Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea
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@Frostion Well, I can understand in some games you have a number of islands with 1 dude in it remaining there indefinitely, but this sleep thing seems too strong to me (also a moon makes me think of something that will last for the turn, not like perennial night). For skip/sleep I would rather go with them lasting, respectively, for the whole phase and for the whole turn (so, you skip the units you plan to move during non combat movement and sleep the units you plan to leave there for the turn).
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Anyways, I might be slow, but I assure you I've read the tooltips multiple times couldn't guess what was the difference between skip and sleep. So maybe that is something that needs to be made more understandable.
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@Cernel Generally the way @Frostion explains the functions are how they work for most other games. Generally you either want to "ignore a unit for this turn" or "ignore a unit forever". These functions would mostly be used during NCM to ensure you didn't forget to move any units. Whether the "check" should reset at the end of each phase or the end of the turn I think could be debated but turn is probably the most natural and aligns with how most other TBS games work.
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Re: Shadows/Icons on Light vs Dark Background
This was a concern I had been wondering about. I was thinking a next feature improvement would be to include a set of graphics for dark backgrounds and we would swap the images when a player changes their Look and Feel to a dark or light background.
The dark shadows is a good idea that could make that feature less needed or not needed at all.
Re: Updated Images
@Frostion you can upload new images directly if you'd like "upload files" button: https://github.com/triplea-game/assets/tree/master/game_headed_assets/unit_scroller
I think I'm happy updating the images otherwise, just noticed that you did provide a Zip file with them, thank you.
Re: Skip vs Sleep
@Cernel there are some units where they are endless skipped. The US infantry on Midway and AA guns in USA on WWII revised are units that I sleep. The German AA gun is another that gets sleeped as well. Skip I've often used for planes, a bomber that has landed but still has movement left for example. Sometimes instead of 'sleeping' I'll skip units and on the third turn skipping them, they'll be sleeped.
Re: Wake-All
That is a feature that does seem logical. I'm only a bit concerned that players will become 'worried' about the sleeping units and revisit their decision every turn. It can be 30 minutes or an hour on a multiplayer game to cycle back to the same player turn, it can be pretty easy to reconsider decisions made.
I think for now the intent is that sleep should be a "you are sure you want to do this" kind of action. For the misclick case, clicking a unit should probably wake them back up.
I am a bit on the fence:
- Civ did not provide a wake-all
- Having a wake-all could encourage "sleep-abuse" where units are slept instead of being skipped for the one or two turns. (But again, who is to say that is feature-abuse vs using it in a way that fits a player better).
- Maybe a wake-all but with a confirmation dialog: "Are you sure you want to wake-all?" to add some friction to the process.
Re: Centering and Top Row
The top row of the unit scroller is not super cohesive. I've been wondering if maybe the unit image itself should serve as the centering button. If it could be made to look clickable, then we'd be saving on screen real-estate.
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@redrum I've no doubt the skip should reset end phase, not end turn.
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@redrum , @Cernel Currently it's end-phase, I'd agree it should be that way. Part of the goal is so you can always zero out the units left to move on each phase and then trust when you get the "No more units left to move pop-up", that you can confidently end the current phase. Before the unit scroller, on live games I would typically spend a few minutes checking the entire map to be sure nothing was left to move, the pop-up is meant to help automate that and hopefully save time and reduce 'forgot-to-move-unit' mistakes.
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@Frostion said in Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea:
@LaFayette
I have now been playing with the unit scroller on a few maps. It works pretty well and is a nice addition that heightens the quality of game play if you ask me. A game that potentially has the players manage hundreds of units really needs this new feature.I have also seen some things that I think can be improved:
The image icons are OK but could be better (I think I made a few of them
) I have made a new set of icons that might improve the “uniformity” of the images. I replaced the highlight lamp image with a sun/lightsource, so that the sun can really shine on the player units when player wants to find them 
These images are also all made with a thin dark shadow so that the images might work with both white/bright UI and grey/dark UI.I also made a “wake up” image that could be used to wake up sleeping territories. I really think this is needed. It would be a good way to let the player “reset” all sleeping units and do a new scroll through them to see if they still are to sleep.
Comparison: Old icons have trouble with bright UI, new might work?
Here is the zip with the icons - I hope they can be used : ICONS-V2.zip
Now that we clarified that means "standing indefinitely", I suggest changing the "moon-zzz" symbol with a "stop-hand" symbol (assuming adopting these proposals, I could try to do it if @Frostion tells exactly what are the settings he used for drawing those pictures; otherwise he would need to do it, in case it is wanted, to keep all images coherent).
Example (free for personal use only):
https://flyclipart.com/download-stop-hand-sign-clipart-signage-clip-art-and-sign-clipart-502467 -
I'd opt for an entrenchment tool as a symbol for the 'sentry' or 'sleep'. (really sleep, as 'sentry' in civ had specific functionality which we do not have). I'm not sure though if an entrenchment tool would be universally well recognized and/or confused as having a defensive benefit.
The problem I'd draw with a stop sign is that it implies the unit was moving. If the unit is already stationary, and then slept, it does not really make sense. For example the units on islands or AA guns, those are typical candidates for 'sleep'.
I am very curious what people think about combining the 'center' button with the unit image, whether it sounds like a good idea to combine the two and if it would be intuitive enough, or perhaps better to leave the two as independent.
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@LaFayette Nah, the moon is at least better than an entrenchment tool, that would definitely imply units not moving are doing something to better their defence capabilities (which would be a cool feature).
A major issue, currently, is that this feature overboard for relatively thin side bars, meaning skins having narrow small maps. I like diminutive right side bars, as they leave more room for board view. You can see the issue in any games of the 270bc_variants map (but not 270bc, that has a wider small map).
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@Cernel To address this, I suggest you remove the small flag display right to the units (which is completely worthless). That should cut a good amount of pixels.
Then, the stuff should not initally be cut to the left or right (currently partially or totally hiding the rightmost buttons), but, if still too big, the units display should be cut, initially.
You can test it with Napoleonic Empires. Currently the "next" unit button is mostly cut, there, for me.
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That's a good scenario on Napoleonic Empires to see, I added a reminder to fix this: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/5181
An interesting behavior, once the side bar is made larger, it cannot then be made the original size to cut off the arrow button. The Java UI rendering technology in use is about 25 years old, good times
Funny enough what's is increasing the width the most is the 'unit avatar' image.
@Cernel do you know offhand if sidebar width is a map config? Or is it controlled by the engine?
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@LaFayette Yeah, I believe the right panel width is solely based on the minimap width for the map. Probably should just consider setting a hard minimum which the unit scroller requires. Though to @Cernel point, seeing if there are some ways to make its required width a bit smaller would be good.
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@LaFayette In my experience, the starting wideness of the right sidebar is determined soley by the wideness of the small map (that you have at the top of the right sidebar). If anything else (like the text in the action bar) is too big for these dimensions, the sidebar cannot be brought back to the original size, if anything enlarges it (for example, clicking on "Game/Show history", then on "Game/Show current game") the minimum wideness being determined by the most encumbering of the several possible items, of which the small map is one. I see this as a problem, as the right side bar should always default to the wideness determined by the small map (that is the only way a mapmaker can currently configure the wideness of the right sidebar at a skin level), or at least should be possibly manually thinned down to it after having been enlarged.
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Personally, I would have a right sidebar just wide enough to see the units and their stack numbers in the territory tab, that would be even a tad smaller of the wideness currently determined at start for Napoleonic Empires. I think a good small map wideness, in this case, may be 128 plus the wideness of the map's units (176 pixels for 48 pixels wide units and 192 pixels for 64 pixels wide units; the small map of Napoleonic Empires is 200 pixels).
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Did not read all of this thread, so please excuse if the icon controversy has been resolved.
I occurred to me that it could be the term "sleeping" that is at issue.
I it were to be thought of as "waiting" and icons were made for wait, stop all waits etc, it may be easier? -
@Mahks I'd prefer the term "standing". I agree "waiting" is better than "sleeping".
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Instead of stop, stand, wait, sleep etc. what about “Guard”. Many other games offers a “guard stance” (practically always represented by a shield) that the player can use to have selected units stop everything, hold position and guard until attacked.
Here is an example of how it could look: -
@Frostion Well, probably those games had something going on for the guarding units, I assume. It would be cool if some dynamics like this would exist also in TripleA, like only units that didn't move having some defensive bonus or being able to scramble (this last one I would really like), but nothing at all the like is currently supported, and, even if it would, that would not be the default, so it wouldn't matter for the basics.
I think that "guard" has the opposite problem as "sleep". While sleep sounds silly (will the units be attacked while they are sleeping?) and hints to something that is not really indefinite (sleeping forever in a neverending night?), but I would rather expect it is going to last at most 1 turn (even though, of course, there are usually many nights in one turn), "guard" would really make me think that those units are actually doing something, albeit static, that would give some advantage of some sort, over the units that are not in "guard" mode.
So, I'm really neutral between "sleep" and "guard". Both sound about as bad to me. But the shield image is at least better than the shovel idea, in my opinion, as at least you won't expect some trenches to eventually appear.
If "sleep" I would rather suggest a "hammock" instead of the "moon", and without the "zzz" letters.
Side note, regarding "standing", that was the nomenclature for the German "static infantries".
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The updated images look a lot better. I tried scaling them down by 90, 80, and 70%, though the scaling made the images look kinda fuzzy/bad. Seems the image size is 39x39, which is not very favorable for scaling.
Here's a number of treatments trying to decrease the width of the unit-scroller:
The images still about 10px wider than the WWII revised mini-map, so there is a bit cut-off still. To go more narrow, we may simply need slightly smaller images.
@Frostion would it be any trouble to create images that are about 32px instead of 39px?
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@LaFayette Absolutely removing both the flag and the stack number from showing on the right is obviously good (and also looks nicer, centring the images), especially considering that, in theory, you can have any numbers of units (thus wider an wider) and wildly huge "small" flags.
I agree with moving the stack number under the units images, but I would just delete the flag. There is no point having a flag in the moment it is always going to be the one of the turn player.
Once the flag is removed, there would be enough space to have "7 units" instead of just "x7", as that would make clearer all the units are being summed up, differently from the normal stack numbers, that are per each type.
32 per 32 pixels would make also more sense for general coherence with TripleA pictures.
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