects upkeep should be surrounded by units and villages, income should be next to villages and upkeep, and gold should be next to income, but not necessarily upkeep. Still, I decided to go with village -> income -> gold -> upkeep -> units, since it mostly shows the flow of money. Those to the left of gold cause your gold to increase. Those to the right cause your gold to decrease. But, I am not adament about that.

[Invisible Philosopher]

upkeep = max(#units-#villages , 0 )

It's not quite that simple: L0's don't have upkeep, and non-loyal L2+'s have more than one upkeep. This perhaps has the potential to confuse people who aren't used to the system, although I'm not sure if those make a difference to the positioning.

Anyway, I like this theme. I think the positioning of the time-of-day is probably fine, and it has to be where it is to be next to the turn number (although for the player, it doesn't really have much relevence to the turn number).

[Viliam]

L0's don't have upkeep, and non-loyal L2+'s have more than one upkeep. This perhaps has the potential to confuse people who aren't used to the system,

Maybe we could reduce the confusion by making a tooltip window for upkeep, which would explain how the number was calculated.

[Invisible Philosopher]

L0's don't have upkeep, and non-loyal L2+'s have more than one upkeep. This perhaps has the potential to confuse people who aren't used to the system,

Maybe we could reduce the confusion by making a tooltip window for upkeep, which would explain how the number was calculated.

Great idea! It especially helps explain the "x (y)" notation of the upkeep (although not directly), which took me a while to understand when I started playing Wesnoth.

[Na'enthos]

In the same line of thought, I'd put the number of units and number of villages adjacent to eachother.

Yeah, I had trouble with that one, because, your income = #villages - upkeep, and upkeep = max(#units-#villages , 0 ) , it wasn't quite clear to me where to put them. In some respects upkeep should be surrounded by units and villages, income should be next to villages and upkeep, and gold should be next to income, but not necessarily upkeep. Still, I decided to go with village -> income -> gold -> upkeep -> units, since it mostly shows the flow of money. Those to the left of gold cause your gold to increase. Those to the right cause your gold to decrease. But, I am not adament about that.

Personally I don't pay attention to the 'flow', but to those things which are similar. Villages and units are your base income and expenses. Upkeep shows you how these are balanced and income shows how much you make. So it'd be: village -> units -> upkeep -> income -> gold.. where units and villages can be switched.

Oh, and I tend to look at villages, upkeep and income the most..

[Darth Fool]

L0's don't have upkeep, and non-loyal L2+'s have more than one upkeep. This perhaps has the potential to confuse people who aren't used to the system,

Maybe we could reduce the confusion by making a tooltip window for upkeep, which would explain how the number was calculated.

unfortunately, tooltips are not themeable. Still, it is not a bad idea.

In any case, here is a patch for dfool.cfg that fixes a few issues. First the font size of the terrain-status was increased. Second, as a test, the background for the turn-status was removed. Finally, the unit's hp and xp fields have been expanded to allow up to 7 digits (xxx/yyy) to be properly displayed. This last change should be implimented in the default theme as well, since it is a bug for units that need >100xp to level.