Recruiting and Recalling

[Infinisearch]

When recruiting or recalling replace the mini-map and time of day thing, with the unit list, have the bottom display base unit stats and allow drag and drop of units onto keep tiles.

[scott]

That sounds like a cool idea. Now we need someone to work on experimental GUI stuff like this.

[Stilgar]

I like it. You could also have it change the "End Turn" button to one that exits the recruit/recall menu, so you wouldn't have to continually press the key combo for recruit/recall while picking your troops.

[Infinisearch]

Nice Idea Master Stilgar, but how about two whole buttons? One to do what you said and one to switch between recruit and recall.

[Stilgar]

Yeah, that would be even better, then you could pick all the troops you want for that turn from one hotkey. Also, if you double-click on a unit in the menu instead of dragging and dropping, it could behave the way it does now when you recruit or recall without selecting a castle tile.

[Maeglin Dubh]

That is, in point of fact, a ridiculously good idea. But how would you go about making it? (This isn't a challenge, merely for my own curiosity. I'm a coding illiterate.)

[ranek]

I don't think you should replace the end turn button. Suppose you aaccidentaly double click and woops, you're turn is over. You'd have to add either a delay or put the buttons elsewhere. I like the idea though. I hate using hotkeys where it pops up in a circle and i hate right clicking to place my units.

[Infinisearch]

In response to ranek's concern, just shift the unit info section down making the end turn button temporarily disappear, and add the two buttons inbetween the unit palette and the unit info sections.

[irrevenant]

I don't think you should replace the end turn button. Suppose you aaccidentaly double click and woops, you're turn is over. You'd have to add either a delay or put the buttons elsewhere. I like the idea though. I hate using hotkeys where it pops up in a circle and i hate right clicking to place my units.

Plus, using the same control for different purposes is just bad UI design.

I agree the idea is good, though.

[jb]

wow, what a simple and good idea

[Infinisearch]

Another nice feature would be that when you drag the unit from the palette to the map, you get a tooltip type popup. The popup would show defense and movement information if there is only terrain. If a unit was on the terrain it would also show the potential attack damage information as well. (potentially with the different variations depending on traits if it is being recruited instead of recalled)

[Dragon Master]

it's an unwritten law in Wesnoth that pop-ups are bad.

[scott]

it's an unwritten law in Wesnoth that pop-ups are bad.

It's unwritten because it doesn't exist. A "tooltip type popup" sounds like a tooltip, which we already use extensively. I'm guessing the only difference might be transparency.

[Prometheus]

Drag and drop things can be tricky to code, especially if you are dragging and dropping from/to places which have objects which can themselves be dragged and dropped. Lots of chances for subtle logic errors there.

But it wouldn't be too bad if you could ONLY drag from a location, and ONLY drop in some other location.

Without referring specifically to Wesnoth, because I don't know what variables Wesnoth uses, it would go generically something like

if(SDL_GetMouseState(mx, my)& SDL_BUTTON(1))

if (mx > archer.leftspriteboundary) etc.

then {archer.selected = true;mousedrag=true}

other mouse actions probably should be disabled, while mousedrag was true

somewhere in the game loop

if (SDL_GetMouseState(mx, my) & !SDL_BUTTON(1))
if (mousedrag= true)
{createunit()} etc.

This should be doable without too much effort, for someone who familiar with Wesnoth's classes and program flow.

[Boucman]

it's an unwritten law in Wesnoth that pop-ups are bad.

it is a written law of human computer interaction that popup are bad. This is absolutely not wesnoth specific