Spring RTS Engine

0_o where did my post go?

twas censured (so was your other one, but that was for a reason and by me)

Argh wrote:OK, chat's been moved up where it can be its own thing, separate from console spam. That gets rid of the "pockets", lets people use slightly-longer sentences (not that you'll want to, the gesture system is more useful imo) and other than graphical cleanup / visual polish, that's going to be final round of changes for this version. Thanks for your feedback everybody.

was nicer with transparent blue background ... doesn't mean you can't make even nicer

Honestly, in the context of the changing buttons, I think that this works better. Anyhow, we'll see how it all turns out when I've had the chance to work on the graphics a bit more, it's not very polished in that regard, I've been too busy moving stuff around.

why at the bottom instead of the top?

the logic behind having the gui at the top is that the top of the screen is likely to contain what you dont need to see- the sky, for example- whilst the bottom is likely to contain the action

also, because computer screens are now predominately widescreen, the viewing space can afford much more horizontal space than vertical space. by moving the bulky build panel onto the vertical space, the players view is going to be increasingly letterbox if he is using a widescreen- for this reason bulky GUI at the side of the screen is prefferable to the top/bottom

just my 2 cents

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:why at the bottom instead of the top?

the logic behind having the gui at the top is that the top of the screen is likely to contain what you dont need to see- the sky, for example- whilst the bottom is likely to contain the action

It still feels strange to have your control panel at the top of the screen. Somehow the eyes feel more at ease looking down. Like a car dashboard.

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:also, because computer screens are now predominately widescreen, the viewing space can afford much more horizontal space than vertical space.

Agreed with you here. Yet I still have to deal with stubborn Springers who can't handle the thought of their loooong resource bars being represented as stubby vertical buckets. People are so set in their ways :)

CarRepairer wrote:looking down

like a mac... oh wait.

Top-mounted displays cause a lot of eyestrain, especially on traditional monitors. Human eyes aren't designed to look up on a regular basis. Even the HUDs for jet pilots try to keep the information within a fairly small distance vertically. That's why menus you aren't expected to click on a regular basis are top-mounted, and why things like Favorites are generally side-mounted, and why the Start button and Taskbar are bottom-mounted by default in Windows. Macs just copied that feature from Windows and made it a lot prettier when OSX was introduced. Previously, in OS 9, menus were all top-mounted by default. Back then, it wasn't as big of a deal, as people rarely had monitors that could do more than 1200/900, with smaller physical sizes. Now, with today's monitors frequently larger than 16" in width, it's a bigger deal that everything is mounted where it causes less eyestrain and requires less physical movement of the head and neck.

Having done some wide-screen tests, I think it may make more sense to use an L-shaped display, with buttons and radar forming the vertical, the rest of the display forming the horizontal. It won't be as aesthetically pleasing, but it will be a lot more functional. I'll do a test with a mockup, see if I like it enough to make that change.

Meh. IDK. I've stared at this mockup several times, and I still don't like it. It makes perfect sense, functionally, and it would use screen space more efficiently on widescreen, but...

And no, I can't make it all one column. Then it'd be too small, length-wise, for long descriptions, etc., or the text would get so small it'd be unreadable at lower resolutions. Then again, if people can't play this at 1440 or better, they probably don't have enough computer for the game, period... meh.

minimap top left, resource bar to the right of it at top, orders bar below it to the left (an L shape in the top left hand corner.)

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:minimap top left, resource bar to the right of it at top, orders bar below it to the left (an L shape in the top left hand corner.)

It's obvious he does not want to use the useful "TA" style.

You're describing the standard layout, which I hate because I hate looking up constantly. Moreover, it has the same problems as this one, in terms of pretty screenshots (besides being generally uglier).

Not happening. The question is whether I just stack it all vertically and figure out a way to make it readable if text is limited to 384-pixel columns, giving better usage because then there's proximity of radar to the buttons, or keep it really nice-looking for screens and readable all the time.

Maybe I can use a different font, one that's designed for lower resolutions...

what about making some parts see-through when mouse is not over it,
eg. the mini-map 50%, and the commands 80%.
could possibly make sense for small displays, to have a slightly better overview. generally, borrow stuff from modern OS GUIs, like OS X or Compiz.
though.. these would be drastic changes, which you said you do not want to do anymore.. just wanted to note.

don't forget argh if you listen to everybody here you won't ever have a good ui, conclusion make the ui you like the more now that you got enough comments, and ignore the whiners :D

center of the screen imo

Like the last "along the bottom" one. Maybe a little lower alpha on the seethrough parts, but either way imho it's good. Roll with it.

Somebody obv needs to re-adjust their monitors...

( and read about the F shape made when reading )

Try and use AF's web design as a kind of guideline for what kind of feel and textures you can use.

http://wolfegames.com/

the F shape made when reading

^
this

Try and use AF's web design as a kind of guideline for what kind of feel and textures you can use.

Well, since I painted that, I suppose I won't feel all that bad stealing from myself.