Achievable improvements to the Triplea User Interface

[TheDog]

@butterw
I have been using 2.5.31-bu.jar, it is working very well.

What are thoughts on
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/2798/achievable-improvements-to-the-triplea-user-interface/81?page=5

and the next post.

Specifically the

• Technology panel
• Territory hover pop-up
  as they are probably a lot of work?

[butterw]

@thedog
Even if the result is only a couple of lines of new code, most changes do require a fair bit of work.
An overhaul of the sidepanel/status bar is probably needed, but at this stage it is not very clear what it should be.
To make progress, I intend to build a (simplified) ui mockup of the tripleaFrame, which will make it easier to try out changes than with the full game app.

[TheDog]

Two nice to haves to save the player time;

• Right Click on a unit icon, invokes the unit hover pop-up.
• Right Click on a Territory, invokes the Territory hover pop-up.

[butterw]

@thedog

• It's called a (right-click, pop-up) contextual menu.

What would be the content of menu ?
What would it enable that can't be achieved with the current ui ?

• The territory quick navigation list would be a good addition, you should open a dedicated feature request post to discuss this. It would need to be saved per map per player, and the user would need to be able to manage the list (add or remove territories). It could contain the players capitals by default.

[TheDog]

@butterw
I did not mean a menu pop-up, but when you hover over a unit and then get the current unit details, this same unit pop-up could be invoked with a right mouse click on the unit.

This saves having to wait, say 2 seconds, for the pop-up to appear.

[TheDog]

The Factory Scroller has been suggested before, but did have much support, but it was only for placement. Also the Development folder tends to get ignored, as its usually too deep for most readers.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/2473/factory-scroller-for-placement-phase

I was hoping a hot key would just cycle round all factories, in any phase, so typically combat move, move and placement phases.

Then it would be dynamic and not require an input panel and a file per map, per player.

[butterw]

@thedog
I think adding a go to next factory action to the "Units to place" UnitScroller tab is what makes most sense in that case.
It would require figuring out what player unit types are factories.

[TheDog]

@butterw
There are basically two types of factory

• Factory using xml <option name="isFactory" value="true"/>
• Producer <option name="canProduceUnits" value="true"/> <!-- allows a unit to be a factory, without all the other things that come with being a factory -->

The isFactory is common in all maps, but the Producer type is not common, I have used the Producer type in my Settlers: Fallen Empire.

You have used both of the above correctly when displaying maximum units that can be produced/bought on the Purchase panel.

[butterw]

@thedog One issue with the unitScroller is that it isn't displayed during the purchase phase and I think it is also useful to be able to view factories when planning production.

• I've added a mouse action on the round label/flag icon, which I have a bound to the hide the sidePanel (Ctrl-X) command. Hiding the sidePanel currently resets it to its starting size.

-The default map text font size has been increased from 12 to 24 (this setting is used when reset to default is used). I am also thinking about splitting in one font size for unit counts (default: 24) and another font size for territory/PUs/Convoy (default: 18) used in Maps like POS2.

• Having the tabs on a single line is a improvement IMO. It also makes finding the command/action tab much easier.

@thedog Status Bar: move to the top of the screen.
Moving the whole status bar to the top of the screen would not be practical, but the status label could be moved to the menubar. Maps with territory effects and multiple ressources are quite badly constrained currently, so it should be looked at.
It would of course be possible to remove the bottom bar if the contents were moved elsewhere.

[TheDog]

@butterw said in Achievable improvements to the Triplea User Interface:

@thedog One issue with the unitScroller is that it isn't displayed during the purchase phase and I think it is also useful to be able to view factories when planning production.

I agree, are you thinking of using the unitScroller as a factoryScroller in the purchase phase?

• I've added a mouse action on the round label/flag icon, which I have a bound to the hide the sidePanel (Ctrl-X) command. Hiding the sidePanel currently resets it to its starting size.

Is this the Flag bottom right of the screen?

-The default map text font size has been increased from 12 to 24 (this setting is used when reset to default is used). I am also thinking about splitting in one font size for unit counts (default: 24) and another font size for territory/PUs/Convoy (default: 18) used in Maps like POS2.

Is this so they occupy less space?

• Having the tabs on a single line is a improvement IMO. It also makes finding the command/action tab much easier.

Agreed

@thedog Status Bar: move to the top of the screen.
Moving the whole status bar to the top of the screen would not be practical, but the status label could be moved to the menubar. Maps with territory effects and multiple ressources are quite badly constrained currently, so it should be looked at.

The right click Territory popup would solve the above?

It would of course be possible to remove the bottom bar if the contents were moved elsewhere.

Oooh yes it could, some of it could go into the right click on a Territory popup?
I think the far right of the status bar should stay where is, but put it inside the right hand panel

[butterw]

@thedog
The standard delay for java tooltip is about 1s, whereas the tooltip on units only comes up after 2s. I would assume this extra delay is deliberate...

There probably should be an option to prevent unit tooltips from displaying on the map.

[TheDog]

@butterw
Or use a switch Hover or Right Click on a unit or territory to get their tooltip as I think you will always have the need to see the unit or territory detail.

[butterw]

A lot of the issues with the territory detail is that the info display isn't optimized. It works OK as long as the map doesn't use too many special features (ex: 5 players, no terrain effects, PUs as single ressource, only basic units).
Optimizing (simplifying) the output (territory detail, tooltip) would make it much easier to fit the info on screen for complex maps.

[TheDog]

@butterw
Agreed.

My current preference is for a right click on the territory over hover over a territory as its instant and no waiting around.

Here is a list of the info that could be displayed on the territory popup.
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/2798/achievable-improvements-to-the-triplea-user-interface/82

[LaFayette]

We should only be careful about choosing carefully right click functionality. Right click and drag might be a nicer way to move the map. If so, then detecting a single right click vs a right click and drag could be problematic. Overall right click is underused, so ideally we'd design it to be used somehow. A context menu with more options than info might be good. For example, instead of requiring a player to know 'ctrl+b', we could have the battle calc for a territory be part of the right click. Right click might be well used for undoing of actions, so that is another thing to consider.

[butterw]

@lafayette said in Achievable improvements to the Triplea User Interface:

We should only be careful about choosing carefully right click functionality. Right click and drag might be a nicer way to move the map. If so, then detecting a single right click vs a right click and drag could be problematic. Overall right click is underused, so ideally we'd design it to be used somehow. A context menu with more options than info might be good. For example, instead of requiring a player to know 'ctrl+b', we could have the battle calc for a territory be part of the right click. Right click might be well used for undoing of actions, so that is another thing to consider.

A contextual menu/info display on territory/zones seems like an interesting idea.
RIght click +/OR a keyboard key could be used (ex: MENU key).

[butterw]

The current menus are a bit troublesome to work with because most items are added in a slightly different way. This makes modifications more difficult than they should be. I'm doing a mockup of the tripleaframe that should allow testing out changes easily (it will handle the menuBar and the splitPane initially).
I will be looking into making the menubar hideable (while retaining the hotkeys defined in menus) and will hopefully have a new dev build this week.
My approach is to set height of menubar to zero when hidden. The menus remain accessible with Alt+Mnemonic (F, V, G, etc.) or F10 (opens the _File menu on Windows) even if the menubar is not displayed.
When collapsed with CTRL+X, the sidepanel will be completely hidden, and will remember it's previous position. I'm adding a separate command to reset the sidepanel size.

[beelee]

@butterw said in Achievable improvements to the Triplea User Interface:

A contextual menu/info display on territory/zones seems like an interesting idea.
RIght click +/OR a keyboard key could be used (ex: MENU key).

yea it'd b nice to be able to activate the Territory tab and scroll without having to have the cursor up top and then moved over to it

[pact_of_plastic]

well I've not read through all 6 pages on this forum and I hope I'm not being redundant with this concern. When There are a lot of units in a territory, I click the territory tab to see the list of the units on the right of the screen. The list is too long for the window and there is a scroll bar, however after clicking the territory tab, then the map location, as I bring my mouse back to the scroll bar the territory tab window doesn't maintain focus on the territory I wanted info on. Instead it reacts to whatever map locations I hover over on my way back to the territory tab scroll bar making it useless. Is there something I'm doing incorrectly? I've tried the arrow keys, shift and cntl clicking etc. to no avail. Here is a screenshot if it helps anyone understand what I'm talking about. You can see that I can't see my bombers in the territory info tab and I can't find a way to get that scroll bar to work. Thanks

![alt text]

[TheDog]

@pact_of_plastic
Yes its a common problem.
The current answer is to move the map territory next to the right hand Action/Players panel and then you scroll the units.

This is one of the fixes under consideration.