Ideas for a 'show combat' button?
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I'm curious if anyone has any ideas for a logical location to put a "show combat" button. For example, see the screenshot in: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/2217
Also curious if anyone has any good images or ideas for UI treatments so it's not necessarily just a boring button. In the above what we are trying to do is to have a button to bring an active combat window 'to the front', it's an easy problem to have that window get hidden and not notice.
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@LaFayette I agree this is an annoying limit, especially for those (most?) people that play with sound off, as if you are scrolling around the map, or other stuff, and combat happens, the window stays underneat and you may not notice that you have it in a long time. I already said it in past somewhere: the combat window should always superimpose the map, just like the "Game Notes" one used to be. This should not be a problem, as it was in the case of "Game Notes", because you should not have need of clicking on other pop-ups while combat is going on.
Off topic, the other side of the coin is that if you are chatting and combat happens you can easily be hitting spacebar at that moment, and confirm the casualty selection (like killing a bomber you didn't want to). You can turn off "Space bar confirms casualties", but you maybe don't want to not have that always either, plus most people don't manage the settings, I think.
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@Cernel said in Ideas for a 'show combat' button?:
Off topic, the other side of the coin is that if you are chatting and combat happens you can easily be hitting spacebar at that moment, and confirm the casualty selection (like killing a bomber you didn't want to). You can turn off "Space bar confirms casualties", but you maybe don't want to not have that always either, plus most people don't manage the settings, I think.
It seems like it will take 2 clicks with space bar to do that. That's a lot of space bar clicking to be done accidently.
the combat window should always superimpose the map
For active players in a game, this would probably be helpful. Would be nice to have an option to auto-close the combat window when done as well (particularly when spectating). IIRC we may have had a conflict with other pop-ups, where you could not do anything in the combat window and it was hiding a pop-up to advance. If that can be avoided, an 'always on-top' setting I agree would be good.
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@LaFayette said in Ideas for a 'show combat' button?:
It seems like it will take 2 clicks with space bar to do that. That's a lot of space bar clicking to be done accidently.
I confirm it happens to me, but it is rare and most times the casualty selection is what I want.
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@Cernel ya it occurs to many im sure if they are chatting while playing. Happens to me all the time.
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@prastle said in Ideas for a 'show combat' button?:
@Cernel ya it occurs to many im sure if they are chatting while playing. Happens to me all the time.
We should probably open something about that, since here it is off topic anyways. Spacebar should just never act as confirmation of anything if you are using it for typing. The problem is silly dramatic for confirming politics actions in live FFA (it just ruins the game).
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@Cernel Yup moved here https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/293/remove-space-bar-for-casualties-confirmation
gd idea
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From a technical standpoint... would the inclusion of a button like this go somewhere into one of the menu area's on the screen? Or would it have to be another window that opens when combat decisions would be required?
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@LaFayette Wouldn't the better solution be to have the combat window always on top? I think this is a lobby only issue for the most part so I don't have other guidance as I've never had this problem even in my limited lobby play.
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@redrum Nor I. I generally don't minimize or hide the combat screen once combat has begun.
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@Hepps I'm guessing its folks that are surfing the web and such during other player's turns that run into the issue. I'm way to into my games to do that
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@redrum Even clicking around on the map can cause the problem, if the timing is wrong you may not notice the pop-up. Always on-top could be an option, yes. IIRC there was an issue where multiple always on top windows competed, so long as that is not the case that is a good alternative. But, we also should consider the spectator case, an always on top combat window would be really annoying, so some conditional logic would seem called for to always on-top only if you are involved in the battle.
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@LaFayette Yah watching a game would pretty much be over if the combat window was always on top and you had to manually close it. I like (watching and playing) being able to push it back so I can look around.
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@Hepps It just needs to be always on top (still suggesting it) when it is open. You would still be able to click on "minimize" (like you do now) and, then, it would be not on top anymore. Besides, you can also simply drag it aside.
Also, I suggest having "Show battle as observer" False as default, which you can already set as you wish, thus never having pop-ups you are not involved as a player (you can still see all the action in the right sidebar on "Actions").
@redrum The main occurence, during live play, is when you are scrolling the map to strategise, or using the battlecalculator or such. In these cases (like when the battle happens while you are moving the map with the cursor) you may never see the window and not realise you have to do any clicks, until somebody slaps you.
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@LaFayette said in Ideas for a 'show combat' button?:
@redrum Always on-top could be an option, yes. IIRC there was an issue where multiple always on top windows competed, so long as that is not the case that is a good alternative.
It was me that reported that issue relatively to the "Game Notes" window. The case is different here, and I suggest having the on top and, then, see if it causes any issues or not. I think that if the window closes automatically when the battle is over, then there should be no issues at all for sure.
But, we also should consider the spectator case, an always on top combat window would be really annoying, so some conditional logic would seem called for to always on-top only if you are involved in the battle.
As long as you can still click to minimise the window, I believe that is not a problem. Anyways, if it is feasible, I agree to limit the always on top for the two referring players of the battle only, of course.
