Menus, borders, and others things

Post by **ettin** » September 21st, 2003, 4:54 pm

I have done some work with menus and borders, now lets discuss about it

.

Here's a test screenshot: New menus.
This screenshot shows some border examples (silver and golden) and the new slides (still needs some work). Why I changed the style of the rightside menu? Consistency.

Another test: Main menu
This screenshot shows the main menu using a background image (from the game Savage, so we can't use it, this is only a test). Any artist want to work in a background?

Of course, this is only a suggestion. I need your opinions.

miyo · Post by **miyo** » September 21st, 2003, 6:57 pm

Right panel looks clear which is good, though it is not much fantasy themed (neither was Bitstream Vera, the font, but we still switched using it). Elvish look in righ-panel would not hurt.

I like more the Golden edges (those around the middle-window).

About the 'end turn' (which I didn't even notice before Ettin asked about it in IRC)... I really prefer the GIMPish way: right click -> end turn. End turn in south-east corner might help new players.

Dave, should we think making Wesnoth themeable... so it would be easy (eg. command-line switch) to switch tiles or UI theme in use... that could possibly encourage people doing those (eg. XMMS, IceWM, KDE, GNOME).

- Miyo

gandalf · Post by **gandalf** » September 21st, 2003, 7:15 pm

miyo wrote: Dave, should we think making Wesnoth themeable... so it would be easy (eg. command-line switch) to switch tiles or UI theme in use... that could possibly encourage people doing those (eg. XMMS, IceWM, KDE, GNOME).
- Miyo

Well, I think there are things that are better to do before making the game themeable, for example, make it possible to quit the game during a scenario.

But later on, I wouldn't mind a themeable game if there is not much performance penalty. I do like playing games, escpecially those that lokks good (Angband and Battle for Wesnoth) but want to do it with as little waiting as possible (that could explain my earlier suggestion about making it an option to see animations/movements etc.)

Regards, Gandalf,(telling you all what to do but not doing much myself)

Post by **ettin** » September 21st, 2003, 7:58 pm

End turn in south-east corner might help new players.

That's the main reason to put the button there.

Right panel looks clear which is good, though it is not much fantasy themed (neither was Bitstream Vera, the font, but we still switched using it). Elvish look in righ-panel would not hurt.

Any artist here? Elvish artwork would be appreciated

Example: http://www.battle.net/war3/nightelf/

zas · Post by **zas** » September 21st, 2003, 8:01 pm

I like golden borders too.
in right panel, i think we should reorder things like this:
Turns
Units
Villages
Income
Gold

Terrain (Dirt here) and x,y should move after in a new block (informations related to terrain)

I like the end turn button

but it 's not consitent with other actions access (through right click + popup menu), and it raises a question : if end turn is here, why recruit is not ? Finding recruit for a beginner is even more important, imho

So i vote against _one_ button in right panel, or else _all_ buttons (->icons) should be in right pannel.
Which is perhaps not a so bad idea

Just an unrelated thing about minimap: i would like to be, optionnally, able to see my units as colored pixels and enemy units only if there are next to one of my unit , or enemy leader.

Sithrandel · Post by **Sithrandel** » September 21st, 2003, 10:59 pm

I have to agree that just the end turn doesn't make sense. Either the most used (e.g. Recall, Recruit + End Turn), All or none would make sense. Do like it otherwise.

Sadly can't do elvish... closest I get is photographic fairies

Cheers

Sithrandel

Post by **Dave** » September 22nd, 2003, 2:03 am

miyo wrote:Right panel looks clear which is good, though it is not much fantasy themed (neither was Bitstream Vera, the font, but we still switched using it). Elvish look in righ-panel would not hurt.

Having a 'fantasy themed' font for any text that is displayed often would be insane, because it'd harder to read. Bitstream Vera is very, very easy to read, so it's clearly the best choice. The look of the panel can be more exciting, just as long as it doesn't interfere with the user's ability to interpret the information displayed on it. The suggested stone does look reasonably good though.

miyo wrote:About the 'end turn' (which I didn't even notice before Ettin asked about it in IRC)... I really prefer the GIMPish way: right click -> end turn. End turn in south-east corner might help new players.

I'm not sure if there'll be enough room for it, since the screenshot ettin provides omits some information that is sometimes present (unit abilities, special types of attacks). One possibility is to use round buttons with icons and place them at the bottom middle of the screen, overlaying the map, like in FreeCiv SDL and Civilization III.

miyo wrote:Dave, should we think making Wesnoth themeable... so it would be easy (eg. command-line switch) to switch tiles or UI theme in use... that could possibly encourage people doing those (eg. XMMS, IceWM, KDE, GNOME).

My feeling is no. To make it themeable, you have to provide all sorts of flexible options to give theme-makers the ability to make the themes they want. But, no matter how flexible you try to make the theme system, there'll always be things that theme-makers want to do that isn't possible. Thus you'll end up with five themes, each of which will have problems. I'd rather just have one theme that looks as nice as we can get it than worry about putting lots of effort into making it possible to change themes, and ending up with a whole heap of mediocre themes, with 90+% of users sticking to the default theme anyway.

I think that themes are good if you're doing a widget set like Qt or Gtk, but I think games are best just having one theme. If it happens to be an open source game, as this one is, then if the users don't like the theme, they are welcome to modify it by simply going in and changing the images/data files/source code.

I would be happy to make a command line argument to the program which allows specification of a different directory for getting images from, but it's unlikely we'd do anything more than that.

David

Post by **ettin** » September 22nd, 2003, 3:03 pm

I'm not sure if there'll be enough room for it, since the screenshot ettin provides omits some information that is sometimes present (unit abilities, special types of attacks). One possibility is to use round buttons with icons and place them at the bottom middle of the screen, overlaying the map, like in FreeCiv SDL and Civilization III.

I would prefer those buttons at the right side menu, and the info (villages, gold, turn..) at the bottom or top. Although the two options are good.

Can the menus be implemented? Or you don't plan that right now?
I just want to know if I would have to work more on the menus

.

methinks · Post by **methinks** » September 22nd, 2003, 3:24 pm

Yeah it will be convinient to use three small round buttons for ent turn, recruit and recall.
I think that borders can be morelike fantasy themed and not disturbing at once but I have no clue how this could be done.

Post by **Dave** » September 22nd, 2003, 9:21 pm

ettin wrote: Can the menus be implemented? Or you don't plan that right now?
I just want to know if I would have to work more on the menus .

Yes, the menus can easily be implemented.

The image you provide will naturally have to be scaled depending on the size of the menu, of course.

David

The Battle for Wesnoth Forums

Menus, borders, and others things

Menus, borders, and others things

About test screenshot

Buttons and Artwork