Req: UI refinements x2: Text Size, Map Generator Settings

[Simons Mith]

Friend says: "Ok, I have wesnoth up and running. One problem I can see immediately is the readability. My eyes aren't what they were 10 years ago."

So how do you bump up the text size globally? I always assumed there was a way, and I'll be honest I'm getting close to needing it myself.
Some of the campaign story text in italics was just below what's comfortable...

If you're running Wesnoth 1.15, you can manually edit your preferences file and add this line:

Code: Select all

font_scale=150

So, please can this be added as a proper, accessible option in the Preferences UI? TYVM


While I'm here, I'll also mention another missing UI element:
In the map generator, which shows up both in the map editor, and also in
the random map part of the scenario editor, the GUI is as shown below:

Number of Hills, Max Hill Size and Landform do not have a numeric readout.

If you wanted to recreate a map with the same hilliness settings, you
would have to manually count how many clicks you've moved the slider.
I know those are just arbitrary numbers, which is why they have
never been exposed, but I always thought they should be exposed to
aid map makers with reproducibility.

Rather than labelling them 'number of hills' and 'maximum hill size', how about
on the left:

Hills:
Max Hill Size:
Landform:

and on the right something like

Flat (4), Rolling (7), Hilly (15), Rocky (25), Mountainous (40)
None (0), Tiny (3), Small (7), Medium (12), Large (18)
Inland (0), Coastal (3), Island (7)

depending on slider position? (And the hidden numeric values obvs)

I note that Landform slider already does change from Inland - Coastal - Island as you move it,
but despite rummaging I can't find where it gets its current Inland - Coastal - Island strings.

[egallager]

Agreed that these would be nice changes to have; I'd check and see if there are bugs open about these on GitHub, and then if not, open some new ones for them

[Ravana]

I suspect issue is not in eyes, but rather that you are running game in higher resolution than before.

[Simons Mith]

@Ravana - User interface design is a minefield.

You've got user eyesight deteriorating over time
You've got young, keen, eagle-eyed devs not taking text sizes sufficiently into account - it's understandably easy to design for what you're comfortable with, and overlook that those with poorer eyesight may struggle
Resolution isn't the only issue - text contrast also becomes a consideration

You've got display resolutions improving over time
And you've also got a far greater range of modern display sizes - nowadays games like Wesnoth are playable from smartphones with 5" displays up to 30" desktops and bigger, and multi-monitor setups, possibly with different resolutions per monitor
There was a time where you could assume pretty much everyone was on a 640x480 or 800x600 display, and a screen size of 14-17", and the same GUI size would work acceptably for everyone

If I run Wesnoth at 800x600 res I get a quarter-screen window because a modern OS is clever enough to realize that's all the game is using.
Then I can zoom in to 200% and I get double-sized text, but then I'd also get double-sized units and double-sized hexes. So reverting to low-res is only a partial fix.

[Pentarctagon]

Having font_scale as a more easily available option was once the case, however it was removed since there were many places where changing it would cause other UI bugs. So it's much more work than simply making the option available again.

[yogicbrewer]

<You've got young, keen, eagle-eyed devs not taking text sizes sufficiently into account - it's understandably easy to design for what you're comfortable with, and overlook that those with poorer eyesight may struggle
Resolution isn't the only issue - text contrast also becomes a consideration>

Yes! Something I've been b----ing about for years. I'm suggesting (in separate thread) that default text for dialog screens be tripled in size. After all, it's not like those screens are useful for much else.

[shevegen]

Ravana wrote:

> I suspect issue is not in eyes, but rather that you are running game in higher resolution than before.

I think you can not generalize this too much. My eyes are also pretty bad these days - happens to many people
as they get older. At the same time I have an ultra-wide monitor screen; in hindsight I should not have purchased
it (it is better to stay with the default ratios really, I have all sorts of oddities with this weird ratio that I now have)
but I have it and I use it. And I have a crappy nvidia card on Linux, which causes issues sometimes. So, with
that in mind, I think as a developer going about "the issue is solely confind to higher resolution", or [xyz], is not
a good strategy, in my opinion, for improving the overall UI design.

Allowing users to tweak things in the game here (in particular enlarging things) would be useful to potentially
people who may not necessarily have ideal vision anymore. In particular the fonts - the fonts on wesnoth by default
really seem very small nowadays. I forgot if we have a useful scaling options. But I actually think it would be
great if users are able to modify different aspects here. Like not only bigger fonts but better contrast settings,
perhaps even being able to specify border types; on my HTML pages I like to have coloured, thin borders
(1 up to 3 px usually, such as around some div-HTML elements), and also border_radius: 12px; or so, to
make them a bit rounder. If I look at the default wesnoth layout, such as the bottom right place, where I
read unit descriptions, it is ok, but also seems like ... stuck in 1995 or so. I know this is not usually a huge
priority to focus on, but IMO it would be nice if the UI in wesnoth could slowly be improved; and giving
more options to players here could also be nice. (I need to have a look at the options/preferences; right
now I have only recently set up this computer anew, and have not yet compiled wesnoth.)