Indexing the index

Post by **Zhukov** » April 29th, 2006, 9:37 pm

Seconded.

And advancements should also be next to each other.
So for example Wolf Rider, Goblin Knight and Direwolf Rider should be one-after-the-other rather then being scattered all over the list.

EDIT: Muahahaha! The timezones have put my post above the first one.

Silence of Echo · Post by **Silence of Echo** » April 29th, 2006, 9:41 pm

Correct me if im wrong, but has anyone else noticed the infuriating format of the description window? Units are listed alphabetically, which is nice if you are just browsing, but I think that they should also be acessable by faction as well. Often times it is difficult to fully study one's opponent when you have to search through an enormous list of units, even if they are not in the battle.

Flametrooper · Post by **Flametrooper** » April 29th, 2006, 10:54 pm

Thirded.

Post by **Kestenvarn** » April 30th, 2006, 12:18 am

Kestenvarn wrote:Would reordering Help like an expandable directory list be a good idea?
(Clicking on each name would toggle expand, and show/hide the upgrades. There would also be an Expand None button and an Expand All button in the corner of the window.)

Hypothetical Setup
> Base Unit
>> Upgrade #1
>>> Upgrade #1 of Upgrade #1
>>> Upgrade #2 of Upgrade #1 (Currently unknown.)
>>>> Upgrade #1 of Upgrade #2 (Currently unknown.)
>> Upgrade #2
> Base Unit (Currently unknown.)
>> Upgrade (Currently unknown.)
> Base Unit

Appearance in Campaign
> Base Unit
+> Upgrade #1
>> Upgrade #2
> Base Unit

Appearance in Campaign, Expand All
> Base Unit
>> Upgrade #1
>>> Upgrade #1 of Upgrade #1
>> Upgrade #2
> Base Unit

Appearance in Multiplayer, Expand None
+ Base Unit
+ Base Unit
> Base Unit

Appearance in Multiplayer
> Base Unit
+> Upgrade #1
>> Upgrade #2
+ Base Unit
> Base Unit

Appearance in Multiplayer, Expand All
> Base Unit
>> Upgrade #1
>>> Upgrade #1 of Upgrade #1
>>> Upgrade #2 of Upgrade #1
>>>> Upgrade #1 of Upgrade #2
>> Upgrade #2
> Base Unit
>> Upgrade
> Base Unit

Website · Post by **Sapient** » April 30th, 2006, 1:12 am

One thing you have to remember about factions is that they can be userdefined and altered, units switched around, units available in multiple factions, etc. Probably a seperate help topic for the official MP factions would be nice (with racial descriptions, links to their available recruits and leaders). However, expandable subtopics arranged by advancement tree (as proposed by Kestenvarn) would probably use too much horizontal space.

YbeRn00b · Post by **YbeRn00b** » April 30th, 2006, 12:34 pm

I totaly agree in this one.
Translation makes it even more difficult to browse the units.

This is a FPI, but a link to "upgrade from" would be a nice start...

Jym · Post by **Jym** » April 30th, 2006, 1:35 pm

Remember that the units listing script at http://units.wesnoth.org can actually display by factions and display campaign specific units. That is, if the corresponding campaign/MP era has been compiled into the DB...

All official factions, as well most official campaigns are in the DB currently, and if you want some more, you can always get the sources from http://jymoyen.free.fr/Wesnoth/utils/ and compile your own DB (you'll need to set up a local web sever with cgi support).

Obviously, if you're playing a MP game online, you should have access to the web. of course, this does not solves the problem for local games.

Post by **turin** » April 30th, 2006, 7:25 pm

Don't do it by faction, do it by race. And don't do it by what unit advances to what - just do it by what units are level 1, what are level 2, what are level 3.

So,

Code: Select all

Elvish:
   Level 1:
      Archer
      Fighter
   Level 2:
      Captain
      Hero
      Marksman
      Ranger
   Level 3:
      Avenger
      Champion
      Marshal
      Sharpshooter

Each of those would be expandable; so, you could not display any elvish units, or you could display only level 1 elvish units, or you could display all Elvish units.

Also, note how it doesn't say "Elvish" in front of each unit name - only for the category, "Elvish". That saves space, since many units have names so long they get truncated when they also have their race name.

kshinji · Post by **kshinji** » April 30th, 2006, 7:36 pm

Script to cut prefixes could be hard. I mean not by itself, but to make it wisely. It would be better if it was done by faction, and script to do "upgrades from" links would be rather easy.

Post by **turin** » April 30th, 2006, 7:40 pm

kshinji wrote:Script to cut prefixes could be hard. I mean not by itself, but to make it wisely. It would be better if it was done by faction, and script to do "upgrades from" links would be rather easy.

No it wouldn't - just remove the prefixes from the unit descriptions. I already do this with the Imperial Era. (It would be better if the "race" field was listed somewhere on the right hand panel, but even without it I would say not having the prefixes is better than having them.)

And, as has been explained, doing it by faction is rather hard because you can redefine the factions without changing the units at all... not to mention being rather confusing, especially in campaign mode. You shouldn't need to know that a certain unit is a Loyalist unit before being able to look up his stats.

kshinji · Post by **kshinji** » April 30th, 2006, 8:38 pm

The thing with campaings sounds a good point, but from the other hand races arent really something important in game. I know it would be easy to search for some certain units under races fe. elves dwarves and drakes. Humans list would still be large, and units like Wose would be unintuitive. Player dont know what race is he, and it might be tree, wose or misc. Notice, sorting by race, will work good only for those races, which are already connected to single faction and are its main theme.

Also i personally hate byrace order, which is used in wiki.

Post by **Kestenvarn** » April 30th, 2006, 9:27 pm

Order by Level [ ]
Order by Name [X]
Order by Race [ ]

^ Checkboxes in the corner of the Help Window. Race orders according to Turin's system, Name orders the units as they currently are, Level orders only by unit level. Clicking on a category - "Elvish", "Level X" - will collapse/expand that section.

Website · Post by **Sapient** » April 30th, 2006, 10:16 pm

An select-box to choose unit sorting arrangement is a nice idea, Kes. Now someone needs to code it.

Silence of Echo · Post by **Silence of Echo** » May 1st, 2006, 9:27 pm

Kestenvarn wrote:Order by Level [ ]
Order by Name [X]
Order by Race [ ]

^ Checkboxes in the corner of the Help Window. Race orders according to Turin's system, Name orders the units as they currently are, Level orders only by unit level. Clicking on a category - "Elvish", "Level X" - will collapse/expand that section.

Ok...so it is a good idea. I would code it but I am incapable. (coding = scratches head)....so who of you geniuses out there is willing to do this? anyone? a volunteer would be nice.......

The Battle for Wesnoth Forums

Indexing the index

Indexing the index

Requoted because it's relevant and was ignored first time.