Status Bar improved GUI

[zookeeper]

And since the ellipses are apparently optional....

Special halos assigned to leaders and such could show up even with the halo option turned off. Or the option to turn them off could just be removed, although it probably won't, since tcoloring everything is apparently the long-term goal (and at that point people might start playing without halos, so the option would need to be restored).

[Tux2B]

Is there an option to turn Team Color off? I don't like the way some of the units look with it. I don't know what color would be used instead of the TColor though...

I agree. It would be good.


And that idea of a star halo is good, however it needs some work, because it still looks strange.

[Eleazar]

Is there an option to turn Team Color off? I don't like the way some of the units look with it. I don't know what color would be used instead of the TColor though...

I agree. It would be good.

No, it would be bad. Most TColored units use Magenta as the source color. Understand TColoring is still a work in progress. If you want to play without glitches go back to 1.0

[Tux2B]

Well, it's true that would look weird in magenta.

But the files in the image directory look normal. Isn't there a way to unactivate Tcolors so you just display the image of the unit without Tcolors?

(I've been verifying this on elvish marshal graphics)

[Darth Fool]

Well, it's true that would look weird in magenta.

But the files in the image directory look normal. Isn't there a way to unactivate Tcolors so you just display the image of the unit without Tcolors?

(I've been verifying this on elvish marshal graphics)

You can modify the config files. If you want to do it for a single unit, you just remove the macro MAGENTA_IS_THE_TEAM_COLOR . If you want to do it for all units, you should just modify the macro in utils.cfg

[Eleazar]

Well, it's true that would look weird in magenta.

But the files in the image directory look normal. Isn't there a way to unactivate Tcolors so you just display the image of the unit without Tcolors?

(I've been verifying this on elvish marshal graphics)

There are a handful of units (such as the elvish marshal) that have been TColored in a less-efficient and less-predictable manner, which left the original graphics un-magenta. These units tend to look worse when TColored, and will eventually be replaced with Magenta TColor patches.

[jonadab]

This is what I primarily had in mind concerning the different halos.

I like that, and although some people will play without the elipses, I don' t think that negates the value of this suggestion for those who play with them. i.e., I think it makes a nice supplement to the crown thing.

I'm not so sure I like the triangle orbs. Maybe they'll grow on me, but I think I prefer the round ones. Speaking of that, what about using the round orbs _except_ when a unit can no longer attack, and then switching to a triangle (or square, or other shape; I'd say red octagon (indicating that the unit is entirely stopped from action) except it would probably not be easy to tell apart from the round orb at that size) when the unit is completely done for the turn? That would make the distinction, but would let the round orbs be used more, I think, making the other shape the exception.

I do like having the AMLA bar look different from the regular XP bar, and I think I like the thin look for it provided it still shows up well on various terrain, which I think it will with a purplish color.

Regarding outlines for the bars, I think the suggestion of just putting a drop shadow on the right and bottom has some merit, as that makes it visible (against e.g. snow) without a full outline and should save a pixel on the left side of the bar. I know it's only one pixel, but hey, a pixel saved is a pixel earned.

I also think it would not be a bad thing if the two bars (for HP and XP) were, individually, optional. I realize they need to be on by default, but some players might choose to play e.g. with the XP bar turned off, since that information is available elsewise in greater detail. The bar doesn't tell me whether killing this troll will leave my unit one XP away from levelling, level it exactly, level it and waste three XP (that another unit could use), or what. Sometimes I might prefer to only attack with a given unit if I can level it (e.g., if the unit is low on HP and needs the kill to heal or else should retreat), but in other cases I might only want to attack with a given unit if it can use all of the XP (since otherwise another unit could use them all). For that kind of granularity, you really do have to look at the numbers. Players who routinely do this might turn off the bar; I think I would, given the option. I'd leave the HP bar on, though, since I tend to *mostly* look at HP in larger terms (the unit's being in relatively good shape, or not) and only occasionally look at the numbers when the situation calls for it (e.g., I have to know whether that bat can sweep in and kill this unit in one turn or not, to decide whether to put it on the village or pull it back and protect it). Another player with a different style might always look at the HP numbers and so might consider that bar superfluous. This is not an *important* improvement, but I think it would be nifty to give the player the option.

[Durandal]

Hey... I've barely posted before, but I just wanted to weigh in on this idea.

First, the bars deinitely look nicer than 1.0.2, sooo... awesome. I don't have much of a preference for any of the suggested changes to those...

What I was thinking was this: Instead of changing the ellipse under the unit, why not change the shape of the orb above the bars? Make it... well, a star or something. I know this might be annoying if you decide to make different shapes for different "states" (which I do think is a pretty good idea), but it would be pretty workable if you don't. And hey, even if you do it might be possible to work in something... maybe... hmm... okay, so I can't think of a way to integrate it into the shapes thing. It would mean all you could use to indicate "can only attack" would be a different color... ah well, can't manage everything in one go.

I just thought this would get rid of the various problems with changing the ellipse, and also not use more real estate.

Also, I'm not certain this is the right place for the idea, but I don't think it warrants a whole new topic...

Why not have an icon indicating when there are no more moves availible for any units?

I know this was a huge bonus for games like the Civ series, when you have tons of units to control. Even though you have a lot less real estate to cover in Wesnoth, I still find myself accidentally leaving one or two units behind for a bunch of turns every once in a while.

Of course, I have no skills, so any implementation of art and code would have to come from someone else... Which I know is generally Not Good. I think it would be nice if it was like, the "End Turn" sign flashing or turning a color or something. That's what you look at when you think you're finished anyways.

Anyways, keep up the awesome everyone.

[Hunter]

Having the End Turn button be highlighted after moving all your units would be nice.

[Tux2B]

Having the End Turn button be highlighted after moving all your units would be nice.

Great idea !
Avoids you from using the 'n' touch while some units still have some movement points.

[Eleazar]

With 1.2 nearly out the door, i thought it might be a good time to restart this topic. Most people managed to missunderstand my last proposal in this thread, so i'll try to explain it better.

In order to simplify things, i'm removing the orbs from the example. I am not proposing that the orbs be removed from the game!

Why change the bars?
• The current "hollow" bars in some situations blend in very easily with the background. Notice the elf in my example. He's one of the unit's whose weapons fill the XP bar with white, making it quite difficult to see if the bar is full or not. There are many other situations where the bar's semi-transparent white outline doesn't separate the bars from the background well.
The 60% opaque black will do a much better job at distingishing the bars in any situation.

• Currently the white box around the bar can command more attention than the bar inside. The human eye tends to interpret white as closer than black

• This proposal moves the bars 3 pixels to the left, allowing more unit to be shown. However this is partially at the cost of shortening the maximum length of the bar. The maximum length is shown. If this doesn't work for super-HP units, the bars can be moved left back to where they currently are.

• AMLA is graphicly shown as less important than XP with a narrower bar, and different less saturated colors.

• I suspect the non-mouseover-fade could be increased to while still maintaining the same readability. This should produce a less cluttered screen overall. But in-game testing will have to be done to verify this intuition.


What's not to like? These bars are cleaner, easier to read, and (probably) cover the unit less.

More on the orbs later, but my proposal for bars is not really dependant on the earlier proposal for orbs.

[Sapient]

Let's reserve 1-px black outlines for the sprites, I think. HP bars don't need to stand out that much IMO. If you are mousing over the unit, you are probably more interested in the precise HP displayed in the righthand pane. Actually, I'd like an option to disable all that mouse-over business for low-resource computers.

[Jetrel]

Let's reserve 1-px black outlines for the sprites, I think. HP bars don't need to stand out that much IMO. If you are mousing over the unit, you are probably more interested in the precise HP displayed in the righthand pane. Actually, I'd like an option to disable all that mouse-over business for low-resource computers.

If we hyper-saturate/illuminate the HP bars, we might be able to get away with them having no borders. It's ok for something like the HP bars to be really saturated, it's assumed to not be "part of the scene".

Another thing to try is HP bars that are fully opaque, but which have borders that are NOT fully opaque.

[Eleazar]

Let's reserve 1-px black outlines for the sprites, I think. HP bars don't need to stand out that much IMO. If you are mousing over the unit, you are probably more interested in the precise HP displayed in the righthand pane.

Why are we taking the trouble to display bars, if it's not important to be able to see how far the bar goes?

Mouse-over occurs for lots of reasons that involve paying attention to a unit, such as being about to select it. It's a sensible UI to emphasize the status of a unit that the player is probably looking at.

If we hyper-saturate/illuminate the HP bars, we might be able to get away with them having no borders.

Sorry, most of the bar colors are already at/near max saturation. Early in this thread i tried borderless bars, but i did not find them sufficiently clear in many situations. The white XP bar against snow, or the green HP bar against grass— common situations where borderless is bad.

I have put a reasonable amount of thought into this and fine-tuned the proposal after viewing the bars against a variety of backgrounds. Not that the proposal is perfect, but there's a pragmatic reason for every aspect, expect perhaps the No-XP nub, which i'm ambivalent about anyway.

Another thing to try is HP bars that are fully opaque, but which have borders that are NOT fully opaque.

That's what i've done. (see post) The borders are 60% opaque black.

[Sapient]

Let's reserve 1-px black outlines for the sprites, I think. HP bars don't need to stand out that much IMO. If you are mousing over the unit, you are probably more interested in the precise HP displayed in the righthand pane.

Why are we taking the trouble to display bars, if it's not important to be able to see how far the bar goes?

The question is do you want to see the bars or do you want to SEE the bars. Personally, I think the current implementation strikes a better balance than the proposal. I'm not saying that the HP bars couldn't be improved, but the comparison in daylight on snow is really a corner case (and thus biased against normal case).

Mouse-over occurs for lots of reasons that involve paying attention to a unit, such as being about to select it. It's a sensible UI to emphasize the status of a unit that the player is probably looking at.

I agree with you there. Sorry if my low-resource computer argument made it sound otherwise.

Another thing to try is HP bars that are fully opaque, but which have borders that are NOT fully opaque.

That's what i've done. (see post) The borders are 60% opaque black.

Right, my main visual objection to the proposal is that it is becoming the same style as the unit sprite. So it's almost like a green tube unit. If the opacity is set correctly this may not be the case.