Taking your suggestions for a new UI

[General_Zod]

@Hepps

Expanding on the display frame concept, how about if the entire frame changed.

So, if the territory tab was selected the whole frame was dedicated to displaying the units and other pertinent territory details. Then if you click on the stats tab button the whole frame displays all info pertaining to stats and economy. If click on actions tab the whole frame displays all pertinent action buttons, information etc..

If this concept was accepted, I would propose one frame be called the "Map Survey" frame, with zoom buttons, mini map, and all territory tab info.

[Hepps]

Ideally you could have all the expandable tabs set to either expand vertically or horizontally based on their design parameters.... then each time you open one it closes the other.

ie a territory tab would expand in place of the Consumable (fuel) bar...

Furthermore you could make each tab/window capable of being a pop up or simply expandable to a preset spot and dimension.

Or some combination there-in.

Oh and I added a fourth button.... as a way to pull the main menu of options within the game.

@redrum Is that colour more palatable?

[prastle]

@hepps I just want to know about the children Biel thing Great stuff !

[Hepps]

@prastle Well truthfully it is less about the children for me and more about getting Biel to honk on my bobo.

[prastle]

@hepps and here I thought it was your love of TripleA and Red

[General_Zod]

@hepps Nice, This is already a huge improvement on existing in-game interface.

I propose even the mini-map be collapsible, and the command tabs be their own section.

The customizable aspect would be a big hit with players for sure. Players can decide for themselves, what is important in any particular phase of the game.

[prastle]

@general_zod yup brilliant minds all of yas!

[Hepps]

@general_zod This was how I was seeing it...

And as a comparison... the black shaded area is what is currently obscured.

[Hepps]

@redrum said in Taking your suggestions for a new UI:

@hepps Can I have your children?

Not sure on the whole consumable bar concept though...

I realize that the consume bar is not a widely conceptualized idea at this point.... simply because resource consumption as part of the movement process is in so few games currently. But this is, at least in part, due to a series of inter-related factors...

1. Few games have it within the game because...

2. the few games which include it have not been worked on/refined to improve its implementation within the game because...

3. The lack of an easy way to track (visually) what you are "burning" through during moves... makes the games that have it included frustrating from a resource management perspective.... making it an undesirable feature (self fulfilling prophecy) which will all but guarantee...

4. Without developing a mechanism (Which under how I have proposed it, would create no additional clutter for games that do not have it) there is little to absolutely no chance of creating a game with fuel/consumption/maintenance integrated successfully.

[Hepps]

@general_zod said in Taking your suggestions for a new UI:

@Hepps

Also wondering, if the "Select Map", "Open Saved Game", "Download Maps" and "Map Options" buttons will be located somewhere else?

Actually all the information on that window is useful, would like to see the info in top left remain somewhere.

Sorry Zod I think I missed a bit of your comment here. Yes since this game launch screen is such a huge part of the game interface.... I am striving to change as little as possible other than the appearance.

Here is a mock up of the entire screen...

[General_Zod]

@hepps

Cool, yeah as the menu goes. I agree, we should keep all the functionality and information that the current version has, intact.

It's coming together nicely.

I must admit the in-game interface is much more exciting. Hopefully that project comes to fruition as well.

[Hepps]

@general_zod Agree the prospect of finally giving the in-game interface a face lift really puts a cucumber in my pants...

Is it obvious I might have had some materials ready to go for that at the mere mention of it?

[General_Zod]

@hepps lol, it's a wet dream come true.

[alkexr]

@hepps First impression is that there is too much distracting detail / looks a bit messy. I would maybe try to blur / darken the main menu background behind the player selection window. If that's not enough, remove the icon and the "D.S.S. Form 6" (whatever that is supposed to mean). The visual style is awesome though.

[redrum]

@hepps Hmm. And here I always thought all Canadians dreamed about Celine Dion not Jessica Biel... Though she's probably also the only famous Canadian I know. She's also a bit more in your age range though that might be less than optimal for carrying children...

[Hepps]

@redrum Thus the request for 100 tries.

[beelee]

@alkexr I wonder how much effect the "look and feel" will provide ? I know you can change it quite a bit right now. Maybe have some different camo colors or something ?

I like the way this site does it. I go with the "Darkly" as I don't like it too bright : )

[redrum]

@hepps Oh and my dislike of the resource bar is more on how I've seen maps potentially use fuel. If its something that you have a set amount per turn then I think a bar makes sense (I believe this is actually what Frostion ended up doing in Iron Wars). He essentially zeroes out any extra and you spend whatever you produce each turn. But most other maps have used it where you can stockpile and having a resource bar then doesn't really make sense to me as you don't have an "amount per turn".

[RoiEX]

The sad part about all of this is how long this is going to take to implement
While the image is done "relatively quickly" I need to consider much more things when trying to re-create the design in actual code/FXML to keep the layout adaptable to different screen sizes and actually clickable, not to mention all the internal wiring of the code.
A nice UI that doesn't do anything is not that great either ^^
Anyways I appreciate the discussion here about how the UI should look like i.e. what exact components it should have in its final state, this takes off the burden from me to be responsible to make good UI decisions ^^

[redrum]

@roiex Now you have enough material for like a year worth of development already