Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

Describe your experience with the latest version of FreeOrion to help us improve it.

Moderator: Oberlus

Forum rules
Always mention the exact version of FreeOrion you are testing.

When reporting an issue regarding the AI, if possible provide the relevant AI log file and a save game file that demonstrates the issue.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
mem359
Dyson Forest
Posts: 214
Joined: Sun Jun 08, 2014 1:18 am

Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#1 Post by mem359 »

When moving a fleet, we get circles for each turn the fleet will move to reach it's destination.
I had a situation where it was impossible to see if the move would take 1 or 2 turns (the path turned out to be 2, but I thought it was 1), because the text for the system name covered up the circles. This was true for all level's of screen zooming. This was a problem, because I was trying to synchronize 2 fleets attacking a system from different directions.

I think the ideal solution would be to change the text in the Fleet window. Instead of saying "Moving to (system name)", have it say "(n) turns moving to (system name)", or something similar.

If that is too much trouble, then the circles should either be offset (when the fleet is moving straight north), or the circles need to be on top of whatever else is being drawn.
Attachments
Difficult to read the number turns for this fleet move.
Difficult to read the number turns for this fleet move.
hidden_turns.jpg (10.78 KiB) Viewed 921 times

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#2 Post by Dilvish »

I've often had the same problem myself and have contemplated the same solutions. I've experimented with trying to adjust the path circles but it wound up being trickier than I expected. So unless someone else wants to get that working I vote for changing the fleet window text. For a somewhat more concise text, instead of "(n) turns moving to system_name" I propose "ETA (n) to system_name".
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#3 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:I vote for changing the fleet window text.
Seconded.

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#4 Post by MatGB »

How hard would it be to get the movement circles to render over a starname instead of under? That'd solve the problem for me and as it's only a temporary thing that's removed when you deselect teh fleet it shouldn't cause major headaches elsewhere/
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

User avatar
vincele
Space Dragon
Posts: 341
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2014 6:10 pm

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#5 Post by vincele »

MatGB wrote:How hard would it be to get the movement circles to render over a starname instead of under? That'd solve the problem for me and as it's only a temporary thing that's removed when you deselect the fleet it shouldn't cause major headaches elsewhere/
I'd vote for doing both...

But having had a look at how MapWnd & SystemIcon's Render() & Refresh() method work, I cannot say I understood how things are done. I don't understand the layering of overlapped UI elements, it does not seem specified explicitely. At least I'm not seeing it...

Code: Select all

MapWnd::Render()
{
[...]
    RenderSystems(); // This renders parts of SystemIcons
    RenderFleetMovementLines(); // This one indirectly calls MapWnd::RenderMovementLineETAIndicators()
[...]
}
So it looks like the ordering is right for ETA being drawn on top.

But system colored names widgets are not explicitly rendered, they are AttachChild()'ed and I think gigi does the magic...

Am I reading this right ?

Can someone educate me ?
All the patches I'll provide for freeorion will be released under the GPL v2 or later license.
Let's unleash the dyson forest powa!

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#6 Post by Dilvish »

vincele wrote:
MatGB wrote:How hard would it be to get the movement circles to render over a starname instead of under? That'd solve the problem for me and as it's only a temporary thing that's removed when you deselect the fleet it shouldn't cause major headaches elsewhere/
I'd vote for doing both...
As I said above, I already tried this and failed and gave up on it. It's not like this is my first work with the UI, so I think it's fair to say it's at least moderately hard, as in tricky to figure out.
...Can someone educate me ?
The one additional point I would note that you didn't mention is that GiGi window children can be moved up or down in rendering layer. Of course, I tried working with that and couldn't get it to resolve this issue, but YMMV.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
vincele
Space Dragon
Posts: 341
Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2014 6:10 pm

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#7 Post by vincele »

Dilvish wrote:
vincele wrote:I'd vote for doing both...
As I said above, I already tried this and failed and gave up on it. It's not like this is my first work with the UI, so I think it's fair to say it's at least moderately hard, as in tricky to figure out.
Yeah, that's why I asked first... But the two things can be done independently.
Dilvish wrote:The one additional point I would note that you didn't mention is that GiGi window children can be moved up or down in rendering layer. Of course, I tried working with that and couldn't get it to resolve this issue, but YMMV.
I only touched gigi on the surface, but that was sufficient to make me not want to dig deeper unless forced. I have a patch in my stack with some MoveUp() calls, not ready for upstream though...
All the patches I'll provide for freeorion will be released under the GPL v2 or later license.
Let's unleash the dyson forest powa!

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#8 Post by Dilvish »

Turns out that the fleet window ETA display had already been coded up, but then apparently the userstring was truncated to drop it, presumably so that it could fit better in a narrower fleet window. I just added a 'hidden' (no options panel widget) config option to control using a userstring that includes the eta info. So (with current repo code or after next weekly build) go into config.xml and edit the "<show-fleet-eta>" value from a zero to a one to get this:
fleet_eta.png
fleet_eta.png (14.38 KiB) Viewed 838 times
If you can't compile and want this right away, you can just edit your stringtable entry for FW_FLEET_MOVING_TO from

Code: Select all

Moving to %1%
to

Code: Select all

Moving to %1% (ETA %2%)
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
Revlot
Space Floater
Posts: 35
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2015 10:00 pm

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#9 Post by Revlot »

I'm playing around inside of the UI settings to see if I can make all things easier to read;
Menu; options; UI tab - scroll down to font sizes.
I wonder if adjusting any of the few available options would be of value in this case - mainly for a visual separation on the screen, or if perhaps adding more font location sizing choices would be of value. In my case I am displaying my screen at 1776x1000@24 and am needing to adjust a lot of values to make my screen more visual-friendly.

EDIT:
Dilvish wrote:The config file can be found at the location described here.
Thank you, very useful.
Last edited by Revlot on Sat Apr 11, 2015 11:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I understand that this is a work in progress and that my comments here are just comments and NOT requests for immediate code fixes.
Thank you for the work done so far - please continue with whatever part of the game you are currently working on.

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: Difficulty seeing number of turns for fleet move

#10 Post by Dilvish »

Revlot wrote:I wonder if adjusting any of the few available options would be of value in this case
Probably -- I certainly prefer to adjust a number of the default values.
or if perhaps adding more font location sizing choices would be of value.
I don't even understand why you would want more font location choices or font size choices, let alone a "font location sizing"?
In my case I am displaying my screen at 1776x1000@24 and am needing to adjust a lot of values to make my screen more visual-friendly.
Sure. You may find you might prefer to adjust some values that don't have widgets in the options window, but which nevertheless are stored in the config file. (There is a bit of a tradeoff between allowing a lot of customizability while keeping the Options window from being overwhelmingly cluttered.) The config file can be found at the location described here.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

Post Reply