Loading and Saving Scenarios/Campaigns

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shevegen
Posts: 497
Joined: June 3rd, 2004, 4:35 pm

Loading and Saving Scenarios/Campaigns

Post by shevegen »

This is an idea about possible (small?) improvements to the handling of loading files, aka autosave files and so forth.

- First, I have noticed that the widget that shows the load scenario is not showing the full line horizontally. That is -
scroll wheels appear on the bottom and the right side. But I can scroll only like a little bit, because there is not
a lot more to show.

My suggestion would be to expand the widget a little bit, just by a few %. (This is on a desktop machine). Anyway,
this is just a minor thing.

- The larger issue is that the loading of all scenarios seems to take some time .... not sure how many files I have
but I guess several thousand save files. And there, everything seems to take more time. Am I the only one to
have this problem? It takes like ... hmm 15 seconds from starting the load saved game to the screen where
"stuff happens" finally, e. g. just loading the map. Most of these 15 seconds is spent by the computer doing
nothing visible. I assume this has to do because there are so many files to load, because upon compiling
and start wesnoth from zero, this problem did not happen. Perhaps the many add-ons also factored in (I
literally downloaded all of them).

My suggestion here would be to not load all the files at once, but to load the most recent files (if there is
a certain threshold exceeded, such as +400 save games or something like that), and then display that,
and while there is a displayed widget to continue to populate the widget with new entries of saved games.

In other words, these other saved games appear on the bottom. Most people may want to load a recent
saved file game, so it should be fine to instantly display these files; older saved games are not so useful
normally.

- I would also add some way to load the very last saved file, no matter if auto-save or manual save, much
more rapidly; perhaps even its own button to do so. Most of the time I want to load only the very last
saved game.

Not sure if the above has any merit but perhaps others also have had problems with the load file parts.
I guess any improvement here to the issue of speed would be much appreciated in that case.
gfgtdf
Developer
Posts: 1432
Joined: February 10th, 2013, 2:25 pm

Re: Loading and Saving Scenarios/Campaigns

Post by gfgtdf »

shevegen wrote: September 26th, 2018, 6:26 pm This is an idea about possible (small?) improvements to the handling of loading files, aka autosave files and so forth.

- First, I have noticed that the widget that shows the load scenario is not showing the full line horizontally. That is -
scroll wheels appear on the bottom and the right side. But I can scroll only like a little bit, because there is not
a lot more to show.

My suggestion would be to expand the widget a little bit, just by a few %. (This is on a desktop machine). Anyway,
this is just a minor thing.
Hmm yes, the problm is probably that that size was optimized for then english language dialog? Not sure, what language are you using ?
shevegen wrote: September 26th, 2018, 6:26 pm - The larger issue is that the loading of all scenarios seems to take some time .... not sure how many files I have
but I guess several thousand save files.
The easiest way to find out is to open the savegame filed with a file manager.
shevegen wrote: September 26th, 2018, 6:26 pm
And there, everything seems to take more time. Am I the only one to
have this problem? It takes like ... hmm 15 seconds from starting the load saved game to the screen where
"stuff happens" finally, e. g. just loading the map. Most of these 15 seconds is spent by the computer doing
nothing visible.I assume this has to do because there are so many files to load, because upon compiling
and start wesnoth from zero, this problem did not happen. Perhaps the many add-ons also factored in (I
literally downloaded all of them).
Yes this is probably because of that man addons not because of the number of saves.
shevegen wrote: September 26th, 2018, 6:26 pm
My suggestion here would be to not load all the files at once, but to load the most recent files (if there is
a certain threshold exceeded, such as +400 save games or something like that), and then display that,
and while there is a displayed widget to continue to populate the widget with new entries of saved games.

In other words, these other saved games appear on the bottom. Most people may want to load a recent
saved file game, so it should be fine to instantly display these files; older saved games are not so useful
normally.
Hmm not sure whether it's worth it, is there a specific reason why you don't just delete those saves? (hint: deleting many saves is usually easier to do with a file explorer than with wesnoth application)
shevegen wrote: September 26th, 2018, 6:26 pm
- I would also add some way to load the very last saved file, no matter if auto-save or manual save, much
more rapidly; perhaps even its own button to do so. Most of the time I want to load only the very last
saved game.
hmm i guess we could do it (note: just because we think its a good idea in general it does not mean we are actually going to invest our time in it)
Scenario with Robots SP scenario (1.11/1.12), allows you to build your units with components, PYR No preperation turn 1.12 mp-mod that allows you to select your units immideately after the game begins.
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beetlenaut
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Joined: December 8th, 2007, 3:21 am
Location: Washington State
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Re: Loading and Saving Scenarios/Campaigns

Post by beetlenaut »

gfgtdf wrote: September 26th, 2018, 8:19 pm Hmm yes, the problm is probably that that size was optimized for then english language dialog? Not sure, what language are you using ?
I've seen this, and I am using English. I did some testing about what causes a horizontal scroll bar to show up, and part of the problem seems to be that a vertical scroll bar cuts off a couple characters from the filename. That's not the only condition, but I couldn't pin it all down precisely. Anyway, it might be fixed by putting the ellipsis (that shows that a file name is being shortened) a bit earlier.

That would, of course, give us more names that end in something like "Auto_Sa..." which is pretty useless, but we already have enough of those that we should have a solution for that anyway: A tooltip with the whole file name for example. On related note, why do we have names with the last character cut off like "Auto_SaveX.bz..."? the "2" would have take less space than an ellipsis.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
gfgtdf
Developer
Posts: 1432
Joined: February 10th, 2013, 2:25 pm

Re: Loading and Saving Scenarios/Campaigns

Post by gfgtdf »

beetlenaut wrote: September 28th, 2018, 8:05 am I've seen this, and I am using English. I did some testing about what causes a horizontal scroll bar to show up, and part of the problem seems to be that a vertical scroll bar cuts off a couple characters from the filename. That's not the only condition, but I couldn't pin it all down precisely. Anyway, it might be fixed by putting the ellipsis (that shows that a file name is being shortened) a bit earlier.
hmm yes, ideally there woudl be a way to tell the layout engine to automaticially ellipse when there is not enough space instead of addns scrollbar whihc doesn'T seem possible though.
beetlenaut wrote: September 28th, 2018, 8:05 am
That would, of course, give us more names that end in something like "Auto_Sa..." which is pretty useless, but we already have enough of those that we should have a solution for that anyway: A tooltip with the whole file name for example. On related note, why do we have names with the last character cut off like "Auto_SaveX.bz..."? the "2" would have take less space than an ellipsis.
not sure, seems lieka bug in the layout engine.
Scenario with Robots SP scenario (1.11/1.12), allows you to build your units with components, PYR No preperation turn 1.12 mp-mod that allows you to select your units immideately after the game begins.
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josteph
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Joined: August 19th, 2017, 6:58 pm

Re: Loading and Saving Scenarios/Campaigns

Post by josteph »

It's not the layout engine; the dialog is hardcoded to truncate filenames.

https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... #L130-L143

I'm annoyed by this too, because the search function uses the truncated name as the string to match against. Even if it shows the truncated filename it should still search by the full filename.
gfgtdf
Developer
Posts: 1432
Joined: February 10th, 2013, 2:25 pm

Re: Loading and Saving Scenarios/Campaigns

Post by gfgtdf »

josteph wrote: September 28th, 2018, 12:42 pm It's not the layout engine; the dialog is hardcoded to truncate filenames.
https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/blob ... #L130-L143
Hmm this is a bad way to do it though, in particular since, utils::ellipsis_truncate (unlike the layout engine) mostlikely doesn't take chracter length into consideration, so that MMMM... would be turncated after 40 chracters just like iiii...
Scenario with Robots SP scenario (1.11/1.12), allows you to build your units with components, PYR No preperation turn 1.12 mp-mod that allows you to select your units immideately after the game begins.
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