MWIF Game Interface Design

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Another writeup for a US naval unit. If you look closely at the previous screen shot you will see that the white number 4 for the units are somewhat incomplete. That has to do with transparency and I wil clean it up eventaully.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here's one for a Siam naval unit. The US is reviewing the units so the theme colors are for the USA. A somewhat timely description of the 1951 incident. eh what?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here's a writeup for an Australian naval unit. You can see the problem with the white text more noticeably for this unit.

Terje has done a lot of these writeups but there are hundreds more to do. For example, only the Australian and New Zealand naval units have been done for the Commonwealth. I am still looking for people who will put together similar writeups for the other countries in the Commonwealth.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

And here is an example of the Japanese theme colors. Terje has done writeups for all the USA and Japanese naval units, and for the other countries in the Pacific. The French, German, and Italian navies have big white empty spaces for their writeups presently.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Last in the series. I wanted to show the French theme colors, and at the same time, the form that presents information on trade agreements. These are for the start of the Global War scenario - I set up the USA convoys badly and the Japanese haven't set up theirs yet. The form uses a TFixedListView component and I want to replace it so I can adjust the color for the column headers correctly.

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here's a writeup for an Australian naval unit. You can see the problem with the white text more noticeably for this unit.

Terje has done a lot of these writeups but there are hundreds more to do. For example, only the Australian and New Zealand naval units have been done for the Commonwealth. I am still looking for people who will put together similar writeups for the other countries in the Commonwealth.

We seem to be running into the full-stop/comma cultural divide again. 88.000 hp? It's a good thing it only displaces 13.22 tons. There's a double full stop on the end too.

Also, should be background colour for the Japanese be slightly less pink/purple and more of a low saturation red?

Cheers, Neilster

[Froonp]

Here are some screen shots of the naval descritptions that Terje has been working on. I apologize for the irregular spacing in the text - I haven't quite decided on how to present paragraph text. I probably will write a little whip-de-doo routine that formats text descriptions using symbol combinations to denote new paragraphs (e.g., ".P" means new paragraph). Then I will remove extraneous blanks.

I like all those screens.

Nit pickers would ask for figure units to be uniformous through the naval units writups, for comparisons purposes. I suggest using millimeters instead of inches for armor and gun caliber (if I'm right that most of the world people uses mm instead of inches). Also use the right thousands separator, probably comma though the writups.

Also, why is the shadowing effect not showing on units in this dialog ?

Also, these writeups are real cool and real good reading, even for me who is kind of a WWII geek !!! Congrats to Terje !
and while I'm at congrats, congrats to Greyshaft for the Planes writups, and to Steve for the whole packaging !

Keep the faith dudes !!!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Here are some screen shots of the naval descritptions that Terje has been working on. I apologize for the irregular spacing in the text - I haven't quite decided on how to present paragraph text. I probably will write a little whip-de-doo routine that formats text descriptions using symbol combinations to denote new paragraphs (e.g., ".P" means new paragraph). Then I will remove extraneous blanks.

I like all those screens.

Nit pickers would ask for figure units to be uniformous through the naval units writups, for comparisons purposes. I suggest using millimeters instead of inches for armor and gun caliber (if I'm right that most of the world people uses mm instead of inches). Also use the right thousands separator, probably comma though the writups.

Also, why is the shadowing effect not showing on units in this dialog ?

Also, these writeups are real cool and real good reading, even for me who is kind of a WWII geek !!! Congrats to Terje !
and while I'm at congrats, congrats to Greyshaft for the Planes writups, and to Steve for the whole packaging !

Keep the faith dudes !!!

There are many contributors and I thank you all for your continuing assistance. The alternatives are either for the product to be poorer or for me to take more time filling in the missing pieces and/or locating and fixing mistakes.

As for measurements, I lean towards English for English speaking countries and Metric for non-English speaking countries. My logic here is rather simple: the literature on the ships (and other units) is likely to use the same measurements that the owning country uses. On the other hand, I will go with commas for thousands and periods for decimal points - just for consistency.

For the shadowing, I am only using it for the units when they are on the map - at the present time.

As you can see from the unit writeup screen, there are two sizes of unit depictions on the forms: zoom level 8 (the big one) and zoom level 4 (the smaller one). I use Z8 when showing one or two units on a form and Z4 when showing a list of units (either horizontal or vertical). Z4 is hard to read, but if the unit resoultion is set to medium that problem is solved.

For the last couple of days I have been messing around with the various components that you see here. For example, the unit data panel, which lists all the numeric factors for an individual unit now uses a slightly larger font and takes up a little more room. I also readjusted all the numbers so the colons (':') line up vertically. If you compare the air and naval units - and the different types of naval units - you will see that the layout for their information changes slightly.

Besides having both vertical and horizontal units lists, the lists vary depending on whether the status indicators are shown and whether there is any text under the unit. During setup it is important for the setup form/tray to have text describing each unit, but the status indicators have no value since every unit is the same (selectable). On the unit review form (used to display the unit descriptions amongst other things), the text is off to the side and the status indicators are omitted. This stuff varies from form to form and there are about 40 different ones that contain unit lists. I minimize the space required to display each unit whenever possbile. I am fighting smoe weird Delphi internal procedures about the sequence in which component variables are instantiated at the present. Once I get that settled, I'll define which forms get text and which get status indicators.

Then I will be able to go back and decide about using shadowing and outlining for the unit depictions in the forms. Probably yes for those at Z8, prossibly no for thse at Z4. By the way, I have fixed the transparency problem so the whites are whiter.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Neilster
...

Also, should be background colour for the Japanese be slightly less pink/purple and more of a low saturation red?

Cheers, Neilster

Yeah, I partially agree. The artist did the textured backgrounds and I am pretty happy with them all - even the Japanese one. What I have done on my own is try to match the textured background with a solid color. I was able to do that rather well for the French. If you look at the French Setup tray the text "Center map on setup area" is against a solid color, not the textured background. For most of the other major powers I wasn't able to get as close a match but they are ok. The exception is for the Japanese, where the matching color veers too far towards purple. I'l try to improve it - though I know from past experience that modifying red is difficult to do when using RGB.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here's a replacement color for the Japanese.

The Barbarossa tab is the Japanese unit color. The Missed the Bus tab is using the old solid color and Guadalcanal is using the new one I am proposing. It has higher contrast, which makes it easier to read black text against the background (its primary purpose for existing). Just so you know, I would prefer to use the textured background everywhere but not all the graphical interface components support the use of bitmapped backgrounds: radio buttons, checkboxes, and tabs are 3 places where I couldn't get around that restriction.

[Anendrue]

IMHO Guadacanal color is fine by me.

[ppglaf]

Humm, it looks like that Barbarossa didn't start in september/october of 1941

Bad cut&paste, isn't?

BTW, I'm waiting for a long time to enjoy this game in my PC..., go ahead with it! [;)]

[terje439]

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Nit pickers would ask for figure units to be uniformous through the naval units writups, for comparisons purposes. I suggest using millimeters instead of inches for armor and gun caliber (if I'm right that most of the world people uses mm instead of inches). Also use the right thousands separator, probably comma though the writups.

Also, why is the shadowing effect not showing on units in this dialog ?

Also, these writeups are real cool and real good reading, even for me who is kind of a WWII geek !!! Congrats to Terje !
and while I'm at congrats, congrats to Greyshaft for the Planes writups, and to Steve for the whole packaging !

Keep the faith dudes !!!

I guess I am the best one to answer about this at the moment. The reason I use xxx.xxx instead of xxx,xxx is simply that my word-version will underline the latter in green, and as there tend to be quite some text present I prefer to keep the colors away [;)]
About using inch/mm this is presently being done to complete a unit, most descriptions will state armor and gun size in inches not mm. Instead of spending 5 mins on each unit that comes with mm instead of inches to convert them, this is something I will do later on, as I have been told by Steve that it will be ok for me to submit a "changed"-naval unit file later on (which is also were I put the info I get from you guys in my thread).

About the empty spaces Steve, it is not that much work for me to remove them if you want, it is just something I use when I work on the descriptions as it makes the file more easy to work with for my "system" (or is it a lack thereof?! [:D]).

Oh and as Steve mentioned, sometimes events I write about might be bypassed rather quickly, this is due to the fact that if I decide to go into too much detail some of the ships would benefit a book (Bismarck, Tirpitz, Hood, Yorktown etc etc). So I have to try to be quick, and to limit most of the facts I chose to add to the ones actually conserning this game, aka WWII. But if people want me to add more, that will be no problem really.

Oh and shame on you Steve! I am sure I told you that these descriptions needed PROOFREADING! [:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: terje439

ORIGINAL: Froonp
Nit pickers would ask for figure units to be uniformous through the naval units writups, for comparisons purposes. I suggest using millimeters instead of inches for armor and gun caliber (if I'm right that most of the world people uses mm instead of inches). Also use the right thousands separator, probably comma though the writups.

Also, why is the shadowing effect not showing on units in this dialog ?

Also, these writeups are real cool and real good reading, even for me who is kind of a WWII geek !!! Congrats to Terje !
and while I'm at congrats, congrats to Greyshaft for the Planes writups, and to Steve for the whole packaging !

Keep the faith dudes !!!

I guess I am the best one to answer about this at the moment. The reason I use xxx.xxx instead of xxx,xxx is simply that my word-version will underline the latter in green, and as there tend to be quite some text present I prefer to keep the colors away [;)]
About using inch/mm this is presently being done to complete a unit, most descriptions will state armor and gun size in inches not mm. Instead of spending 5 mins on each unit that comes with mm instead of inches to convert them, this is something I will do later on, as I have been told by Steve that it will be ok for me to submit a "changed"-naval unit file later on (which is also were I put the info I get from you guys in my thread).

About the empty spaces Steve, it is not that much work for me to remove them if you want, it is just something I use when I work on the descriptions as it makes the file more easy to work with for my "system" (or is it a lack thereof?! [:D]).

Oh and as Steve mentioned, sometimes events I write about might be bypassed rather quickly, this is due to the fact that if I decide to go into too much detail some of the ships would benefit a book (Bismarck, Tirpitz, Hood, Yorktown etc etc). So I have to try to be quick, and to limit most of the facts I chose to add to the ones actually conserning this game, aka WWII. But if people want me to add more, that will be no problem really.

Oh and shame on you Steve! I am sure I told you that these descriptions needed PROOFREADING! [:D]

I have several places where I want to have a program/routine go through text files and replace tabs and multiple blanks with a single blank. At the same time I want to have symbols (unusual letter combinations) that denote formattnig. I could just use HTML but at the present I am reluctant to commit to something so elaborate when all I am trying to do is put in some new lines (.N) and paragraphs (.P). This would be applied to all the writeups: naval, air, and HQ.

It also would be used for the Optional Rules descriptions and the tutorials. One of the reasons I have been getting those done (all Optional Rules and some of the tutorial text) is so I understand what the dimensions of the problem are that I want the formatting program to address. Another part of this proccess is having the text wrap around automatically to fit within the text boxes that appear on the screen. That would be dynamic depending on the font characteristics. I am fairly certain I have finalized on the font (Verdana 10 point). All of these pieces work in combination to display text on the screen, even including the definitions for the components used to draw the boxes within which the text appears. You might have noticed that this has been one of the tasks on which I have focused this past month. I have pretty much nailed down every aspect from component, to font, to various textual content. This puts me in the position of defining the formatting 'language' and writing the little routine that formats all the text before it is shown.

So, Terje, don't worrry about how the text appears. Once I get the program written, it will be much easier to proofread your writeups (and all the other text).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is what setting up lookos like. The carrier air unit under the cursor has been loaded onto the carrier. Both of these units have status boxes on their lower left that indicate this. At this zoom level it is probably hard to see but the carrier's is green and the air unit's is gray.

I have revamped the top line of the main form, changing all the buttons to the metallic theme. The grayed out button on the far right has a green circle in the center when ending the phase is permitted. Right now only the USA flag is shown, but once setup is completed, all 5 of the Allied flags will be visible and clicking on any one of them will let you make decisions for that major power. The theme colors will update when you change major powers (e.g. by clicking on a flag). When the Axis player is making decisions, 3 or 4 flags will be shown (the 4th being for Vichy France).

I just redid the zoom slide bar so if matches everything else.

What remains to be done here are the bottom two lines of the main form. They are still in the old style (CWIF). One thing that will happen there is that the USA flag will disappear. I think there are enough other visual clues as to who is on move, without showing that flag.

I also want to revisit the size and shape of these 3 panels. Some players want the Hex and Game Status information lines (the 2 bottom ones) to be at the bottom of the screen. The # of units displayed during setup should be flexible. And I would like to have an alternative to the Units Under Cursor panel that is a very austere "fly out panel".

[Missouri_Rebel]

Not to derail everyone from the screenies but, I wonder if it might be possible to include in the interface a little information displaying why an action is not allowed. Please bare with me as I have never played WiF before so my examples could be flawed;

Lets say for instance the UK wants to DoW Japan and tries clicking on whatever it might be that normally does this. Instead of just not being able to allow such a command, a pop-up with a little info pertaining to why it cannot perform task and what might be required to do so.

or

A move by a unit. Why can't it move? Too far? ZoC? etc.

or

A rail move. The unit is face down. In ZoC and not a friendly unit allowing it to move.


Maybe this is in and I just missed it or it hasn't come up yet but, it would be a nice addition to the interface IMO. The tips, for lack of better word, would help out all players, new and pro's alike, and would be especially helpful with the 'grey areas'. Used in conjunction with the tutorials, it might just be a powerful tool that ends a lot of confusion and down time searching through the manual for the info. The possibilities are endless and the info really only needs to be a few lines at most.

What say ye? Is it worth the trouble. I think it is but then again, I'm a lonely newb.

mo reb

[Froonp]

What say ye? Is it worth the trouble. I think it is but then again, I'm a lonely newb.

You're not a lonely newb [:D], I think that we all agree you're right.
I remember that this feature was existing in CWiF, but I'm not sure it was so complete as explaining you everytime why something was not possible.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

What say ye? Is it worth the trouble. I think it is but then again, I'm a lonely newb.

You're not a lonely newb [:D], I think that we all agree you're right.
I remember that this feature was existing in CWiF, but I'm not sure it was so complete as explaining you everytime why something was not possible.

It is pretty comprehensive. There are a hundred or more individual error messages explaining why you can't set a unit in a certain place or move a unit to a given hex.

I'll try to add more, and I hope to include contextual help messages for each of the various forms (e.g., declaration of war, aligning minors, trade agreements, etc.).

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp

What say ye? Is it worth the trouble. I think it is but then again, I'm a lonely newb.

You're not a lonely newb [:D], I think that we all agree you're right.
I remember that this feature was existing in CWiF, but I'm not sure it was so complete as explaining you everytime why something was not possible.

It is pretty comprehensive. There are a hundred or more individual error messages explaining why you can't set a unit in a certain place or move a unit to a given hex.

I'll try to add more, and I hope to include contextual help messages for each of the various forms (e.g., declaration of war, aligning minors, trade agreements, etc.).

And we will help him adding more through playtest games, pointing him places where it is not "enough" [:D].

[Shannon V. OKeets]

A long time ago I started work on displaying the Sequence of Play on the screen.

Here is what I have so far.

During a game, the current phase will be highlighted (reverse colors - green font on white background)