New (modified, actually) in game GUI

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 01 Jun 2005, 23:34

Yeah, I hated the one you guys gave Spring, so I took it upon myself to go in the source and hunt down the offending elements.

1024x768
800x600
640x480

I only changed some colors and positioning, no fonts or font sizes. The elements shown in the screenshots are the only things I changed so far. I logged all my changes, the change log can be viewed here. And if you're too lazy to go hunt down the changes and compile yourself, here's a compiled exe with the gui.

I'm planning on brushing up on my file I/O skills to make all of this stuff (size, position, color, translucency) controlled in an INI file rather than in the exe itself. No promises there, but I'll see if I can pull it off.

Storm · Post by **Storm** » 01 Jun 2005, 23:36

Sweet ol' TA !!

Trump Card · Post by **Trump Card** » 02 Jun 2005, 05:20

You can still move the metal / energy bar... But considering what the old GUI looked like, this is a much needed improvement.

Post by SJ » 02 Jun 2005, 10:23

I liked my alpha blended bars. If you really want to improve the GUI you should try to make the new_gui work since it allows reading gui layouts from external data files and thus everyone to have his own. If you want to get started on it enable the #define in newguidefine.h .

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 02 Jun 2005, 11:15

You're the only one I've encountered so far that liked your GUI

Anyway, I'm horrible at writing my own code--I can modify bits and pieces and plug in very basic stuff, but that's about it. I never really learned enough C++ to do anything more than a commandline app that does some simple equations for you. To be honest, I had no idea what opengl code looked like before I did this, I just jumped in the code and started searching for strings from the GUI itself ("Metal" and "Stop" and things like that).

There is one problem with the GUI though--that Napalm guy can't see the text on the Attack, Move, etc buttons in the orders menu, regardless of whether he uses the original GUI files or mine. I poked around, but I didn't really see where to modify that to try to change it at all... he has a radeon 9200, I believe.

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra · Post by **[K.B.] Napalm Cobra** » 02 Jun 2005, 11:38

Correct gnome, I also recall another guy with the same graphics card having the same problem, but don't worry about it, upgrading to a 9600 soon :D.

SinbadEV · Post by **SinbadEV** » 02 Jun 2005, 17:59

That was me, no menu text, radeon 9200 in XP, I've gotten mostly used to it... and it appears that if I select mutiple units (comm, some builders, so attack units) together I occationally get a few bits of text, and sometimes the select AI or the <-- --> text... but only randomly...

zwzsg · Post by **zwzsg** » 02 Jun 2005, 18:02

It looks like you just changed the background from a nice translucent blue to an ugly solid black. I wouldn't consider that an improvement.

aGorm · Post by **aGorm** » 03 Jun 2005, 14:55

I must say i agree... It was a luverly transparent colour... That black Just sux. Well, thank god we dont have to use it i suppose!

aGorm

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 03 Jun 2005, 22:09

It still boggles my mind how you guys could actually like the transparency... it just made things unreadable and got in the way more than it did its job... and the placement with the margins between the pieces of the GUI and the edge of the screen was just flat out annoying, especially with the minimap...

[K.B.] Napalm Cobra · Post by **[K.B.] Napalm Cobra** » 04 Jun 2005, 00:52

What we really need is the possibility for easily modifiable bmp backgrounds, or even obj models.

Redfish · Post by **Redfish** » 04 Jun 2005, 09:01

Blah blah modifiable. I'd just like to add that the original interface was kinda okay. Making an interface in C has always been kinda artificial imo. However we could do with some nice graphics. All gnome did at the moment was edit the colors and the placement, which looks good, but didn't change anything to optimize the actualy GUI

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 04 Jun 2005, 10:45

does using this cause problems when playing online?

Gnomre · Post by **Gnomre** » 04 Jun 2005, 11:00

Redfish: Yeah, I'm not that good of a coder. I'm still looking into making it controlled via INI, but I got side tracked by Zsinj's "Mini Spring" in the General Discussion forum... Xon (ggs) has said he planned on doing something similar after he finishes his exams, so maybe it'd be best to wait on someone who knows what the hell they're doing to do it

NOiZE: No idea. Spring refuses to work online for me, so I have no way of testing it. Doesn't matter if I have the port forwarded, if I'm in DMZ, or even if I freaking join, the game won't connect properly to other people, so I'm up the shit creek in that regard for now...

Post by **JeeZ** » 04 Jun 2005, 11:38

I must say I prefer the transparent windows. It boggles my mind how somebody can prefer that black stuff

I want a slick UI, taking as little space as possible and only visible when needed. The TA UI was ok (better than other RTS) but not slick enough and the left menu would not have to be displayed all the time taking unnecessary space.

As you see, everyone has a different opinion on this so a configurable UI is almost necessary, but perhaps not a high priority.

TARevenger · Post by **TARevenger** » 07 Jun 2005, 11:19

nice looking gui

but one thing! Is it possible to seperate the build menu from the unit commands so they can be quickly accessed like the OTA.

shnorb · Post by **shnorb** » 07 Jun 2005, 13:45

cant say i like the existing gui that much but i definately dont like the black one much better... i would like to see a return to the original ta menu style (appearance not structure) while still incorporating elements of the current one... oh and having the old ta menus rebuffed in photoshop would be awesome... if only i have any skill as an artist

Spring RTS Engine

New (modified, actually) in game GUI

New (modified, actually) in game GUI