MWIF Game Interface Design

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Taxman66

I poked around trying to find a picture of the flyouts but wasn't successful.  Yeah I know, I'm lame...

If the flyouts have the status indicators for each unit I think that pretty much takes care of the issue of looking at multiple units with different status indicators 'lit'.

They don't. I made the flyouts display as small as possible, and I begrudge the extra pixels for status indicators because it would make the overall footprint larger. But I have not closed the door on the possibility...

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

How about this:

Thank you Steve.

For me it feels much clearer.

-Orm

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

How about this:

Thank you Steve.

For me it feels much clearer.

-Orm

The two greens of secondary supply source and primary supply source are very close.

How about making primary supply source blue?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Today's version.



EDIT:
Orm you thanked me, but it should be me thanking you.[&o]

This form is vastly improved over the version I first proposed, primarily because forum members identified weaknesses and offered suggestions. Of course it may seem like I ignore most suggestions (probably true) but the complaints I always pay very close attention to.

There are (maybe) 100 people involved in making posts to this forum. Now I hope we sell 30,000 copies of MWIF, so each person who makes a comment carries the weight of 300 customers (in my mind).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

How about this:

Thank you Steve.

For me it feels much clearer.

-Orm

The two greens of secondary supply source and primary supply source are very close.

How about making primary supply source blue?

Yes, I am worried about my use of Mint Green (the lighter shade), but only for players who have trouble telling colors apart. Are you in that group?

Mint green is one of the colors I added that wasn't only the color palette recommended (in a post above) for people with trouble telling colors apart.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

How about this:

After playing a supply marker to make a HQ a primary supply source for turn I try to see to it that the HQ is in "normal" supply when the turn ends so that the HQ can function normally next turn.

It would be nice to have a different color for marking a difference between that HQ being in "normal" supply or not.

This can also be done by adding a position just for HQ units. Then it could show a flag for being a primary supply source for turn and a flag for out of "normal" supply.

It is not important since it so seldom happens but when you have that HQ it is easier to have the computer calculate supply than to check it manually.

-Orm

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

How about this:

After playing a supply marker to make a HQ a primary supply source for turn I try to see to it that the HQ is in "normal" supply when the turn ends so that the HQ can function normally next turn.

It would be nice to have a different color for marking a difference between that HQ being in "normal" supply or not.

This can also be done by adding a position just for HQ units. Then it could show a flag for being a primary supply source for turn and a flag for out of "normal" supply.

It is not important since it so seldom happens but when you have that HQ it is easier to have the computer calculate supply than to check it manually.

-Orm

A good point I hadn't thought of.

I think I would rather handle it as part of the routine "trace supply". The player can see the supply path for any unit by right clicking on the unit and choosing that menu item. I'll just have this path calculation request ignore the fact that the HQ is functioning as a primary supply source (when that is the case).

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

ORIGINAL: Orm





Thank you Steve.

For me it feels much clearer.

-Orm

The two greens of secondary supply source and primary supply source are very close.

How about making primary supply source blue?

Yes, I am worried about my use of Mint Green (the lighter shade), but only for players who have trouble telling colors apart. Are you in that group?

Mint green is one of the colors I added that wasn't only the color palette recommended (in a post above) for people with trouble telling colors apart.

I can make out the difference, but the only difference I detect is the shade of the unit, not the color, perhaps they are both pastels? Possibly a poorly calibrated LCD. I'm not color-blind though.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Z,

They are very close except that one is lighter.

I am fearful of doing too much more because of the difficulty roughly 10% of the players will have telling colors apart. For me, my original color selections were great, with clean distinctions between them all. But that is not true for everyone. If you examine the "unambiguous color chart" (in one of the posts above), it is really surprising how differently colors are perceived.

Steve

[oscar72se]

I am fearful of doing too much more because of the difficulty roughly 10% of the players will have telling colors apart. For me, my original color selections were great, with clean distinctions between them all.

Considering that only men suffer from color blindness, I guess that we have established that this game mainly appeals to the male audience [:D]

[composer99]

The current version of the status indicator help page looks great.
 
This is important as I am sure I will be using it a lot initially. [:)]

[sajbalk]

Would it be of benefit to put "Naval units only" in the heading to category 7 and "Naval and air only" for category 5?
 
Also, what is "Sentry" in category 1?
 
 

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: sajbalk

Would it be of benefit to put "Naval units only" in the heading to category 7 and "Naval and air only" for category 5?

Also, what is "Sentry" in category 1?

My use of HQ Only for section 3 was because the indicators below apply not only to HQ units, but also apply to all HQ units.

For section 7 some of the indicators are even more restrictive: Milchcow subs and Naval supply units.

For section 5 the same thing applies, in that some of the indicators are exclusively for naval units, while other are for air & naval units.

Sentry is a status introduced in MWIF - for playing using the computer. The computer offers the player the ability to cycle through all units that are eligible to move (i.e., Next, Previous). Now that can become rather tedious when you are cycling through all the CW convoy units. By marking a unit as a 'Sentry', it merely means that the unit is skipped when you cycle through all your units that are eligible to move in the phase/subphase. It has no other effect (i.e., it has zero effect on game play).

[*Lava*]

ORIGINAL: composer99

This is important as I am sure I will be using it a lot initially.

Agreed. Possibly Matrix could make a big poster of this to hang by your computer for reference...

[;)]

Ray (alias Lava)

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Lava

ORIGINAL: composer99

This is important as I am sure I will be using it a lot initially.

Agreed. Possibly Matrix could make a big poster of this to hang by your computer for reference...

[;)]

Ray (alias Lava)

There are a lot of these actually. For example, each of the unit types has 3 or 4 pages describing the meaning of the different numbers and symbols shown in the unit depictions. And there are the different pages describing terrain.

All of these are handled the same way, with separate pages in the tutorials and accessible during play from the Help drop down menu. They are also stored in the help directory/folder as BMP files which can be printed by the player if he wants a hard copy. Lastly, they will be part of the appendices in the Player's Manual, but I don't see us creating separate/removable pages for them.

[*Lava*]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Lava

ORIGINAL: composer99

This is important as I am sure I will be using it a lot initially.

Agreed. Possibly Matrix could make a big poster of this to hang by your computer for reference...

[;)]

Ray (alias Lava)

There are a lot of these actually. For example, each of the unit types has 3 or 4 pages describing the meaning of the different numbers and symbols shown in the unit depictions. And there are the different pages describing terrain.

All of these are handled the same way, with separate pages in the tutorials and accessible during play from the Help drop down menu. They are also stored in the help directory/folder as BMP files which can be printed by the player if he wants a hard copy. Lastly, they will be part of the appendices in the Player's Manual, but I don't see us creating separate/removable pages for them.

You forgot the implantable brain stem microchip...

[;)]

Ray (alias Lava)

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: oscar72se

I am fearful of doing too much more because of the difficulty roughly 10% of the players will have telling colors apart. For me, my original color selections were great, with clean distinctions between them all.

Considering that only men suffer from color blindness, I guess that we have established that this game mainly appeals to the male audience [:D]

And to make it even more interesting when you pass on that so-called 'useless' Y chromosome, hum a little tune, because it's a perfect palindrome!

Who needs duplicate copies? [:D]

[oscar72se]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
And to make it even more interesting when you pass on that so-called 'useless' Y chromosome, hum a little tune, because it's a perfect palindrome!

Who needs duplicate copies? [:D]

Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Rob has created new borders for the forms so there are no longer any transparent portions. This lets the player nest the forms tightly together.

Here is a screen shot showing a bunch of forms visible at the same time.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Second and last in series.

Here is another screen shot of multiple forms with the rectangular borders.

Recent changes have been:
- the use of the theme color around the border of the detailed map - that is a "hot zone" which will automatically scroll the map in that direction when the cursor enters it.

- I redid the colors and arrangement of the information panels within the Main Command form. The N2 means the player (Commonwealth because of the little flag) has 2 naval moves remaining. The P+ inidcates the cursor is over a major port. I really like the Turn (white font, black background), Impulse (black font, silver background), and phase/subphase (black font, white background) having similar colors, with the most important one (phase/subphase) being the strongest visually.

Note that the 3 major powers that have naval moves in this phase are CW, USA, and France, as indiciated by the flags at the top of the form. Clicking on one of those flags switches to that major power and you get to make its naval moves for the impulse.