From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 8456 invoked by alias); 7 Sep 2004 17:03:21 -0000 Mailing-List: contact xconq7-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: xconq7-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 8448 invoked from network); 7 Sep 2004 17:03:19 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ob2.cmich.edu) (141.209.20.21) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 7 Sep 2004 17:03:19 -0000 Received: from egate1.central.cmich.local ([141.209.15.85]) by ob2.cmich.edu (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id i87GuUgg009897; Tue, 7 Sep 2004 12:56:30 -0400 Received: from leon.phy.cmich.edu ([141.209.165.20]) by egate1.central.cmich.local with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713); Tue, 7 Sep 2004 12:59:06 -0400 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by leon.phy.cmich.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC3C970015; Tue, 7 Sep 2004 13:02:13 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 01:29:00 -0000 From: Eric McDonald To: Jim Kingdon Cc: xconq7@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: Another Possible Solution to the Occupants Display Problem In-Reply-To: <200409062209.i86M9Lx09978@panix5.panix.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-OriginalArrivalTime: 07 Sep 2004 16:59:06.0235 (UTC) FILETIME=[FC3684B0:01C494FB] X-CanItPRO-Stream: default X-Spam-Score: -0.9 () X-Bayes-Prob: 0.0001 X-Scanned-By: CanIt (www . canit . ca) X-SW-Source: 2004/txt/msg01131.txt.bz2 On Mon, 6 Sep 2004, Jim Kingdon wrote: > > The fact that we are clicking on a button in the transport box rather > > than the transport itself makes me think we are okay in this regard. > > Sure, making it consistently a button would work. What muddied those > waters was the question of what to do at 8x8, where there is no room > to draw a button. Maybe just make people zoom in before they can > click to bring up the occupant popup. Well, if a cell is either so small that the popup button cannot be drawn for any transports in it, or if a cell contains so many units that they are too small to show any popup buttons, then perhaps it would be good to extend the idea of the popup "ellipsis" button to the cell itself. The popup button would be drawn in the cell itself, depending on the ratio of cell size to number of units contained therein.... Psychologically, I don't know what impact it would have for a player to see a single button in the middle of a cell, when the cell may contain dozens of units. I suppose that, after a while, one would become conditioned to fear and respect any cell displaying an ellipsis button with an enemy emblem next to it. (In the case where a cell contains a horde of seen units of mixed allegiances, I would probably still opt to place the banner of the first seen enemy unit next to the popup button, _even if there are friendlies in the cell, a possibility with ZOC == -1). And, I think that for really small cells, where a button cannot be drawn, that the cell itself should be the button. Occupant display issues not withstanding, this would probably be an improvement over squinting and hoping that you click the right pixel. Instead, it would simply be click and then choose a decent-sized unit (or cell) image in the cell popup window. Or, if the player changed his/her mind, then he/she would just hit escape. Not much effort, _probably less than squinting and "precision-clicking". Of course, I don't know whether there is a big demand for playing Xconq at such low magnifications.... (Build it and they will come?) > How about one icon for each material. Mouse over the icon to get the > numbers ("5/200"). Perhaps the icon itself would have a greyscale > border from light grey to black for how much is present, or a red > border if LowSupply, or a bar similar to the damage bar (although this > is a problem if reaching capacity is rare) or something. I like this idea, especially the standout border for which individual materials are needed. Maybe even do a flashing border for materials that the unit is starving without. I think the existing mouseover panel in the SDL interface could accomodate any info we would want to display regarding a material, though a "tooltip" might also be nice to add at some point. Eric