Interface Wish List

ralphtricky · Post by **ralphtricky** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:41 pm

The next release is going to be focusing on the interface. I've got a couple of major things planned, and probably some minor ones. I'm looking for suggestions that I may not have thought of. I'm looking for minor things that I can do quickly that will help people.

Things that I'm thinking about...
NOTE: Just because I'm looking into them, doesn't mean that they'll happen.
Windows fonts. This may open up translation to the non-European languages like Russian and Serbo-Croation. It definitely opens up being able to scale the interface sometime down the road for those of us that have problems seeing thengs because they just don't make displays like they used to.[:-] It also allows for the use of Color in some screens. I don't know if I can get the windows fonts to look good enough, though.

Scaling of the 'big' map, both bigger and smaller.

2D counters on the 3D map.

Things that I'm not looking at.
Unicode
Complete graphics rewrite for larger screens, moving the screens out of the way, etc.

rhinobones · Post by **rhinobones** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:58 pm

How about making the Deploy and Orders menus cascade off each other? Would be real nice to be able to make both selections with one mouse movement.

Regards, RhinoBones

Industrial · Post by **Industrial** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:06 pm

pop-up fullsize window of the small overview map (the one in the bottom right corner).

jump to next unit with movement points left and not engaged in combat, with an ability to 'skip' a unit and TOAW remembering that, not selecting that unit again in a new cycle.

The formation-highlight should have a different color representing the cooperation of the formation, maybe just recolor the upper part of the hexagon, to reflect free, force, army or internal support.

a scrollbar in the turn-replay which lets us fast forward/backward to a specific point in the replay, especially usefull for these 10.000+ turn replay scenarios

a hotkey to highlight airfields/roads/railroads/ports etc, maybe play a small animation to make finding them easier

an option to disable the mousepointer-jump-to-dialoge when a new dialog popps up, sometimes pretty irritating

menue option to set the window-scroll speed to fast/faster/really fast etc

option to automatically dig-in all units with movement points left

JAMiAM · Post by **JAMiAM** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:12 pm

ORIGINAL: Industrial

option to automatically dig-in all units with movement points left

We had this early in development, but dropped it, since it was too easy to choose it by mistake and then be unable to undo it, since you may have already moved on and selected another action. If we were to try to restore this function, we would need to make sure that we had some warnings incorporated, ensuring that it wasn't chosen by accident.

JAMiAM · Post by **JAMiAM** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:13 pm

Currently the HQ button toggles HQ's and Artillery to be on the top of stacks. Maybe we can put another toggle point in there and cycle through HQ>Artillery>Engineering? That way, we can find our engineering units more easily.

Industrial · Post by **Industrial** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:25 pm

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: Industrial

option to automatically dig-in all units with movement points left

We had this early in development, but dropped it, since it was too easy to choose it by mistake and then be unable to undo it, since you may have already moved on and selected another action. If we were to try to restore this function, we would need to make sure that we had some warnings incorporated, ensuring that it wasn't chosen by accident.

Make it only available from the top-menue, you usually dont select anything from there during playing your turn, so it would be pretty safe. Maybe put it into the Play menu?

Legun · Post by **Legun** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 2:05 am

I hope that the discussion doesn't end before I've seen TOAW3

Anyway, I would like to see some options I don't expect in TOAW3:
- a way to show range of selected unit fire (art, air) or supply enhancement (supply unit) on the map
- an option showing orders (loss settings) in a formation window instead of "location"
- a second OOB window showing orders and postion (defending, etc) instead of formation and location
- OOB window(s) sortable by units types and army (counter colour)
- the support sub-window in "plans for attack" window divided to "support" and "potential support" (all artillery and air unit in range, but with unsupporting status (mobile, rest)

be continued..

I want to start such discussion on realted TDG sub-forum:
http://www.tdg.nu/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=TOAW3

Legun · Post by **Legun** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 2:14 am

- a list of objectives with value and possesion
- a description of VP conditions (events) in separated txt file, shown by a hotkey 
- house rules in separated txt file, shown by a hotkey

Silvanski · Post by **Silvanski** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:43 am

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

Currently the HQ button toggles HQ's and Artillery to be on the top of stacks. Maybe we can put another toggle point in there and cycle through HQ>Artillery>Engineering? That way, we can find our engineering units more easily.

Excellent idea ! I spend so much time looking for my rail repair units [X(]

larryfulkerson · Post by **larryfulkerson** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 4:46 am

ralphtricky · Post by **ralphtricky** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 5:04 am

Larry,
Did you knwo that the + and - keys work on most screens now?[:'(]

Ralph

a white rabbit · Post by **a white rabbit** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:26 am

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

Currently the HQ button toggles HQ's and Artillery to be on the top of stacks. Maybe we can put another toggle point in there and cycle through HQ>Artillery>Engineering? That way, we can find our engineering units more easily.

..and bridging units, and supply units, all the attached occasional use stuff

..oh, and bringing to the top all of a given formation including all sub-divided units

larryfulkerson · Post by **larryfulkerson** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:49 am

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
Larry,
Did you knwo that the + and - keys work on most screens now?[:'(]
Ralph

Yeah, but to use the + and - keys I gotta take my hand off the mouse and carry it all the way over to the keyboard. Takes at least 1/2 second and I ain't got that kinda time sometimes. You understand, I'm sure.

KarlXII · Post by **KarlXII** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:57 am

My suggestions to improving the UI are:

- Be able to see total attack & defense strenght on a stack. Now it is hard to judge how strong your stacks are against enemy stacks if you have a long line of defense. It could be toggled with a key or something and like floating numbers or something ?

- Show the Supply Points along the whole line of communication back to the supply source so you easily can see your line of supply and that you have one.

- Perhaps another color on units which are unsupplied ? or a mark on them ?

dobeln · Post by **dobeln** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 9:46 am

First off - thanks for keeping development going. Have been having a blast against the AI(!) in several scenarios (Playing the Ottomans in the Balkan 1912 scenario is a big challenge

), and PBEM is as good as ever.

My interface suggestions:

Stack composition window: (repeat of my old suggestion, but hey...)

- Shrink the "remaining impulses" element (the star circle) in the sidebar and instead put the "stack composition" view right below the "unit information" window in the sidebar.

OR

- Make it optional to switch the "unit information" window for the "stack composition" window.

Rationale: Would help the monster scenarios a lot, and even the smaller ones. (Pressing "C" over every stack gets old fast.)

Dig in all units with remaining movement
Big timesaver - just make it a top menu item with a "confirm" window. (As discussed earlier in the thread) Alternatively, just make all units that do not have reserve orders dig in at turn end. (optional, of course)

Will try to think of more things, but that's the two first items on my list.

hank · Post by **hank** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 1:17 pm

my $0.02
 
- already being looked at:  be able to change fonts
 
- add slider bars to any text box that typically has a long document to view like the sce description
 
- make pop-up windows movable (especially the group composition box and the battle report box)
 
- one of my biggest suggestions because of all the text and numbers a player has to read through to get an idea of how his battle    and units are doing:::::
- EITHER: 1-add "status bars" to the "Situational Briefing" window to help depict the status of your forces without having to calculate  what the numbers mean. (i.e., if force proficiency is 60% show a bar 60% shaded ... that's an easy one; supply status is a good one ... what does 25% mean? if its 25% of the total capacity a bar shaded 25% would help; rail capacity; airlift capacity; etc.)  There's only a few pieces of information that this would help with mainly in the Situational Briefing window.
  OR: re-align the text so the colons or numbers are lined up vertically and easy for you eyes to track down through the numbers to quickly see how every thing is progressing (or digressing)
  The same goes for the Unit Box's Strengths and Special Abilities windows; either status bars or realign the text so the colons are vertical (center justified text is OK for titles but for data left justified or "colon" justified is easier for eyes to scan through)
 
- I already figured out how to change the backgrounds in the various info boxes (especially the detailed battle report) ... so this isn't on my list
 
- Add buttons to bring armored units to the top of a stack; and one for infantry; and one for engineers; and one for arty ... like the button for bringing the HQ's to the top of the stack
 
- Add a button to bring up a text box that reads the sitrep.txt file and puts it in a pop-up window (with scroll bars to pan down through the report)
 
this is a wish list topic ... so there's mine
[&o]

PaladinSix · Post by **PaladinSix** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:15 pm

To add to the earlier suggestion about highlighting the rail network, that would be a lot more useful if you could also show the hexes at which the rail lines are broken. Maybe just an orange highlight on all rail lines, but show any broken hexes in red, or something like that. Currently, unless your eyes are better than mine, you have to slowly scroll over every rail hex and watch the info panel to be sure if the line is intact or not.

Come to think of it, is it possible to reorganize the info panel at the bottom of the screen? Just space things out a little, with predictable locations (and maybe color-coded). For instance, the hex location could be separate, in large, bold print at the very bottom left corner, then separate, distinct areas for terrain, reconaissance, rail/road info, etc. Simply cramming it all into one line of text makes it kind of hard to quickly scan for information.

Lastly, is it possible to add a third option to the button that switches between movement/attack factors? Specifically, I'm thinking of a toggle for unit designations. Obviously, the info on the enemy would be limited by intelligence and recon, but it would be handy to quickly identify the unit and parent formation of friendly units. Plus, think of the value in being able get an intelligence officer's view of the front and determine which enemy units seem to be split up to understrength.

Just a few thoughts,

PaladinSix

alaric99x · Post by **alaric99x** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:33 pm

I second the motion about rail lines.  It's very difficult to see broken rail hexes, I've had to do a lot of scrolling myself to find them.  It might be possible to leave them as they are but include a button or command that would highlight them in some way.

Silvanski · Post by **Silvanski** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 6:38 pm

ORIGINAL: alaric99x

I second the motion about rail lines. It's very difficult to see broken rail hexes, I've had to do a lot of scrolling myself to find them. It might be possible to leave them as they are but include a button or command that would highlight them in some way.

This might help (on the minimized map)

Industrial · Post by **Industrial** » Mon Jul 10, 2006 7:26 pm

I though it might be a good idea to post this here too (posted it at SZO already), even if it's not GUI related, it's still one of my biggest TOAW pet peeves and prevented me from upgrading to TOAW III so far [:D]

-------------< here we go >------------

Oh, one last thing, it's not GUI but it's my Nr. 1 annoyance in the world of TOAW: give players an option to _disable_ turn-burns and early turn endings!

I cant think of any example in history where one part of the front paused to wait for an strategically and tactically unconnected part of the front to finish its fighting.

Was Army Group north pausing to wait for AGS to breach the Stalin Line?

Was the Normandy Invasion put on hold becaus ethe Allies were engaged in Italy?

Did the US stopped their attack on Baghdad because the british had troubles in Basra?

Was Operation Bagration suddenly stopped because the finnish managed to put a pretty cunning defence?

Strategically linked battles are already covered pretty well, if a battle isn't resolved succesfully and for example a road-blocking unit still resisting, all units who wanted to advance that way will have to wait a little longer, no problem there. But if this battle to destroy the roadfblock takes 5-combat turns, why should any other part of the front stop its advance?

Same goes for early turn endings, I simply don't see any reason at all why a turn should end early. A turn of 10 rounds represents xx hours, with an early turn ending we have a situation where all of a sudden several (up to) days are simply missing from a week, where an entire front 'forgets' to dig in because the orders can't be given. Where, after finally clearing the persistant roadblock, the invading forces 'forget' to advance and sit idle for days....
If you want to simulate disruped chain of command, with orders not getting through, there are way better ways to model it! Like putting the specific formation thats cut off in reOrg, or (and I like that version better) half a cut-off's formation MovementPoints, to simulate the delay in orders.

I know that TOAW III allows scenario designers to modify it, yet players still have no control over these features, but they should have. It belongs into the advanced rules, and both players should be able to decide prior to playing a scenario whether they want early-turn-endings/turn burns or not.