Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea

Cernel

@Frostion Good idea. The fact that the skip not only skips but also moves to the next unit like when you click on the right arrow should be visualized. Probably that arrow should stay above the shield too, then.

LaFayette

@Frostion I like that last mockup. There's room as well where we could give individual unit counts maybe (top right). If there are too many units, then displaying a second/third row maybe is an option.

I wonder how it would look when we have a map like WaW where you may have 3 or 4 countries in one territory, with 3-5 different unit types each.

Second, I wonder if it's needed to display the units from other countries and not just for the current player.

Re: center button

For consideration, we could make the unit avatar image clickable itself, in which case we may not need the center button. I'd rather have a center button than players learn to hack it with left/right.

Highlight and flags

I'd agree the buttons don't need to be in the unit scroller, the original intent was for them to be elsewhere.

The original intent behind them is to avoid 'magic hotkeys'. There are a couple of UX principles at play here (coming from "The Design of Everyday Things", a great read and I highly recommend it):

Usage of a UI should be available through visual inspection. IE: you should be able to know how to use something by just looking at it. For example, lego pieces, you can just look at them to know that they are stackable, or a bike, by looking at it you can tell where your butt is supposed to go and then the rest of your body.

In our case, we have global 'magic hotkeys' that violate this. There is nothing to tell you that there is a hotkey to highlight all and to toggle flags. This violates the principle above. While we do have some text buried in a help menu, we're still violating the usability principle.

So, if we go back and start with having a button, there is a second UX principle at play (that we jumped directly to before satisfying (1)):

Allow power users shortcuts. Keyboards are an example of this, each key is labelled, you can hunt and peck, eventually users will touch type. Photoshop is another great example, new users spend a lot of time in the menus and then eventually learn hotkeys. Ultimately, hotkeys is the principle in action.

With all that said, basically we shouldn't have any hotkeys without some sort of UI icon to represent it, where users can hove over the icon to then learn the hotkey.

IT turns out as well we do not have very many global hotkeys. We have hotkeys for territory actions. With the above principles in mind, it becomes a bit more obvious that when hovering we probably should render a menu indicator of some sort, or give a right click menu that displays the territory options and their hotkeys.

In this feature, because I was adding additional global hotkeys, I added the buttons as part of the series so that we could solve this UX problem at the level of global hotkeys, AFAIK all "global" (active no matter where the mouse is) hotkeys have UI elements corresponding to them.

So.. If there is another home/location on the screen where we can move the 'flags' and 'highlight' all hotkeys, I'm all for it.

Cernel

@LaFayette said in Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea:

So.. If there is another home/location on the screen where we can move the 'flags' and 'highlight' all hotkeys, I'm all for it.

My opinion is remove the flag button and any hotkey for it, leaving it as a menu option only.

I'm not a fan of the highlight, but that can stay.

Captain Crunch

ok I clearly gave some "effort" Likes there

LaFayette

An updated thought on unit sorting. I'm tempted to go with something simple, am considering to just sort by unit movement.

Frostion

@LaFayette said in Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea:

For consideration, we could make the unit avatar image clickable itself, in which case we may not need the center button. I'd rather have a center button than players learn to hack it with left/right.

I think if you make the units in the scroller clickable, that would be geat. Click unit = Center on territory and Highlight units on map. I think for players to really noticing this feature, the unit pictures in the scroller should auto-highlight when mouse-hovering over them.

The original intent behind them is to avoid 'magic hotkeys'.

I agree that hotkeys should not be secret/only for the enlightened. But, I don’t think it is neither practical nor realistic to have every single feature that has a hotkey represented by a graphical button. Best to leave some features just be in the drop down menus, with no UI graphical representation.

I would propose icons/buttons for every single most commonly used feature of the “new player” / casual gamer. (Here I go again, talking on behalf of new and casual gamers :-P) But seriously, experienced users will probably use hotkeys EVEN if there are buttons for the same things, casual gamers will not. Casual gamers will look for and use buttons, just like in other games than TripleA.

That’s why I would propose that drop down menus be reserved for advanced features, exit, save etc., not stuff needed while playing the game.

Stuff needed while playing should have buttons. Also, whatever has a button on the main screen or in the tabs, should be removed from the drop down menus, as to not flood the menu with duplicates.

Proposal:
Maybe buttons can be set in a height/width size flexible box under the Minimap. I think this location would be nice, intuitively and discrete. Minimaps in other games are almost always accompanied with icons/buttons for convenient and easy control.

What do I think should be represented as buttons on the UI?

Based on my own game play + what I frequently go and pull from the menus + what I think would accommodate new players as well as advanced players, I have made these two mockups:

• Notes (Opens window with notes – Maybe notes should be removed from tabs and presented in window instead? But, I am not all sure about this one)
• Sound (on/off)
• Hotkey Help (Opens up a window informing about every single hotkey available)
• Flags (shuffles small, large and none)
• Roll Dice (open Roll Dice window. After rolling, result pops up for all players, if it is multiplayer)
• Unit Help (open Unit Help – Should be renamed Unit Information (and Ctrl+i))
• Politics Panel (open Politics window)
• History (shuffles history and “current game” mode)
• Battle Calculator (open Battle Calculator)

I have tried to list these buttons in the order I think could be practical.

Buttons are filled with 16x16 icons, with NO spacing around them. I have placed the buttons in a box/frame as I imagine the box would look like if made just like the resources/territories/flag boxes in the bottom bar. I imagine that, if the minimap was as smaller than like 200 px wide, then the buttons would be pushed to become lined up in two rows. (Alternativly, maybe minimaps should just be set to auto size adjust to be minimum 233 px wide? If this is even a practical possibility. Or all minimaps just resized to be minimum 233 px wide or something in this range.)
MinimapHotkeyIcons.zip

redrum

@Frostion I like the ideas. I'd have to think a bit more about which features get a button but you have a good list to start with. I'd also like to eventually swap the mini map to the bottom instead of the top of the right panel and then have your proposed buttons above them instead of below.

LaFayette

@Frostion the elements you suggested as buttons, would they also appear as menu items?

I agree that hotkeys should not be secret/only for the enlightened. But, I don’t think it is neither practical nor realistic to have every single feature that has a hotkey represented by a graphical button. Best to leave some features just be in the drop down menus, with no UI graphical representation.

But seriously, experienced users will probably use hotkeys EVEN if there are buttons for the same things, casual gamers will not. Casual gamers will look for and use buttons, just like in other games than TripleA.

I pretty much agree. Menu items are a good example, new users will browse through the menus to see what is available and they can also learn the hotkeys. Eventually users stop scrolling through the menus and they use the hotkeys directly.

It's the same thing with buttons, you discover the button on the UI, hovertext then tells you the hotkey, you can then stop clicking the button and use the hotkey. The buttons are not intended to be clicked in the long term, but as a way for users to know about the hotkeys and the actions behind those hotkeys.

Contrast that with the old pattern where we add the hotkey and add a line item in the movement help text.

Frostion

@LaFayette said in Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea:

@Frostion the elements you suggested as buttons, would they also appear as menu items?

As I see it, the menu items would be unnecessary duplications. It should be enough to have info hovertext explaining the corresponding hotkeys. The menu items should be kept as minimal as possible, for simplicity.

new users will browse through the menus to see what is available and they can also learn the hotkeys. Eventually users stop scrolling through the menus and they use the hotkeys directly.

you discover the button on the UI, hovertext then tells you the hotkey, you can then stop clicking the button and use the hotkey. The buttons are not intended to be clicked in the long term, but as a way for users to know about the hotkeys.

Some players might do like that, but I don't think everybody. At least not me and my pals that I play LAN with.

Speaking for my self, I personally ONLY use "i", "Ctrl+B" and "Space" when available. I have begun using the unit scroller, but have no intention of using its hotkeys. If the UI buttons I presented were implemented, I don't think I would even use Ctrl+B anymore, as I would see it as more convenient to just press the UI battle calculator button. My usage of the menu items would probably be limited to mostly editing, but I consider the editing feature an advanced feature. I use it a lot as mapmaker to set up and test out stuff.

I don't know how normal my playstyle is, but I don't think it is that uncommon to stick with UI buttons. I acknowledge that TripleA might have many players using hotkeys, but that might be partly because of the previous/current lack of UI buttons. Players (that did not uninstall immediately after seeing the UI or give up on the game before even learning it) have adjusted to the cumbersome UI.

Cernel

@Frostion said in Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea:

Speaking for my self, I personally ONLY use "i", "Ctrl+B" and "Space" when available. I have begun using the unit scroller, but have no intention of using its hotkeys. If the UI buttons I presented were implemented, I don't think I would even use Ctrl+B anymore, as I would see it as more convenient to just press the UI battle calculator button. My usage of the menu items would probably be limited to mostly editing, but I consider the editing feature an advanced feature. I use it a lot as mapmaker to set up and test out stuff.

I guess you are talking about the stable, as Ctrl+A and Ctrl+D are too good.

Also, the edit feature is a rather basic feature. Pretty much every regular player use it every now and then.

Cernel

@Frostion said in Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea:

Buttons are filled with 16x16 icons, with NO spacing around them. I have placed the buttons in a box/frame as I imagine the box would look like if made just like the resources/territories/flag boxes in the bottom bar. I imagine that, if the minimap was as smaller than like 200 px wide, then the buttons would be pushed to become lined up in two rows. (Alternativly, maybe minimaps should just be set to auto size adjust to be minimum 233 px wide? If this is even a practical possibility. Or all minimaps just resized to be minimum 233 px wide or something in this range.)
MinimapHotkeyIcons.zip

If going for a specific minumum (which I certainly don't agree with, as it should be rather dependent on some variable items, like the units size specified in map.properties, since I can make a game with 32 pixels wide unit or a game with 256 pixels wide units, for example), it seems more logical to take 200 pixels as a minumum, as that is a round number and there are maps that have a smallMap of wideness in between of 233 and 200 pixels. 200 pixels may also be more than enough to visualize all information in the players tab.

beelee

@Cernel What does ctrl +D do ? I don't see it listed anywhere and it didn't do anything when I fired up the game ?

Cernel

@beelee Add the defenders to the BC. But its opposite, Ctrl+A, is even more useful; I use it a lot. Not in the release, as I said; that's why I wonder @Frostion is still on old, or should I say current.

Cernel

@Cernel About the edit feature, it is particularly common to edit moves that you anticipated (illegally) during Combat Move, then changed your mind (or the dice made you!), or editing units in and out during Place Units (substantially doing or un-doing movements during placement). For the games having Purchase Units before Combat Move, it is also common telling, during the latter, than you changed your mind about your buy, then editing what you said during Place Units.

Pretty much, it will take very little time for the common TripleA player to start using the edit function quite often, I'd say. About the next step after starting playing the game at all, with other persons, at least. There are some people around that prefer playing with no edits, as a matter of personal preference, but they are definitely a small minority, I tell you.

Hepps

Good discussion, but a bit difficult as we're bring up many topics.
For minimap move, I opened this thread:

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/1664/moving-minimap-to-bottom-of-action-panel

I still really like the last mockup posted by @Frostion :
https://forums.triplea-game.org/post/29322

looks good
has more space for more units
unit images are not scrunched up
we could have multiple rows of images, which would be cool to convey large armies
we gain space to give counts for each unit type

To get there:

flags button: flags used to be a combination of two settings in the menu. That means we could not really have a hotkey for it, the hotkey that was added turned it on/off. As a menu item, there is no problem with having the hotkey displayed in the menu and removing the UI button.
Unit highlight, this is a heavily used feature at times, for others at other times not at all. I would prefer for this to be a UI button. We could though create a menu setting for this. For it to make more sense, I think we'd want it to be toggle on and toggle off, rather than activated for the 2 or 3 seconds and then auto-turns off.
Unit center, we could make the unit images clickable, give them a roll-over effect maybe to make it clickable, or just not have a unit center button at all.

The above gets rid of a row of buttons, then it's a matter of rendering the avatar images differently, and we can perhaps get to the nicer UI treatment.

Some questions:

any thoughts if the unit scroller should be similar to the place panel? IE: always visible with a button to collapse/expand the view
if we have minimap rendered on the bottom of the action panel, should unit scroller be above the minimap, or should it be located at the top of the action panel (ie: top-right)?

Frostion

I added a few new icons to the collection:

History On/Off
Sound On/Off
Edit On/Off
AI Play Pause (Yes, I know this feature does not exist … yet )
AI Play Continue

v2-minimaphotkeyicons.zip

And here are the 37x37 territory scroller icons .... I hope they get used in the pre-releases
v5-icons-37x37-newskip.zip

Cernel

@Frostion said in Screen centering/cycling around map UI idea:

Also…
The icon for “skip” is OK, but I do not see that the piktogram really represents of the concept of “skipping” something. I have tried to make a new icon looking more like a skip (w. check mark). Here is a new version of the icon set. Is this skip looking better?
V5-Icons-37x37-NewSkip.zip

The light-bulb actually makes me think to something related to technology, as I think it is usually the symbol of having an idea.

I was thinking maybe going back to the sun, but without the sun, only the rays, to mean light emission without meaning sunshine.

Practically this or something like this (this one is not that good, as I just cut out the inner part):

Cernel

The credits you can access via Help/About still mention the "Noun Project" for the Lantern and Flag buttons, as of 2.0.17017.

Regardless, I would avoid using images requiring crediting, as it feels strange that such a minor part of TripleA gets credited, so better limit all to public domain images. Just my suggestion, as I can see TripleA, by now, having an enormous credit list, if going that way in the past, and it is a liability having to update credits every time something is changed that might be referenced in them (easy missing it, keeping crediting inexistent items or wrongly crediting existent ones).

While I'm sure @Frostion intended the images he provided to be free from crediting, he didn't clearly did so, so maybe the forum itself would benefit from a declared policy that at least if you don't say otherwise whatever you post becomes public domain or something.

Cernel

I think the best would be having the unmoved units scroller absent by default except a good sized, spacebar-like, button that allows you to have it appear, so that you would click on that when you want to use the scroller, and have more action bar space until them (or for all the phase, if you never use the scroller). Likely the scroller is just going to be used towards the end of your phase, mostly to double check you haven't missed anything. Of course, this would require @Frostion making yet another image for this button to show the scroller.

Cernel

Also, once you have skipped or stationed all you can, the scroller should completely disappear, except only the activate button (I would call it "reactivate", rather). Or anyways, I don't think the current behaviour of keeping showing the last unit you skipped or stationed is good, as it doesn't clearly inform you have finished them all and it is inconsistent with the behaviour at any time beforehand.