General 0.3 Discussion

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tzlaine
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#16 Post by tzlaine »

Hatti wrote:Hi,

Had the same problems to figure out how works the construction part but no more problems with this now.

One little estetical problem: On my system the mouse cursor is only visible as long as I move the mouse and cloaks directly after stopping the motion. Pushing a mouse button to select an item works well, even with the cursor cloaked.

My system: P4 2.8GHz 1024Mb Ram ATI 9800Pro (?128Mb?)
Logitech Mouse MX1000

Regards,
Hatti (Kunsch Alain)
There have been a myriad of mouse cursor problems on the Windows platform. I have a long-term plan to fix this, by rendering the mouse within FO, instead of letting the OS do it. Until then, please report this as a bug on Sourceforge.

tzlaine
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#17 Post by tzlaine »

I wonder where I see the buildings I've constructed?
Currently, there's no on-screen representation of buildings.
This seems to be a common problem with the UI at the moment, it all looks very nice, but there isnt sufficient feedback as to whats going on (the focus system also seems to be a bit vague w.r.t. whats actually going to be the result of changing focus on your planets - some bars change by a couple of pixels... but... what does that mean?)
There are plans afoot for a planet detail screen that would show more detail on these and other meters. Would that be good, or would it be better to have a mouseover tooltip-style detailed readout for each meter? Please answer in the form of a Sourceforge feature request.
As for it being early days, well in my experience, UI bugs are like code bugs - if you dont address them ASAP they get worked around until everyone on the project is used to them and they become 'standard', and fixing them becomes more work than leaving them as they are. The difference between UI bugs and code bugs is that at some point the general public are going to be exposed to them directly.
This is 100% correct. When you work on something long enough, its warts start to become invisible to you. But instead of merely reporting UI errors, please come up with a set of solutions as well. For instance, I hate the click-open, click-closed paradigm. I far prefer to hit the escape key to get out of a screen (this works for the production, tech, stirep, and menu "screens"), so that's how I wrote it. I would be thrilled to use something more akin to the BotF wheel menu that almost instantaneously take you to whatever screen you want, but I haven't gotten around to doing such a thing yet. I would be thrilled if someone (perhaps you?) would act as usability guru for FO, but until now, expedience has been my keyword, since I'm now basically the only application developer working on this project.

guiguibaah
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Interesting

#18 Post by guiguibaah »

There are plans afoot for a planet detail screen that would show more detail on these and other meters. Would that be good, or would it be better to have a mouseover tooltip-style detailed readout for each meter? Please answer in the form of a Sourceforge feature request
Hey, just wanted to say I really lke the flexibility of the UI sounds, this will make it much more attractive (and easy) to fine tune sound effects and whatnot. (Although I was kinda hoping the zoom-in UI select sounds might have made the cut based on amount of planetary activity).

As for the UI, I do think it would be interesting if the planet selected kind of "Came out" (or got 30% larger) when the screen is opened. I noticed the textures were detailed, and they seem a little scrunched with the smaller globes.

I will say that I did prefer the 0.2 system for selecting focus over the 0.3, although 0.2 did not have trade.

* * *

Oh, one last thing... I couldn't figure out how to do the "planet zoom in" to view Obiwan's pictures in the art directory.
There are three kinds of people in this world - those who can count, and those who can't.

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skdiw
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#19 Post by skdiw »

tzlaine wrote:
This seems to be a common problem with the UI at the moment, it all looks very nice, but there isnt sufficient feedback as to whats going on (the focus system also seems to be a bit vague w.r.t. whats actually going to be the result of changing focus on your planets - some bars change by a couple of pixels... but... what does that mean?)
There are plans afoot for a planet detail screen that would show more detail on these and other meters. Would that be good, or would it be better to have a mouseover tooltip-style detailed readout for each meter? Please answer in the form of a Sourceforge feature request.
how about just having the readout in bold right on the middle of the meter? don't even need a mouse over and don't use any extra screen space.
:mrgreen:

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Geoff the Medio
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#20 Post by Geoff the Medio »

tzlaine wrote:There are plans afoot for a planet detail screen that would show more detail on these and other meters. Would that be good, or would it be better to have a mouseover tooltip-style detailed readout for each meter? Please answer in the form of a Sourceforge feature request.
It'd probably be better to answer in the form of a post on the graphics board, wouldn't it?
...instead of merely reporting UI errors, please come up with a set of solutions as well.
There's a thread:

http://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1006

with many posts by me trying to develop a new interface. Unfortunately my lack of graphics design ability resulted in something quite ugly... However the functionality suggested could perhaps be more nicely skinned... though this also depends quite a bit on getting lots of building and other icons made up by graphics people, lack of which was a major objection to what I proposed by Obiwan.

tzlaine
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#21 Post by tzlaine »

skdiw wrote:
tzlaine wrote:
This seems to be a common problem with the UI at the moment, it all looks very nice, but there isnt sufficient feedback as to whats going on (the focus system also seems to be a bit vague w.r.t. whats actually going to be the result of changing focus on your planets - some bars change by a couple of pixels... but... what does that mean?)
There are plans afoot for a planet detail screen that would show more detail on these and other meters. Would that be good, or would it be better to have a mouseover tooltip-style detailed readout for each meter? Please answer in the form of a Sourceforge feature request.
how about just having the readout in bold right on the middle of the meter? don't even need a mouse over and don't use any extra screen space.
That's fine for showing one number (the current production or meter value for a given meter), but the original problem statement said that the effect of changing focus is not clear. That would mean showing more numbers than would reasonably fit; you'd have current, recent change (this exists already in the UI), and future change/future value. There's simply not room for this.

tzlaine
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#22 Post by tzlaine »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
tzlaine wrote:There are plans afoot for a planet detail screen that would show more detail on these and other meters. Would that be good, or would it be better to have a mouseover tooltip-style detailed readout for each meter? Please answer in the form of a Sourceforge feature request.
It'd probably be better to answer in the form of a post on the graphics board, wouldn't it?
This is a very good point. There should probably be discussion about this in the forums first.

PartyLikeIts1984
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#23 Post by PartyLikeIts1984 »

Hi, I just discovered FreeOrion this week and want to say that the v0.3 looks and sounds fantastic! I've watched a lot of community projects like this never get past the drawing board (sadly) but FreeOrion is obviously way past the dreaming stage.

I can't wait to see where you guys go from here!

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Geoff the Medio
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#24 Post by Geoff the Medio »

PartyLikeIts1984 wrote:I've watched a lot of community projects like this never get past the drawing board (sadly) but FreeOrion is obviously way past the dreaming stage.
The ongoing success of the FreeOrion project semi-recently has been, I think, largely due to the continued effort and dedication of tzlaine. As he's said, he's effectively the only application developer right now. I put in as much effort / time / work as I do largely to keep working on the project worthwhile for him (well... and to help make the game too...). My efforts on their own wouldn't amount to much without him though (and the same for the other content creators).

(... I hope this doesn't end up reading like a transcript of an awards show: (famous) people giving eachother accolades and awards...)

Daveybaby
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#25 Post by Daveybaby »

tzlaine wrote:But instead of merely reporting UI errors, please come up with a set of solutions as well.
Clearly you are new to the internet - let me explain how it works: You slave away for months to provide something to everyone else for free - we then pick holes and demand that you fix problem X and add feature Y immediately. When you dont immediately redesign the entire project from scratch to suit each persons individual hobby horse / obsession we will then criticise, moan and flame constantly, until you become a bitter twisted shell of a human being, and vow never to interact with another person as long as you live.

Think of it as almost exactly like being married.

:wink:

On the other hand, i guess i should spend a bit more time looking at this in detail. So far i've only had a chance to fire it up at lunchtime for 20 minutes or so, will hopefully have a bit more time over the holidays to play with it properly and come up with some more constructive ideas.
The COW Project : You have a spy in your midst.

Yoghurt
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#26 Post by Yoghurt »

Daveybaby wrote:we then pick holes and demand that you fix problem X and add feature Y immediately.
Not only that, you'll also have to explain why you omitted feature Y in the first place. And problem X is the world's worst. It is clear that the project will not go anywhere with people such incompetent as you.

Gotta love the internet :wink:

muxec
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#27 Post by muxec »

Tryed 0.3.1. I know, it is raw, but even now I see that tutorial (in later versions, indeed) is neccessuary. Also, indeed, meters/growth/priorities part of user interface must be improved. The current version of global construction queue looks not good. There must be sitrep note about empty queue.

But as for pre-Alpha it is OK:):):) Great potential is seen:)

tzlaine
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#28 Post by tzlaine »

muxec wrote:Tryed 0.3.1. I know, it is raw,
Raw, as opposed to cooked, or what? Please be more specific.
but even now I see that tutorial (in later versions, indeed) is neccessuary.
What, in your opinion, should the tutorial include?
Also, indeed, meters/growth/priorities part of user interface must be improved.
How would you improve it?
The current version of global construction queue looks not good.
In what way? What would you do to make it look better?
There must be sitrep note about empty queue.

But as for pre-Alpha it is OK:):):) Great potential is seen:)
I hope you see where this is going. Criticism is welcome, but you need to make sure that someone reading your criticism can tell what they could do to improve things.

Aquitaine
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#29 Post by Aquitaine »

I'm not sure it's so much meant as criticism as it is most people look at something they download and install with some expectation of a full game. There are a lot of aspects of FO that aren't polished yet, and that's on purpose -- we know, for example, that almost every piece of UI and game code is going to change and evolve as we get further down the line, so we would rather invest our resources in getting further down the line so we can revisit everything in a fashion better representative of what the final game will look like, as opposed to perfecting things that, in many cases, are prototypes, placeholders, or drafts.

Zach's point is still valid, that we'd much rather you make a specific suggestion (on sourceforge) since we already know the above to be true. But just because it is true doesn't mean that a lot of people didn't spend a great deal of time getting it to where it is. I guess my point is, instead of spending an hour and declaring 'raw game!', spend one hour on the game and two hours contributing feature requests.
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

muxec
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#30 Post by muxec »

My brief vision of tutorial suggestion:

Welcome to free orion.
You see the map of your galaxy... To scroll the map press and hold mouse button...
Use mouse wheel to zoom in and out.
Click on star to select it.
Click on the fleet to select it.
Right click on the star to move to it.
See the production queue...
Top - left button ends turn.

You just finished you first turn.
Go to the research screen.
Select your home system.
Explaination of priorities and meters.
Set priorities to research and food.
End turn.

Your ship just arrived to...
To create a new colony here...
Explanation of queue globality.

and it ends with first "minor" combat.



Things I dislike about production queue:
It is global and it's MOO3 style. MOO3 su... OK, you know.

The way to select a system to build in is not intuitive in curent UI.
UI feature request: ability to add to global queue from the planet/system screen.



I want to see in-game help - "Freeopedia". It is really important. It must provide info about techs, building, ships and weapons... And, indeed, it must explain game concepts: meters, effects, production model.

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