Tech List View

[Geoff the Medio]

Because pd requested it, here's the initial stab at making a list view for techs. Obviously it's not finalized and lacks various desirable features, however it's basically functional and could be used if the tree view needed to be removed for one of various reasons that have come up.

[eleazar]

Because pd requested it, here's the initial stab at making a list view for techs. Obviously it's not finalized and lacks various desirable features, however it's basically functional and could be used if the tree view needed to be removed for one of various reasons that have come up.

If it's easily sortable i think a list could be a pretty useful option, but i have a hard time imagining that having only a list would be better than having only a tree. Unless we radically redo our tech tree, into a bunch of non-branching columns.

[shrinkshooter]

i have a hard time imagining that having only a list would be better than having only a tree.

I agree, but I doubt anyone is thinking of getting rid of the tree entirely. If you are...please don't. The tree tells you what you need to research in order to get to a specific tech you're 'aiming' for, more than one tech down the tree. A list would get rid of that. We should have both, and be toggle-able.

[Geoff the Medio]

My motivation for creating the list right now is the frequent complaints being posted about crashes when trying to access the tech screen, and potential license issues, both (presumably) due to graphviz, which is used for the tree layout. If we had to get rid of the tree, or someone needed to disable the tree for a custom build, now they'll have an alternative way to research techs.

That said, sometimes finding a particular tech can be difficult on the tree, so a suitably sorted list would be more useful, and easier to code and design the ui for, than a pop up "find a tech" dialog.

[Josh]

Some of the icons are difficult to identify at those sizes. This troubles me.

[Robbie.Price]

Goodmorning all;

In many games there are list and trees, one of the easier ways of combining them is to have a tech selection screen, with the techs you have available to research, and your current status. then have a second page/ area which has one section dedicated to a given tech, and another section dedicated to that tech's possition in the tree.

The first page is the functional page where you add, move, remove, and change priorities of a research projects, the second is a nearly strictly informational page. Where you can explore in more depth the techs themselves.

I think SMAC did a good-enough job at balancing the to, a popup with a choice(in that case which of 4? techs you want to work on), and an option to go to the more information page to see the tree dependencies of what tech depends on what.

Also do we need the food-pop-mineral ... reference a the top of the page? If in the end we go for a split-able empire where both sides have stockpiles but research is common across the blockade these numbers will be ... less ... meaningful *additionally they are not useful in the tech window. IMO ... just a thought*

Best wishes all,

Robbie Price

[pd]

Some of the icons are difficult to identify at those sizes. This troubles me.

That bothers me too. It's the same with the production screen, btw. The icons were initially created to be seen at 128x128 - now, even at the tech screen they are only shown at 64x64 and much smaller.
I think both - the tree and list view - need to be rethought and can hopefully be combined in an elegant way.
Thanks for your input Robbie, it's appreciated.

[Geoff the Medio]

Some of the icons are difficult to identify at those sizes. This troubles me.

The height of the rows and the width of the columns in the tech list depend on the GUI font size setting, so if you want bigger images in the list, you'll be able to set a bigger font size to get it.

I think both - the tree and list view - need to be rethought and can hopefully be combined in an elegant way.

The list would need to be thought about a first time before it can be rethought. I just made a bunch of columns of information and threw in the icon at the left so as to have a working list.

Similarly, the buildable items list on the production screen hasn't had much of a discussion that I recall, and could use a first design before worrying about a second.

For the tech tree, I've been pondering redoing the boxes / panels for techs that appear on the tree (and perhaps on the queue). IMO something more like the specials tooltips, with the icon at the left as big as can be reasonably shown, a title / name at the top but to the right of the icon on a different-shaded background, and a box of text and/or icons for details below would look much better that what we have now. The current shading variations to show researched / available / unavailable are quite bad, as they look the same as the shading differences used to denote selection of a tech.

Any queue panel changes for techs can be applied for the production queue as well.

[Josh]

It's the same with the production screen, btw. The icons were initially created to be seen at 128x128 - now, even at the tech screen they are only shown at 64x64 and much smaller.

What really troubles me is that I'm not sure if that means we have bad icons. Ideally, they should be able to work at any size.

Also do we need the food-pop-mineral ... reference a the top of the page? If in the end we go for a split-able empire where both sides have stockpiles but research is common across the blockade these numbers will be ... less ... meaningful *additionally they are not useful in the tech window. IMO ... just a thought*

Actually that's a good point.

[Robbie.Price]

Goodmorning all


If the size depends on the text box, then you could add a second line which gives a list of techs which are directly dependent on this tech, and a ~ max 9 word description of what the tech does.

something like

unlocks: Name, Name, Name Gives: +3 to max research, can build "special building Name"

that would make the icons readable.

Actually that's a good point.

Well if you jabber as much as i do on, you eventually will say something of value right? :-Þ

I just hope it's not suggesting it my first time contributing constructive.

Best wishes all.

Robbie Price

[eleazar]

It's the same with the production screen, btw. The icons were initially created to be seen at 128x128 - now, even at the tech screen they are only shown at 64x64 and much smaller.

What really troubles me is that I'm not sure if that means we have bad icons. Ideally, they should be able to work at any size.

Obviously there are lower limits. But these are 23 pix both ways, just under 1/5th size. It doesn't so much bother me that some of the details are indistinct (IE if you didn't already know it the "bioterror" icon isn't recognizable as a skull). But at least the bioterror icon still has a distinctive form, which if you knew what it was you could recognise.

But the icons which turn into formless pixel mush at this size probably should be reworked. They wouldn't perform very well at intermediate sizes either.

[Josh]

Looking at the list from here, at least paradise planet needs fixing. Possibly the caducean institute. The fist on planned economics could be bigger, and the line on market economics could be thicker.

Are there any others?

[eleazar]

The fist on planned economics could be bigger, and the line on market economics could be thicker.

yes

Are there any others?

I'd say:

• galactic monetary policy
  interstellar trade
  market econ
  paradise planet
  planetary colonialism
  planned econ

and probably others not in this screenshot.

But i wouldn't consider it a high priority.

[shrinkshooter]

What really troubles me is that I'm not sure if that means we have bad icons. Ideally, they should be able to work at any size.

I don't think that's entirely true. I mean yes, you're totally correct in that an ideal icon WOULD be identifiable at any size, but for most (almost all, I would imagine) things, this doesn't work. For bigger resolutions, you can add more detail (and hopefully more meaning). However, those factors need to be adjusted if the icon is smaller. What I mean to say is, what goes in the picture of an icon is half determined by size of the icon alone. The icons were meant to be viewed as 128x128 pics, because that's how they were created. I guarantee that if we were to create icons meant for 64x64 pixels, a good number of them would be different, because lots of the ones we have now are obviously hard to see at that size.

We don't have bad icons. We just don't have icons meant to be that small. Usually a downgrade from some size to 64 pixels fewer on each axis isn't a big deal, but with icons this small, cutting them in half is a huge difference.

[eleazar]

The icons were meant to be viewed as 128x128 pics, because that's how they were created...

A long time ago these icons only showed up at full size. But they've been included in the actual tech tree for quite a while. There's no good reason that any of the newer ones should have been designed with only full-size display in mind.