GUI Needed!!!! Someone Step up !!!!!

Neuralize · Post by **Neuralize** » 17 Dec 2005, 08:39

Could we get an ingame dynamic alliance menu of some sort?

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 17 Dec 2005, 13:48

You must perhaps add the ctrl-alt, shift etc, for row,square and empty square building buildings.
There was mouse button 4 and 5 for spacing row building.

Once everythings are done, you can perhaps add a statistic windows.
It could be handy to have an elevator for the chat window.

I would love to be able for most of the commands to choose between :
Activate them by pressing and desactivate them by repressing
Or pressing to activate them, keep pressing,< and desactivate them when releasing.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 17 Dec 2005, 14:29

I like to play with two mouses for input.
So you have 6 buttons, 2 scrollwheels and two xy coordinates for input and no keyboard.

colorblind · Post by **colorblind** » 17 Dec 2005, 14:34

Well if you're going to redo the whole GUI, it might be an idea (albeit good or bad) to take my GUI-API suggestion into consideration. To quote myself:

(...) I thought it might be a good idea to seperate the GUI code from the Spring code entirely (much like the AI-sytem is). That way new features can be added to Spring without causing immediately problems with the new GUI (which is the case at the moment I believe). It would also allow 3rd party programmers to come up with a GUI of their own.

It would require quite a bit of overhauling the current engine, but I believe that the project would benefit significanlty from the increased modularization. Like the AI-API, the GUI would communicate with the engine through such functions as

Code: Select all

getPossibleOrders(unitID)
issueOrder(unitID, order)
setCamera(pos, angles)

etcetera, etcetera. You can then move the more complicated stuff like order-queuing from the engine to the modular GUI, and also the keyhandling (which got this whole started in the first place, I believe).

Oh and for the features this new GUI would have to have I'm full of ideas. Should I make a Wiki page entitled "New GUI feature wishlist"?

mongus · Post by **mongus** » 17 Dec 2005, 15:58

Tim Blokdijk wrote:I like to play with two mouses for input.
So you have 6 buttons, 2 scrollwheels and two xy coordinates for input and no keyboard.

when you use 2 mouses, both controll the same pointer.
that way, even when you have 6 btn and all that, its all mapped to the same lmb rmb mmb.. etc.

or you know a way to make it work as 4th 5th 6th button? (and 2 more axis).

AF · Post by AF » 17 Dec 2005, 17:25

I agree with colorblind, i think you should work on getting the core engine to work, while the rest of us could work on adding bits.

A simple side panel, minimap, chat console, and keybinding/selection system si all you need do if we have a system where GUI components are dll's laoded from a fodler on startup.

The community will do the rest, or at least i will. Eitherway camera modes is a good candidate currently to be ported to a seperate set of dll's.

At least then we cant argue that the GUI is bloated and we can swap out the current GUI with a new one using this system. It would also make ti easier for us AI developers to change settings userwise than makignt he suer remember lots of console commands, or make them open config files in notepad.

AF · Post by AF » 17 Dec 2005, 17:37

Oh and thigns such as drawing on the map, construction animation, selection thing should be seperated too, and the different btis should be able to defien themselves as mod dependant, sof or example a TA:K mdo would use a different method of displaying building, or a ST mdo may have a replication ro transporter type animation, WD might have a Generals style system etc.....

That and some mods might nto like the wya sprign shows health abs and selected untis, perhaps they want a whtie box around them rather than a green box drawn on the map, or they want a set of little squares like soem games rather than a bar of green or they may even want a pie chart or a percentage......

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 17 Dec 2005, 18:34

mongus wrote:
Tim Blokdijk wrote:I like to play with two mouses for input.
So you have 6 buttons, 2 scrollwheels and two xy coordinates for input and no keyboard.
when you use 2 mouses, both controll the same pointer.
that way, even when you have 6 btn and all that, its all mapped to the same lmb rmb mmb.. etc.

or you know a way to make it work as 4th 5th 6th button? (and 2 more axis).

With Windows.. don't know.
Tried to do that once with Win98 and it got mapped to the same pointer.
But that was a long time ago.

I'm more of a penguin and I think it's possible to have two devices.
It would take two mouse devices /dev/mouse0 and /dev/mouse1.
And an extra "InputDevice" section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Spring could then capture input from both. (I guess)

patmos · Post by **patmos** » 17 Dec 2005, 22:21

I like the skinable idea. Currently I would like to see more data given to the user. Things like

1. a dropdown list on the metal and energy bars that give a list of the items using and producing metal and energy. Then you could select items and turn them off / on via the dropdown.

2. better organization of build items. Like groupings on factories, defense, weapons, energy and metal. That way I could spend more time building and less time looking for what I want to build.

The ability to control key bindings from within the game would be great too.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 17 Dec 2005, 22:41

if its skinnable i would LOVE to have the OTA style skins as a option packaged with it. although id probably ditch OTA for the shiny new stuff :)

jouninkomiko · Post by **jouninkomiko** » 18 Dec 2005, 06:01

guys this is good. exactly what i need. i'm researching crazzy eddies gui system and how to use it. hopefully ill get some prototype out soon, but theres a significant rewrite that needs to go down. also, i need to ask. are you all tied down to the "hold ctrl while moving camera for acceleration" feature? if so, ill have to add in a few special cases for it. handy to know this <i>before</i> i write the control handler :)

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 18 Dec 2005, 06:02

Its shift to move fast, ctrl to move slow. I use shift alot, as the camera moves to slow.

EDIT: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/wiki/New_GUI Put new entries in here. Im not going to update my post anymore.

DeathHawk · Post by **DeathHawk** » 18 Dec 2005, 06:47

Joun its so good to see your still alive

!!!

colorblind · Post by **colorblind** » 18 Dec 2005, 12:29

@ jouninkomiko & Maelstrom:

I saw that the Wiki page "recommends" fixed keybinds for orders. How about allowing all keybindings to be user-configurable? The Quake series has this, and it's *really* a godsend. Overmore Quake 1,2, and 3 have been GPL'ed, so it shouldn't be too hard to borrow some key-binding code from them. I invite you to take a look at the source code of Quake 3 (the file in question is /code/client/cl_input.c).

Oh and while I'm at it, I want a console!

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 18 Dec 2005, 12:31

Talk to jouninkomiko about it. Im not making it, just organising ideas.

Das Bruce · Post by **Das Bruce** » 18 Dec 2005, 12:53

They are to an extent arn't they?

AF · Post by AF » 18 Dec 2005, 15:45

Get rid of ctrl camera acceleration if you need to, it's not that useful anyways.

Post by SJ » 18 Dec 2005, 16:15

It would be very hard to navigate efficiently without that sort of speedup keys and besides many other parts of the system will need to know if stuff like the shift key is down so its not like you could skip it anyway.

AF · Post by AF » 18 Dec 2005, 16:17

I thought the camera sped up if shift was held down otherwise it returned to normal speed? ctrl was only really useful for up close and personal shots of units, for which the middle mouse button was as useful.

jouninkomiko · Post by **jouninkomiko** » 18 Dec 2005, 19:36

The plan right now is to have all key-bindings in an external xml, someday modifiable in-game. Also, it's not a matter of detecting whether or not the shift key is pressed, but rather, how long it's been pressed in conjunction with the movement keys. What are all the commands that involve ctrl/alt/shift being held?

Spring RTS Engine

GUI Needed!!!! Someone Step up !!!!!