MWIF Game Interface Design

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Mziln

Original: MWIF Game Interface Design Post #742

This is my first pass on the screen for requesting and granting lend lease of air units. This form will appear once for each side before anyone sets up any units. That will enable players to acquire lend lease air units for their force pools prior to drawing units for setup. The form will also be available during the production phase.

What I am showing here is what the Chinese player sees when he wants to request a lend lease air unit. By pressing the button Request Unit, a message will be sent to the US player (in this case it is the US who is the source country for the B-24J). The US player will see the same form but with different content. In particular, he will see which unit(s) he will lose from his force pool if he grants the request. He gives his decision by pressing Grant or Deny.

Either player can press the button Lend Lease Group to see all the air units in the selected unit's lend lease group. In this case it would be all the B-24Js. In the future the US player could demand his unit back by pressing the Demand Unit button.

This is a basic order entry form. The non-source major power places an order with a source major power.

Assumptions:

“before anyone sets up” means "before the games initial unit setup phase".
“The form will also be available during the production phase” means you can request lend-lease during your production phase instead of the lending stage.

Please explain:

How does the form derive the availability of air units?
How does the form derive how many air units the Chinese may order?
Do the Chinese order one air unit at a time and wait for confirmation of the order or order all the air units they want at once?
Are the Chinese allowed to order more than they can purchase during a production phase?
When can you “Demand” the air unit back? Before or after the air unit is purchased during the production phase?

Original: MWIF Game Interface Design Post #747

Here is what the form looks like from the lender's side - though the requesting major power can see this view too if he wants to.

The French player is requesting a P-40E Hawk 87C which is comparable to the US P-40E Kittyhawk. France is the Requesting major power and the US is the Source country. [I have the Chinese background displayed here. The same player controls all the Allied major powers so there is really no point in changnig it for the French Request Unit or the US Grant Request.]

The Chinese or the British could request the same unit. Only one of these 4 air units can be in the force pools/on map at any point in time.

This is a basic order confirmation form. The source major power Grants/Denies the order of a non-source major power.


Assumptions:

The use of “lender's side” should read “source major power side”.
"Source country" means "source major power".

Please explain:

Are the Chinese or the British requesting the same unit?
If the Chinese or the British are not requesting the same unit why display the air unit for them at all?
Why can only 1 of these 4 air units be in the force pools/on map at any point in time?

First things first. Essentially the source major power has the 'unit' (or 'units' if there is more than one of the same type). If he grants a request from one of his allies, then instead of the unit being built by the source country, it is built by the borrower. That is why only 1 of the 4 units can be built. If you want to know why this rule is the way it is, then you will have to ask ADG.

A game will have either one player controlling all the major powers on a side, in which case the player will decide which major power requests the unit. Or, if there is more than one player, then each of them can request the same unit. It will be up to the source major power to decide which request to grant.

More than one unit can be requested. I haven't thought this through completely, but I guess I will create a list for the source major power to decide on. The requesting and granting/denying of units goes on until all the players on a side get bored and stop. To display the requested units, I will just add text underneath them to that effect.

Availability of units is the same as other units; they are just in the lend lease pool instead of the force pool. China has a further restriction on building air units.

[doctormm]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: composer99

My own interpretation of the rules on this is that the major power doing the lending can pick the plane to be transferred from his/her force pool to the Lend-Lease pool if there is more than one eligible plane.

Ok. That's how I will code it. Unless I hear objections ...

The rules make no reference to the selection being random, so yeah, I agree with you coding it this way.

[Arron69]

If you would make it random, the side would get 2 random selections. First when asking for lendlease, second when building it. This imo is not correct and we have never played it this way.
Andi.

[Zorachus99]

I don't see a way to designate the lend-lease aircraft will come from the reserve pool, just the force pool if I'm reading the form correctly.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

I don't see a way to designate the lend-lease aircraft will come from the reserve pool, just the force pool if I'm reading the form correctly.

To clarify for some readers:
Air units are placed in the Air Reserve only when playing with the Pilots option. These are air units that have been built but have not been assigned a pilot. As soon as a pilot is available, they can be given a pilot and placed on the map (player's decision/choice). A player may keep air units in the Air Reserve even if he has available pilots, waiting for a better air unit to be built.

Presently I do not know what to do about air units that have already been built. It doesn't seem quite right to me for a player to request it (or demand it back). Logically, the production 'capacity' (?) has already been used to build the unit. This would apply to both units in the air reserve and on map.

But I have no emotional attachment either way. Opinions?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Presently I do not know what to do about air units that have already been built. It doesn't seem quite right to me for a player to request it (or demand it back). Logically, the production 'capacity' (?) has already been used to build the unit. This would apply to both units in the air reserve and on map.

But I have no emotional attachment either way. Opinions?

RAW says :

*****************************
13.6.4 Lend lease
(...)
Foreign aircraft
(...)
During set up or this step, you can move a striped aircraft from the lend-lease pool to your force pool if:
ï the source major power agrees; and
ï an aircraft with the same designation is currently in either the source major power’s force pool or its reserve pool.
*****************************
So planes in the Source Major Power's Reserve pool can definitely be lend leased.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Presently I do not know what to do about air units that have already been built. It doesn't seem quite right to me for a player to request it (or demand it back). Logically, the production 'capacity' (?) has already been used to build the unit. This would apply to both units in the air reserve and on map.

But I have no emotional attachment either way. Opinions?

RAW says :

*****************************
13.6.4 Lend lease
(...)
Foreign aircraft
(...)
During set up or this step, you can move a striped aircraft from the lend-lease pool to your force pool if:
ï the source major power agrees; and
ï an aircraft with the same designation is currently in either the source major power’s force pool or its reserve pool.
*****************************
So planes in the Source Major Power's Reserve pool can definitely be lend leased.

Ok. I guess this means it also applies to air units in production then - that is the step units must go through to get from the force pool to the air reserve.

What about the demand for the return by the source major pwoer? Is this possible even if the air unit is on the map (or in production or in air reserve)?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Ok. I guess this means it also applies to air units in production then - that is the step units must go through to get from the force pool to the air reserve.

No, the Production Circle is a different place than the Reserve Pool.
A unit on the Production Circle is not available to be sourced to another country. It has to wait for it to go to the Reserve Pool.

What about the demand for the return by the source major pwoer? Is this possible even if the air unit is on the map (or in production or in air reserve)?

The rule says :
******************************
13.6.4 Lend lease
(...)
Foreign aircraft
(...)
The source major power can reverse this process during this step if the striped aircraft is in the force pools or reserve pool. Move it back to the lend lease pool and move the matching aircraft to the source major power’s force pool.
******************************
Map ==> No.
Production Circle ==> No.
Force Pool ==> Yes.
Reserve Pool ==> Yes.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Ok. I guess this means it also applies to air units in production then - that is the step units must go through to get from the force pool to the air reserve.

No, the Production Circle is a different place than the Reserve Pool.
A unit on the Production Circle is not available to be sourced to another country. It has to wait for it to go to the Reserve Pool.

What about the demand for the return by the source major pwoer? Is this possible even if the air unit is on the map (or in production or in air reserve)?

The rule says :
******************************
13.6.4 Lend lease
(...)
Foreign aircraft
(...)
The source major power can reverse this process during this step if the striped aircraft is in the force pools or reserve pool. Move it back to the lend lease pool and move the matching aircraft to the source major power’s force pool.
******************************
Map ==> No.
Production Circle ==> No.
Force Pool ==> Yes.
Reserve Pool ==> Yes.

OK.

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

This screen shot shows the British as the Source country for Spitfire IXs. Notice that the numbers don't always match precisely.

Might I suggest that a stronger distinction be made in this sort of form between the source of the lend-lease units and their destination?

Presumably the skin of the form shown in these screen shots does not yet have anything to do with the actual player/recipient. This makes these forms even more confusing.

I would suggest that there is one or more Source: lines and one or more Destination: lines depending of course if the form being displayed is being shown to the source player of the units or the destination player of the units.

[Froonp]

I'd suggest adding the flags to the countries names.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: amwild

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

This screen shot shows the British as the Source country for Spitfire IXs. Notice that the numbers don't always match precisely.

Might I suggest that a stronger distinction be made in this sort of form between the source of the lend-lease units and their destination?

Presumably the skin of the form shown in these screen shots does not yet have anything to do with the actual player/recipient. This makes these forms even more confusing.

I would suggest that there is one or more Source: lines and one or more Destination: lines depending of course if the form being displayed is being shown to the source player of the units or the destination player of the units.

I am going to add text under each unit. Right now I am thinking of simply showing the location or request status:

Location
LL Pool = lend lease pool
Force P = force pool
Air Res = air reserve pool
cc,rr = column and row location on map
mm/mm = in production and arriving in turn Ja/Fe, etc.

Scrapped and removed units will not be shown at all.

Status (overrides location)
Req = requested, pending
Grant = request granted, the request unit will be placed in the requesting player's force pool when the form is closed
Lent = source unit that will be placed in the lend lease pool when the form is closed
Denied = Unit was requested and source player denied the request

The source player may not close the form until all requests have been processed.

==================
A common occurrence will be one player controlling all/many of the major powers on one side. Having the form switch background colors every time the player changes decision making while this form is active seems pointless and likely will be very annoying almost immediately. When there are multiple players in the game, the form background will correspond to the color for one of the major powers that the player controls.

==================
I intend to change from the simple names to using the country flags. Clicking on a flag will change the background color, so the player will have some control over this.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

I'd suggest adding the flags to the countries names.

Yes. I am also going to change the label Lost Unit to Lent Unit.

EDIT: and Added Unit to Acquired Unit.

[composer99]

*****************************
13.6.4 Lend lease
(...)
Foreign aircraft
(...)
During set up or this step [emphasis mine], you can move a striped aircraft from the lend-lease pool to your force pool if: 
- the source major power agrees; and 
- an aircraft with the same designation is currently in either the source major power’s force pool or its reserve pool.

 
Just in reference to the query/comment by Mziln (below), it is my understanding based on the above that aircraft are swapped around during the initial set-up or during the Lend-Lease step (13.6.4) in production, and not during the Lending phase (5.1).
 

Assumptions:

“before anyone sets up” means "before the games initial unit setup phase".
“The form will also be available during the production phase” means you can request lend-lease during your production phase instead of the lending stage.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: composer99

*****************************
13.6.4 Lend lease
(...)
Foreign aircraft
(...)
During set up or this step [emphasis mine], you can move a striped aircraft from the lend-lease pool to your force pool if: 
- the source major power agrees; and 
- an aircraft with the same designation is currently in either the source major power’s force pool or its reserve pool.

Just in reference to the query/comment by Mziln (below), it is my understanding based on the above that aircraft are swapped around during the initial set-up or during the Lend-Lease step (13.6.4) in production, and not during the Lending phase (5.1).

Assumptions:

“before anyone sets up” means "before the games initial unit setup phase".
“The form will also be available during the production phase” means you can request lend-lease during your production phase instead of the lending stage.

Yes.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Flyouts
(as of October 17, 2007)

I want to add new functionality to the player interface and would like your opinion on how to enable it.

Purpose
The new functionality is to have a Flyout grid of units appear for a hex. For instance, when there is a stack of units, you will frequently want to know what units are in the stack, since only the top unit is visible. A Flyout would appear next to the hex showing an expanded view of what units are in the hex.

Visual
The intent of a Flyout is to show between 2 to 9 units in a very tight grid that ranges in size between 1x 2 and 3 x 3. The goal is to have a very small footprint, so the map is not obscured by the Flyout. When there are 2 units in the hex a 1 x 2 grid will be shown. Other sizes will be 1 x 3, 2 x 3, and 3 x 3. When there are 5, 7, or 8 units in the hex, the Flyout will have some empty space(s). If there are more than 9 units in the hex, a Flyout will not appear.

This should work for almost all land hexes since there is a stacking limit of 3 land and 4 air units per hex. Major ports might be an exception since there is unlimited stacking of naval units in a major port.

I am thinking of varying the size of the unit images from between zoom level 4, 5, or 6. Zoom 4 requires very little room but it is harder to make out the unit details. Zoom 6 has the reverse characteristics. Smaller sizes are simply too hard to see and larger ones would obscure too much of the map. The player would be able to set which zoom level he prefers as a Player Interface Setting.

The unit images would not provide any details about the unit’s status or any other auxiliary information. It will simply show the graphic image of the unit. A primary goal here is to keep the footprint small.

Comparable Current Functionality
MWIF already has an optional Units Under Cursor (UUC) panel that displays all the units in the hex. This panel shows a lot of detail such as status indicators and can show an unlimited number of units using scrolling. It also indicates which units are being transported by other units.
The main drawback to the UUC panel is that it takes up a lot of screen real estate. When playing with a monitor display of 1024 by 768, it hides a lot of the map. Hence, the UUC can be toggled on/off using Ctrl J. A second drawback to the UUC is that it displays units at zoom level 4, which makes their names and other fine details hard to see.

Invocation
My problem is I am not sure how to give the player control over the Flyout appearing and disappearing. There are times when you will want to see it and other times when you won’t. Some choices are to have it appear:
1 - ‘automatically’ like the hints appears in a standard Window interface; it would go away after a set elapsed time,
2 - in response to a key stroke,
3 - in response to a mouse action, or
4 - in response to a combination of keyboard and mouse actions.

I don’t particularly like choice #1 because is does not give the player direct control. My personal preference is to avoid things being done ‘automatically’ - as some of you are probably already well aware.

That leaves me with choices 2 - 4; and “therein lies the rub”. MWIF is using the key/mouse commands from CWIF which are numerous.

Current Key/Mouse Functionality
1 Left Down
1.1 Units in hand: place units in hex
1.2 Empty hand, no locked stack: pick up top unit
1.3 Empty hand, locked stack: pick up entire locked stack

2 Control Left Down
2.1 Same as #1 except when units in hand: move units to hex and pick them up again. This permits moving units from hex to hex, specifying their path of movement precisely.

3 Alt Left Down = Space bar key click
3.1 Toggles the units in the hex as the locked stack

4 Shift Left Down = Double click Left Down
4.1 Same as #1 except when empty hand which either: (a) brings up the Select Units Form for the player to select which units from the stack to “pick up” or (b) picks up the entire stack. The latter occurs during land movement, land combat declaration, and advance after combat. The former occurs at all other times.

5 Right Down: brings up unit menu for functions to be performed on the top unit or the entire stack.
6 Alt Right Down: moves bottom unit in the stack to the top
7 Control right Down: moves the top unit in the stack to the bottom
8 Alt Control Right Down: brings up unit menu for the 2nd or 3rd unit in the stack. This permits access to units that are being transported. Some transporting units can carry two units - hence the access to the 3rd unit.
9 Control Shift Right Down: Same as #8 except always for 2nd unit in stack.

10 Shift Right Down = forward slash ‘/’
10.1 Sets unit in stack as Selectable/Not Selectable. This is a status that a player can use to indicate that he has considered the units in the stack for movement (or whatever) and no longer wants to think about them during the current phase. This helps when cycling through all the units on the map for decision making, so you don’t keep seeing the same ones that you don’t want to move during the phase. There is an alternative setting of Sentry which has a similar effect, but that status lasts from turn to turn and is not cleared at the end of each phase.

As I said, a lot of the combinations are already being used.

A couple possibilities occur to me:
A - Use Alt Left Down for Flyouts, since the Space bar already provides the functionality of toggling the locked stack.

B - Use Shift Left Down for Flyouts. If you read the functionality closely, you will see that Control Left Down can serve a dual purpose. Presently Control Left Down only does something when there are units in hand, while Shift Left Down only does something when the hand is empty. I could define Double click Left Down as equivalent to Control Left Down - to enable the player to perform that function using only the mouse (no keystroke required).

I am leaning towards B. The way the program would work using choice B, would be that you Shift Left Click on a stack of units and the Flyout appears. It remains visible until you move or click the mouse again.

But this entire ensemble of commands via mouse/keystroke deserves a solid review, so I invite your opinions.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

How about throwing the program into FlyOut mode when both buttons are held down.  This should work.  Clicks are usually registered when the buttons are let go.  If during the time a button is held down, the other button is also held down; then you could set a flag to bypass processing for the next click(s) that came through.
 
This has the advantage that the user could easily enter the mode and then move the mouse around the screen to peek at the stacks he/she is interested in and then let go to go back to regular use.
 
This should work as long as all of your clicks are happening during the OnClick event.  Now you just add some code for OnMouseDown (and perhaps OnMouseUp).
 
I have seen this both-buttons used in the past and it worked rather well.  You get used to it pretty quickly.
 
Dean
 

[Froonp]

Well, I like both what Samurai proposed, and your B proposal.

What could be exciting (Vista thing) would be for the flyout to be semi transparent, allowing the counters to be seen in the flyout, but also keeping the on map situation in sight.

What is needed on the other hand is for some data about the stack to be displayed somehwere. The most important of them is the total land combat strengh of the stack. It could appear in the status bar, kind of what Excel show in the task bar (bottom grey row of the screen of Excel) when you select numbers. You right click in the task bar to ask Excel to see averages instead of sums, or standard deviations, or countings, well, your choice. MWiF could have the same kind of feature. Right click on it to choose to see total land combat strength, total tactical support factors, strat factors, max movement, or whatever.

About the flyout, I could also envision it spreading fan-like, showing all the units in the stack, the units overlapping a little (fan-like), and un-spreading when closing. [:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

How about throwing the program into FlyOut mode when both buttons are held down.  This should work.  Clicks are usually registered when the buttons are let go.  If during the time a button is held down, the other button is also held down; then you could set a flag to bypass processing for the next click(s) that came through.

This has the advantage that the user could easily enter the mode and then move the mouse around the screen to peek at the stacks he/she is interested in and then let go to go back to regular use.

This should work as long as all of your clicks are happening during the OnClick event.  Now you just add some code for OnMouseDown (and perhaps OnMouseUp).

I have seen this both-buttons used in the past and it worked rather well.  You get used to it pretty quickly.

Dean

Thanks. A possibility. Currently all procesing is being done on Mouse Down:

Code: Select all

// ****************************************************************************
 // Perform preliminary tasks
 // ****************************************************************************
     ModifyShift(Shift); // Switch the meaning of Left & Control-Left (if needed)
     ClickedHexStack := MapStacks[ClickedHex.X, ClickedHex.Y];
     CursorHex := ClickedHex;
     ClickedULF := FullLocation(ClickedHex);
     ForcedRebase := (Game.Phase = pForcedRebase) and
                     (not (Game.OldPhase in AirPhases));
 // ****************************************************************************
 // Branch according to which mouse button was pressed and the combination of
 // key presses: control, shift, alt, and double click.
 // ****************************************************************************
     if Shift = [ssLeft] then LeftDown
     else if Shift = [ssLeft, ssAlt] then LeftDownAlt
     else if Shift = [ssLeft, ssCtrl] then LeftDownControl
     else if Shift = [ssLeft, ssDouble] then LeftDownDouble
     else if Shift = [ssLeft, ssShift] then LeftDownShift
     else if Shift = [ssRight] then RightDown
     else if Shift = [ssRight, ssAlt] then RightDownAlt
     else if Shift = [ssRight, ssAlt, ssCtrl] then RightDownAltControl
     else if Shift = [ssRight, ssCtrl] then RightDownControl
     else if Shift = [ssRight, ssCtrl, ssShift] then RightDownControlShift
     else if Shift = [ssRight, ssShift] then RightDownShift;

This is my restructuring of the code from CWIF. As you can see I prefer a plebian coding style. Slightly slower to execute than some alternatives but easy to understand, modify, and debug.

[Largus_Means]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

About the flyout, I could also envision it spreading fan-like, showing all the units in the stack, the units overlapping a little (fan-like), and un-spreading when closing. [:D]

Thats a nice solution, in VASL thats exactly what you can do, you can fan it out and get a full view of what is in the hex. Then using the arrow keys allows you to move units up/down top/bottom in the stack. This is still the best solution I have used in many different wargames that have stack of units being used. Also the ability to use shift to select a few counters and pull them out of the stack is another nice option.

Cheers