SpringLobby battlelist improvements - Page 2

SpringLobby battlelist improvements

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Silentwings
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by Silentwings »

raaaar wrote:joining the room is nice because it exposes people to the greeting message which provides further information about the games.
ThinkSome wrote:Nobody reads that :D
In some hosts, many people read it, because it tells how long the current game has been going on for. This tells them roughly how long they might have to wait.
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ThinkSome
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by ThinkSome »

Parts of it have been done, see checkboxes on the original post. What remains is the following:
  1. Players, Spectators, S and C columns are made fixed-width (minimum possible) and not resizeable

    -> Issues with wxwidgets(wxGTK)
  2. The icon for a password-protected battle is imo too small (someone care to make a new icon?)
  3. row is grayed out when $player does not satisfy rank requirements.

    -> not supported by wxGTK
  4. The contents of rows under the column named "Game" are replaced by one of (the latter two are much easier to do and thus preferred):
    1. icons of the games in question (and the column is moved before Battle Name)
    2. short game name (S44, EvoRTS, BA, TechA, XTA, ... )
    3. long game name, but without version
    -> 1 and 2 require some other stuff to be implemented first. Have not decided yet which version to take.
  5. Filter/Activated/..../Host new../joine buttons are moved into battle infos row. As long as the player has a >=1366px horiz screen, it should work. This would also make the filter screen open above minimap and nickview (in the current case it would make the buttons jump up, which I guess would be undesirable).

    -> If they are put under battle infos, then hiding battle infos would have to be disabled (as there would be no button to restore it back). Does anyone prefer hiding it?
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PtaQ
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by PtaQ »

[Download all&Join] button would be quite useful I guess.
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PtaQ
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by PtaQ »

I also and skeptic about the idea of hiding the hostname tab. It doesn't take up that much space, while if someone says "hey join #hostname" in some host and he leaves, you are not able to click on his nick and join the same battle. You would have to look for his name somewhere in chat or check every running host to see where he's in. In such situations the hostname proves useful.

Another idea is to make them names in battleroom chat respond to right-click, as they do in the player list... if that is possible.
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ThinkSome
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by ThinkSome »

PtaQ wrote:[Download all&Join] button would be quite useful I guess.
Download all & join as opposed to join and a download dialog? I, too, am irritiated by this one, but I'd prefer having it skip this dialog (auto-yes) unless an option in preferences is changed. Another option would be to make behaviour change depending on whether SL is in "newbie mode" or in "exper mode".
PtaQ wrote:I also and skeptic about the idea of hiding the hostname tab. It doesn't take up that much space, while if someone says "hey join #hostname" in some host and he leaves, you are not able to click on his nick and join the same battle. You would have to look for his name somewhere in chat or check every running host to see where he's in. In such situations the hostname proves useful.

Another idea is to make them names in battleroom chat respond to right-click, as they do in the player list... if that is possible.
say "hey join battle-name" instead. These names are unique enough to tell them apart.

What is the use case for this, exactly? IRL friends can already find themselves by appropriately naming battle room or by shouting across a real life room or by other means. Veteran players are also more or less fixed on the room(s) they use and gathering newbies gained through promotions would better be done by distributing a version of SL that hides other rooms than hunting them down individually.
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Silentwings
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by Silentwings »

The use case is that host names are the current, long established and well used, way of uniquely identifying battle hosts. They are the names by which players know hosts, and also the names most hosts want to be called by.

Host names are the correct identifiers to use, because host names cannot be faked (they are usernames, requiring pws). The text string in the battle name field can be duplicated by anyone, easily. We have seen attempts to impersonate hosts, so there is good reason not to make this less visible.
The contents of rows under the column named "Game" are replaced by ...
We have also had many cases of game impersonation in the past, and the correct unique identifier is the full gamename+version, which gets sync checked. (Using shortnames doesn't work because the same shortname can be used for multiple games.)

If the version was removed, you would mask the visibility of new releases, testing versions, etc, and this is not a great idea because our games are kept alive by the visibility of changes and development; they are never finished products.
a download dialog?
Afaics the user needs an alert to tell that they are waiting for something to be downloaded, else some will not realize.
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PtaQ
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by PtaQ »

ThinkSome wrote:
PtaQ wrote:[Download all&Join] button would be quite useful I guess.
Download all & join as opposed to join and a download dialog? I, too, am irritiated by this one, but I'd prefer having it skip this dialog (auto-yes) unless an option in preferences is changed. Another option would be to make behaviour change depending on whether SL is in "newbie mode" or in "exper mode".

Silentwings wrote:Afaics the user needs an alert to tell that they are waiting for something to be downloaded, else some will not realize.
Thats exactly what I would like to achieve by using the [Download all&Join] button. The user would be informed about the download, without the additional dialog.
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ThinkSome
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by ThinkSome »

Silentwings wrote:The use case is that host names are the current, long established and well used, way of uniquely identifying battle hosts. They are the names by which players know hosts, and also the names most hosts want to be called by.

Host names are the correct identifiers to use, because host names cannot be faked (they are usernames, requiring pws). The text string in the battle name field can be duplicated by anyone, easily. We have seen attempts to impersonate hosts, so there is good reason not to make this less visible.
Sure it can be duplicated, but that is imo up to moderation to resolve. I had hidden the host column from the list because it is contributing to sensory overload of newbies and complaints of having to scroll horizontally to see useful information (same for other unimportant columns as well).
Silentwings wrote:
The contents of rows under the column named "Game" are replaced by ...
We have also had many cases of game impersonation in the past, and the correct unique identifier is the full gamename+version, which cannot be faked because of sync. (Using shortnames doesn't work because the same shortname can be used for multiple games.)

If the version was removed, you would mask the visibility of new releases, testing versions, etc, and this is not a great idea because our games are kept alive by the visibility of changes and development; they are never finished products.
Shortname would be rapid shortname (Of course not all games are on rapid), which has to be unique(?) or some other shortname derived from future features/code.

Most of the test rooms version rooms I can see in the battle list right now have an indication of this fact in their battle name. Those that do not are either rolling release (s44) or have no players (jw). Newbies shouldn't have to pick which version they join.

Additionally, 99.99% newbies have no idea what test-XXXX-YYYYY means and besides, this infomation would continue to be available in battle infos.
Silentwings wrote:
a download dialog?
Afaics the user needs an alert to tell that they are waiting for something to be downloaded, else some will not realize.
I'd prefer slapping a large download/progress bar somewhere, making the downloads tab blink obnoxiously or some other annoyance.
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Silentwings
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by Silentwings »

complaints of having to scroll horizontally to see useful information
As I and others said, the hostname is useful information, which users want to see. I rate your apparent misunderstanding of this as a lack of contact with the playing community.

You are ofc right there is much information in the battle pane that could be removed without anyone noticing:
- Country of host is not needed
- Max players is usually wrong anyway
- Engine version could reasonably be hidden (but needs an option to be visible, for devs)
- The R column is rarely used, I think it might also be broken
- I don't think many people read running time, and it's confusingly != ingame sim time.
This seems plenty for a first shot.

State ("S"), map, game name, game version, host name, spec & player counts, are all information that is used + wanted by regular players of big games. Description is probably also needed, by the smaller games.
Sure it can be duplicated, but that is imo up to moderation to resolve.
It is not reasonable to expect moderators to compensate for poor software design, and is it especially unreasonable to do so deliberately.
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ThinkSome
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by ThinkSome »

Silentwings wrote:
complaints of having to scroll horizontally to see useful information
As I and others said, the hostname is useful information, which users want to see. I rate your apparent misunderstanding of this as a lack of contact with the playing community.
Ahhh now I found an even better substitute: enable filter and put that host name into it :D
I'm always in contact with the playing community, but only the S:1944 one.
Silentwings wrote: You are ofc right there is much information in the battle pane that could be removed without anyone noticing:
- Country of host is not needed
- Max players is usually wrong anyway
- Engine version could reasonably be hidden (but needs an option to be visible, for devs)
- The R column is rarely used
- I don't think many people read running time, and it's confusingly != ingame sim time.
This seems plenty for a first shot.
All but max and country have been removed. Max is the upper (hard) limit on the number of players, nbteams*teamsize is the soft one. Country has been preserved due to request in one of the github issues and I agree, it does not take much space.
Silentwings wrote:
State ("S"), map, game name, game version, host name, spec & player counts, are all information that is used + wanted by regular players of big games. Description is probably also needed, by the smaller games.
Hahaha @ "Description is probably also needed".
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ThinkSome
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by ThinkSome »

PtaQ wrote:
ThinkSome wrote:
PtaQ wrote:[Download all&Join] button would be quite useful I guess.
Download all & join as opposed to join and a download dialog? I, too, am irritiated by this one, but I'd prefer having it skip this dialog (auto-yes) unless an option in preferences is changed. Another option would be to make behaviour change depending on whether SL is in "newbie mode" or in "exper mode".

Silentwings wrote:Afaics the user needs an alert to tell that they are waiting for something to be downloaded, else some will not realize.
Thats exactly what I would like to achieve by using the [Download all&Join] button. The user would be informed about the download, without the additional dialog.
Alright:
1) change the "Join" button into "Join and download"
2) add context menu entry "join without download" for low data idlers (me)
3) Maybe add red "Missing, join to download" text next to map,game and engine names in Battle Infos?
?

This is how it looks like after merge:
2018-04-07-134259_1433x872_scrot.png
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raaar
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by raaar »

The host name is not visible on the main table that screenshot.

It's the only unique identifier for the battle rooms and it's also short, it should be visible.

People shouldn't have to click each row to figure out which is which.
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PtaQ
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by PtaQ »

Seems likeen everyone would like them hostnames to stay. The fact is that it doesn't really take that much space. I would be more willing to put some restriction on the battle name length to make space for the host name. Also, after the rearrangement you have presented on the screen I'm guessing there is still some space left to to avoid horizontal scrolling on most displays worthy of running Spring on. If you make the argument that ppl hate to vertically scroll, while assuming the hostname is redundant I don't see any problem in putting it on the rightmost column which might be unseen for tablet users :)

Edit: ps. Would you reupload that screenshot?
raaar
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by raaar »

More space could be freed by reducing the font size slightly on some (or all) columns.
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ThinkSome
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by ThinkSome »

raaar wrote:The host name is not visible on the main table that screenshot.

It's the only unique identifier for the battle rooms and it's also short, it should be visible.

People shouldn't have to click each row to figure out which is which.
Yes, that column is hidden by default. There is no need to bother newbies with this, but you can do right click on column header and click "show all columns". I haven't removed any, they are all still there for all of you who like bloatware.
PtaQ wrote:Seems likeen everyone would like them hostnames to stay. The fact is that it doesn't really take that much space. I would be more willing to put some restriction on the battle name length to make space for the host name. Also, after the rearrangement you have presented on the screen I'm guessing there is still some space left to to avoid horizontal scrolling on most displays worthy of running Spring on. If you make the argument that ppl hate to vertically scroll, while assuming the hostname is redundant I don't see any problem in putting it on the rightmost column which might be unseen for tablet users :)

Edit: ps. Would you reupload that screenshot?
See above re host name + I want to move the main window tabs (Chat, battleroom, ...) to the left, so I get extra vertical space enabling me to stitch chat under every tab.

Why reupload? It works fine.
raaar wrote:More space could be freed by reducing the font size slightly on some (or all) columns.
Yes, but I don't yet know how to do fonts and it would be either the basic monospace(which is ugly), or SL would have to ship a better font, e.g. Terminus.
raaar
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by raaar »

why be stubborn about the host name? just keep it.

- it's short
- it's the only unique field

and there are probably ways to ajust the font size of specific UI items, it shouldn't be complicated.
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ThinkSome
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by ThinkSome »

Because I am firmly convinced that the host name column is unnecessary bloat and not a substitute for lack of moderation.

What could be done instead is to have a quick search in battle list, such as what is already present under nickname lists in the chat panel.
raaar
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by raaar »

Note, i've made a pull request with various changes to the SL battle list:

https://github.com/springlobby/springlobby/pull/913
raaar
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by raaar »

finally i've managed to make a win32 build and can show some screenshots of the battlelist with the colour highlights and the sorting chains.

now the rooms with players are highlighted relative to the ones without, which get greyed-out text, and each game prefix (without version) gets a consistent background colour.


here's an example sorted by game ASC (note that the most populated rows for each game show up first)
Image


and here's an example sorted by players DESC (note that the remaining rows without players are sorted by game)
Image


maybe the colour backgrounds are too intense, I should make them closer to white....or add a cfg property with the colour for each game prefix so people could configure them at will.
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MasterBel
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Re: SpringLobby battlelist improvements

Post by MasterBel »

raaar wrote: 01 May 2019, 18:05 maybe the colour backgrounds are too intense, I should make them closer to white....
Agreed, and the cfg would probably be more work but super cool too. This is awesome, thanks raaar
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