CA will eventually need new buildbar/commandbar.
Purpose of this thread is to throw some ideas about how should it work..


Thoughts:

* gui must be accesible for new player and usable for good player (pros will use keyboard shortcuts eventually anyway)
* buildicons should be categorized and sorted sensibly. Categories and sorting allow people to find item easilly
* there should not be too many as this overloads user but it should be available with as few clicks as possible
* it should be vertical like default spring gui, because of widescreens


Random idea 1: collapsible categories:

Items are organized into rows, each row representing one category:

[eco] -> [wind], [solar], [fusion]
[defens] x (collapsed)
[const] x (collapsed)
[strat] -> [antinuke]. [nuke]

You can collapse and show the category by clicking on category symbol.
Category stays open until collapsed again manually.
This way user can have several categories open, which he needs presently.


Random idea 2: hover wheel selection

You only have categories in build menu. Those are always on.
Once you click category, it enters structure placement mode - you see ghosted structure as normal.

Now you can use mouse wheel to cycle between various structures of given category before you place it.

So say you click defense, llt appears and mouse up changes it to HLT, mouse down to llt again.

It could contain visualisation bar next to mouse like this:

[cheaper item icon 2]
[cheaper item icon 1] ^ (arrow up)
[ghosted image to place] [mouse cursor]
[expensive item icon 1] v
[expensive item icon 2]


Issues - wheel is already reserved for zooming, so possibly needs modifier key.

Random idea 3: better command menu

Command menu consist of symbols for basic unit commands and small icons for switches.
So instead of huge box with "NORMAL" in it you have small icon indicating unit has normal resource priority and you can click it to cycle states.
Similar for roaming, hold fire etc.

To add to the brainstorming:

Random idea 1: addendum
Use tabs for a universally accepted way of navigation

Random idea 4: Marking menu
A menu that appears when click-dragging on a unit. This is better known as a marking menu. It can increase ingame speed dramatically, as well as ease the learning curve. Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtH9GdFSQaw

You can easily make it prettier, like this GUI from Crysis or something similar:
http://anomalygames.files.wordpress.com ... erface.jpg

an ipod style rotating build wheel for buildings would be cool

I tend to think that the one-big-multi-page-panel approach has worked fine for every RTS game up until now and don't see the need to change it. Other approaches tend to just add more and more clicks.

Remember the mousewheel already does stuff. If you use mousewheel for unit selection, you lose it for zoom depending on context. That would be frustrating for user.

My only wishlist is a single-button or single-keypress way to do things like "hold fire" or "hold position" rather than having to cycle through the annoying states of those commands.

most rts's dont have the sheer number of buildings that CA has. Plus CA build menu's are generally larger than other *A ones because of flat balancing and all cons having shared build menu's.

Its something completely different .. you cannot have 2 tabs open at same time..
but you can have 2 open categories at same time..

In game you often needs units from 2 categories, like eco and defense and tabs would force you to make always 2 clicks to pick unit.

Marking menu are cool but i suspect CA has too many items for this to work..

Also what key activates it? Right click performs default action and left click selects units.

Oh, you mean to display the icons as a (somewhat flat) tree. Yeah, I like that. If a player likes, they can leave all their folders expanded, but it will take up more real-estate on the screen than the simple block of icons.

Random Idea 1 sounds pretty good, similar to the existing buildbar widget by jK. Now if I use both factory buildbar (one bar per fac) and static buildbar (one bar per category) the left column of my screen will fill up fairly fast. I have fairly large resolution so it's okay, but we should consider all the implications of the combinations of our various UI elements for most screen sizes. Spring Tooltip will soon be removed forever, resbars are coming along nicely. That just leaves chat, minimap and playerlist. We should consider default layouts and such.


Your wish is granted.

http://trac.caspring.org/browser/trunk/ ... tstate.lua

"You can set keybindings for holdfire,stop (luaui reset firestate) and holdposition,stop (luaui reset movestate)"

Just in case, here's an example from my uikeys.txt:

bind meta+m luaui reset movestate
bind meta+f luaui reset firestate

Regarding gui elements imo least finished atm is tooltip, because its missing many information and so far chili itself does not support tooltips.

Also main menu needs tree menu control for organization.

Chat seems to be perfectly usable already, has just problems with multiline text. And there should be a place where you enter the text in the chat itself.

Resbars need textures/polishing or tweaks to make it more accesible.

Only thing thats not even started yet is buildbar :)

So keep postng ideas since its probably the most important widget to make..

I didn't mean to imply that these aren't finished, (although they aren't quite finished) I meant in a sense of where to put them on the screen.

I want to think of ways to really make the screen free and clear, like having everything on the left, or bottom. It's difficult to do with so many expanding elements, as well as the fact that some things are naturally wide while some are tall. I'm always rearranging my screen (thanks to IceUI) trying to come up with new ideas.

I really like your idea of the buildmenu acting like buildbar, where categories of the buildmenu behave like the factories on the buildbar. I like it more and more because it would make everything act more uniform.

We could then improve buildbar and let it open when you select factory in game...

However buildbar too suffers from too long lists sometimes, it could use perhaps 2 rows for some factories.

How about dragging the right mouse button? If you trigger a command on releasing the button that shouldn't be much of a problem.

This is already used by custom formations - you drag while holding right mouse button.

Good point, forgot about that. Middle mouse button and a custom key on the keyboard for people without a middle mouse button.

do not touch my middle mouse smoothscroll plz

Yeah im using smoothscroll too,amazing feature, i cant play games without it

More i think about it the more i like idea 1 - it will be consistent as car says and we dont have to teach people some special hidden key.

Also basic version could be done with chili under 1 hour (multiply x 10 because its lua)

Ok that renders the marking menu pretty much obsolete. The speed advantage will disappear when using the mouse in conjunction with a keyboard shortcut.

Random drawing of layout.



Or have playerlist on top right, selected units shoved to the bottom right corner