Applying Graphic Design to the Info Bar

[Dave]

Nice idea. I've been waiting for someone to come up with a nice icon-based layout, but this change is much simpler, yet effective.

Perhaps though instead of different colors, the lines you have in white should simply be bolded?

I think this change should even be backported to the 1.0.x branch.

David

[Eleazar]

Thanks, Dave.
My original thought was to use bold but i fear it would cause some lines (like: "Faerie touch (impact)") in english, and maybe more in other languages, to extend off the edge of the screen.

Here's another take:

* I was unpleasantly surprized to find the attack icons were too big. In this example they are displayed at 50% their normal size. I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble of making 2 sized of every attack icon or not...

* Ott had the idea of using icons for the 6 different damage types. I think it's a good idea, but those icons don't yet exist. I think they should be as tall as one line of text.

* Currently the "HP" number turns green when high, and red when low. In between it's white. I'd like the MP and HP numbers also to reflect their status, but i think it would be too chaotic if all were colored:

HP: The number is the same color as the unit's HP bar. (currently it doesn't do yellow)
MP: Grey (as shown) when MPs are used up, White otherwise.
XP: Grey (as shown) with 0XP. Progressively lightens to white as the unit nears advancement.

P.S. Incidently i think it would be clearer if a unit's XP bar did not turn white untill the unit was within 8XP of advancement. I can't tell if a MoL (for instance) is within 1 kill of advancement by looking at the bar. It's often very important to know if a successful attack will bring the healing that comes with advancement.

[Darth Fool]

Out of curiosity, where (if anywhere) where you thinking of putting the advancement icons?
( http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 575#112575 )
I suppose they could go at the top of the unit image.

[JW]

Thanks, Dave.
My original thought was to use bold but i fear it would cause some lines (like: "Faerie touch (impact)") in english, and maybe more in other languages, to extend off the edge of the screen.

Is it just me, or are the attack name now slightly yellow in your picture? I don't like that, and that's the only thing I don't like. Everything else is brilliant. I believe a white or light gray would be more appropriate.

* I was unpleasantly surprized to find the attack icons were too big. In this example they are displayed at 50% their normal size. I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble of making 2 sized of every attack icon or not...

I think it would be, if necessary. Your layout is wonderful and much more aesthetically pleasing.

* Ott had the idea of using icons for the 6 different damage types. I think it's a good idea, but those icons don't yet exist. I think they should be as tall as one line of text.

Another project that I think would be quite simple for the artists out there.

* Currently the "HP" number turns green when high, and red when low. In between it's white. I'd like the MP and HP numbers also to reflect their status, but i think it would be too chaotic if all were colored:

HP: The number is the same color as the unit's HP bar. (currently it doesn't do yellow)
MP: Grey (as shown) when MPs are used up, White otherwise.
XP: Grey (as shown) with 0XP. Progressively lightens to white as the unit nears advancement.

Perfect.

P.S. Incidently i think it would be clearer if a unit's XP bar did not turn white untill the unit was within 8XP of advancement. I can't tell if a MoL (for instance) is within 1 kill of advancement by looking at the bar. It's often very important to know if a successful attack will bring the healing that comes with advancement.

As it is now, the xp bar goes white when the unit is within one kill of levelling: one kill of a unit of its level. Thus, a lvl 1 characters xp bar goes white within 8xp, a level 2 within 16, and a level 3 within 24, etc. I like the system the way it is; you just have to check the actual xp of higher level units sometimes, which I have no problem doing. I think changing it to only be white when the unit is within 8xp would be less useful.

[turin]

It looks good. It doesn't look yellow to me; perhaps it is a trick of the lighting?

P.S. Incidently i think it would be clearer if a unit's XP bar did not turn white untill the unit was within 8XP of advancement. I can't tell if a MoL (for instance) is within 1 kill of advancement by looking at the bar. It's often very important to know if a successful attack will bring the healing that comes with advancement.

As it is now, the xp bar goes white when the unit is within one kill of levelling: one kill of a unit of its level. Thus, a lvl 1 characters xp bar goes white within 8xp, a level 2 within 16, and a level 3 within 24, etc. I like the system the way it is; you just have to check the actual xp of higher level units sometimes, which I have no problem doing. I think changing it to only be white when the unit is within 8xp would be less useful.

I'm going to have to disagree here. It is usually obvious when your unit has high XP. What is less obvious is exactly how high it is. Since you are usually fighting level 1 units, it makes the most sense to me to have it turn white when you are withing 8 XP - that is, when one level one kill will level you. I am almost certain that I check how much XP a unit about to level has now than I would under such a new system.

[scott]

Aren't the icons supposed to indicate damage type and range? You just added more stuff to the mix with the real icons. They look great, but I thought the plan was to replace text with icons.

Really, you could turn all traits and abilities into icons and put them all on the same line. That way you really save some space.

[Darth Fool]

I have taken a swing at incorporating the idea presented here into the dfool theme. It was not easily implementable as proposed, so I have made a few modifications. First I used indentation instead of color changes to the fonts. It should be noted that the indentations for the attacks are hard coded since this has to be done inside the report format and so will show up in the default theme as well. It would be a non-trivial rewrite of the code to put the attack icons in front of them. Also, it should be noted that having status icons or any icons placed over another image will cause graphical glitches because of asynchronous updates to the reports. Again, this would be non-trivial to fix. bottom line, when doing these layouts, don't put status icons on the unit-image.

ok, instead of rambling on, here is a thousand words:

[Jetrel]

Thanks, Dave.
My original thought was to use bold but i fear it would cause some lines (like: "Faerie touch (impact)") in english, and maybe more in other languages, to extend off the edge of the screen.

I strongly think that color changes, rather than bolding or indenting, are the way to go. Of all the ironies, they actually seem to stand out more, visually speaking, in part due to coherent region mapping. A region of text will have a specific color, which will make that region look different even if someone's eyes do not drift over to the left side of the screen.

Nothing against indenting - a slight bit of that might be nice as well, but I really do think that color changes are the best solution here, and that the design methodology that Eleazar is being guided by in choosing them is sound.

* Ott had the idea of using icons for the 6 different damage types. I think it's a good idea, but those icons don't yet exist. I think they should be as tall as one line of text.

I like this, and I'll try and get to work on these icons as soon as I can.

* Currently the "HP" number turns green when high, and red when low. In between it's white. I'd like the MP and HP numbers also to reflect their status, but i think it would be too chaotic if all were colored:

HP: The number is the same color as the unit's HP bar. (currently it doesn't do yellow)
MP: Grey (as shown) when MPs are used up, White otherwise.
XP: Grey (as shown) with 0XP. Progressively lightens to white as the unit nears advancement.

P.S. Incidently i think it would be clearer if a unit's XP bar did not turn white untill the unit was within 8XP of advancement. I can't tell if a MoL (for instance) is within 1 kill of advancement by looking at the bar. It's often very important to know if a successful attack will bring the healing that comes with advancement.

I support these changes.

Out of curiosity, where (if anywhere) where you thinking of putting the advancement icons?
( http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 575#112575 )
I suppose they could go at the top of the unit image.

I also support the inclusion of these, though we need better icons - again, something I'll take a swing at.

[xtifr]

I strongly think that color changes, rather than bolding or indenting, are the way to go.

You have to be careful about relying on color changes because a lot of people are color-blind. Also, FWIW, I found DF's version a lot more readable than Eleazar's, and I'm not even color-blind. But maybe with brighter colors, it would be better. As long as you don't depend on people being able to distinguish different colors, it should be ok.

[ivanovic]

I see one problem with the new design:
The position of the clock. In translations (like the german translation) the will not be enough room for the "end turn" button. When creating buttons you got to be carefull about leaving quite some space to make sure that this stuff works in the translations, too.

[zookeeper]

I had already done this edit to show an alternate way of displaying the attacks, when I realized that it's probably quite a bad idea as such. It would cause the need to constantly hover over the attacks to see the details when planning attacks etc., when currently the details of all attacks are visible by simply selecting the unit (even if it is a bit messily organized). Also, it would misleadingly look like the player could click to select the attack with which to attack with those icons, which can't be done (unless the current behaviour was changed).

So it's a bad idea as such, but might be suitable elsewhere, for instance for lower resolutions, so here it is anyway.

[JW]

What do the hearts represent? Also, there is some sort of cross symbol in the Konrad picture. What do these mean?

[XJaPaN]

Thanks, Dave.
My original thought was to use bold but i fear it would cause some lines (like: "Faerie touch (impact)") in english, and maybe more in other languages, to extend off the edge of the screen.

Here's another take:

* I was unpleasantly surprized to find the attack icons were too big. In this example they are displayed at 50% their normal size. I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble of making 2 sized of every attack icon or not...

* Ott had the idea of using icons for the 6 different damage types. I think it's a good idea, but those icons don't yet exist. I think they should be as tall as one line of text.

* Currently the "HP" number turns green when high, and red when low. In between it's white. I'd like the MP and HP numbers also to reflect their status, but i think it would be too chaotic if all were colored:

HP: The number is the same color as the unit's HP bar. (currently it doesn't do yellow)
MP: Grey (as shown) when MPs are used up, White otherwise.
XP: Grey (as shown) with 0XP. Progressively lightens to white as the unit nears advancement.

P.S. Incidently i think it would be clearer if a unit's XP bar did not turn white untill the unit was within 8XP of advancement. I can't tell if a MoL (for instance) is within 1 kill of advancement by looking at the bar. It's often very important to know if a successful attack will bring the healing that comes with advancement.

IMO this is the best looking solution...

[guest]

Hello!

I think Eleazar's changes here are very nice and clear to read. Good.

P.S. Incidently i think it would be clearer if a unit's XP bar did not turn white untill the unit was within 8XP of advancement. I can't tell if a MoL (for instance) is within 1 kill of advancement by looking at the bar. It's often very important to know if a successful attack will bring the healing that comes with advancement.

As it is now, the xp bar goes white when the unit is within one kill of levelling: one kill of a unit of its level. Thus, a lvl 1 characters xp bar goes white within 8xp, a level 2 within 16, and a level 3 within 24, etc. I like the system the way it is; you just have to check the actual xp of higher level units sometimes, which I have no problem doing. I think changing it to only be white when the unit is within 8xp would be less useful.

There is only one thing in Eleazar's ideas that I disagree with. Thus, I completely agree with JW. In campaigns (and often in MP), it is much more useful, IMO, to know, when a lvl2 unit can level by killing a unit that is "on par" with itself (i.e. another lvl2 unit), than having to check this separately. Continuing this at lvl3 is sensible. Changing this would make gameplay more cumbersome, often.

Just me.

[Woodwizzle]

Of all the mock-ups I like Eleazar latest the best.