MWIF Game Interface Design

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

Jeez the black railways look good. Why...they even look like railways and not something one would pick up from eating improperly cooked pork [:'(]

Cheers, Neilster

That's zoom levels 1 and 2 for you. Many things look unappetizing under a microscope.[:)]

[Neilster]

The only objections I've had are...

1. The start-game screen
2. The tape-worm railways
3. The crashed space-invader fort symbol

One down...two to go [:'(]

Cheers, Neilster

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Neilster

The only objections I've had are...

1. The start-game screen
2. The tape-worm railways
3. The crashed space-invader fort symbol

One down...two to go [:'(]

Cheers, Neilster

How do you do on those Rorschach tests? Disease and death in every picture?[:D]

[Sewerlobster]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
3rd and last in the series. Here are zoom levels 1, 2, and 3.
All of these use medium resolution for unit depictions. If you compare the Zoom 3 here to the zoom 3 immediately above, you can see the change from high resolution unit graphics to medium. Once you become familiar with the symbology, zoom 3 should be a quite viable level for game play, using the medium resolution graphics.

As a long time WiF player, the symbology is just "classic" WiF. I really like these far away zooms; but I've got to admit, the high res zoom 8 is a thing of beauty. Thanks for the posts.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I still have a lot of work to do to make this form fully functional; the list is too long to show here[:(]. Sigh.

But I have made some progress in getting the layout and visual elements mostly the way I want them.

The purpose of the form is to review the resources and factories that you (or any other player) have available. Here it is for the US. By clicking on a flag on the left you can see the same for the other major powers. At the bottom left is an icon I am using for when you want to see the resources that no major power currently controls. Immediately prior to the production phase, you can use this form to decide about where to send resources and build points, or save them if you want to.

At the top is detailed information about resources, factories, and build points. Oil resoures are shown separately from other resources. If you choose certain optional rules you can save oil and build points, which is the column on the right. The US flag in the middle of the form indicates the information/data is for the US.

Each hex that contains resources or factories is listed in the center. You can assign destinations for resources here. Besides sending resources to your factories for production, you can send them to other major powers as part of trade agreements.

As I said, I have a lot more work to do on this form, so more explanation isn't appropriate since I expect to change a number of items. And there are dozen or so bugs quite visible if you look closely.

But the picture is pretty!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is a partially cleaned up version taken from Missed the Bus. The CW haven't set up all their convoys yet, which is why so many of their factories are still not producing.

Visible fixes since the previous post are the correct Theme Engine scroll bars, the correct numbers (many on the previous screen shot were shown as zero which were wrong), the insert map centering on the selected location, and the wider column width for Location to hold the long name for Palembang.

[Plainian]

Edited
Edited again.......can I just add that Steves form is fine as it is.......

[Plainian]

Try again. This might be a bit pointless as it looks like there might be restrictions on number of rows/line and column lengths that appear in the top half of the form...but as a spreadsheet geek and WIF dabbler here are 3 other layouts -

[Plainian]

Layout 2

[Plainian]

Layout 3

I modified the 'totals' to maintain 3 column.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Ian,

You're right, the layout could be improved. If you saw what I started with (inherited from CWIF), though, (smaller font size and absolutely no white space) ...

I just threw in the flag at the end where I had room.

I need a long wide panel for the Resource Locations, so there is a strong visual imperative to make the Summary Panel the same width.

The buttons are almost certainly going to change since CWIF used "Aviod a hex/sea area" to determine the path from a resource to a factory; and that design decision received more criticism from the players than any other element of CWIF. Although, I haven't worked on a replacement design yet.

I would like the Insert Map and Resouce Locations panel to be as big as possible.
---
I'll play around with the layout some more this morning.

[Froonp]

There are a lot of numbers here.
A few of them, the most significant and important ones, should be highlighted either by another color, or simply by being bold.

For example :
Production Multiple.
Production Points after SB
Build Points Available.
Oil Resources Saved (well, I don't know if this is this one, but the one that shows how many Oil you will have saved AFTER production is important to know -- the one before is not really important, as either it is a saved oil or a printed oil, but this has the same effect to it is unimportant to know)
Build Points saved.

"Point" should be added beside "Production", so that it reads "Production Point" instead of "Production". "Production" is vague, and "Production Point" is something that is defined in the rules.

Write "Oil" instead of "Oil Resources". This takes room for un-needed information IMO.
Same for normal Resources, write "Resources" instead of "Other Resources". Better, use "RP", for Resource Points.

Also, what are the "Saved Build Points Used" ? This form is before production is done, so you don't know how many are used.

[meisterchow]

Ooooooh, I cannot wait to get my grubby little hands on this game!!!!  Again, Steve, you are doing a fantastic job of compiling important information into readable formats for players.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is today's first revision (from Brute Force).

I still have a few visual touchups to do, but I was able to increase the number of locations visible at one time to 10.

The list of locations needs to be sorted, and sortable by the player.

The label for Newly Saved (Oil Points) should be changed to Being Saved. I want to look into how that is different from Controlled.

I really haven't examined the code in detail to see where these numbers come from, though I have run through all the calculations for generating production and build points.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is today's first revision (from Brute Force).

I still have a few visual touchups to do, but I was able to increase the number of locations visible at one time to 10.

The list of locations needs to be sorted, and sortable by the player.

The label for Newly Saved (Oil Points) should be changed to Being Saved. I want to look into how that is different from Controlled.

I really haven't examined the code in detail to see where these numbers come from, though I have run through all the calculations for generating production and build points.

This is an immense progress to me !!!
Now things are clear in the upper part, with the bold headings !!!!

Congratulations !

I just don't like very much the icon for the uncontrolled resources. What does pressing this button will display ?

Also, and this is true for all forms where flags are used as buttons, it would be more beautiful, and the players would understand immediately that the flags are buttons, if the flags had a bottom & right shadow.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is today's first revision (from Brute Force).

I still have a few visual touchups to do, but I was able to increase the number of locations visible at one time to 10.

The list of locations needs to be sorted, and sortable by the player.

The label for Newly Saved (Oil Points) should be changed to Being Saved. I want to look into how that is different from Controlled.

I really haven't examined the code in detail to see where these numbers come from, though I have run through all the calculations for generating production and build points.

This is an immense progress to me !!!
Now things are clear in the upper part, with the bold headings !!!!

Congratulations !

I just don't like very much the icon for the uncontrolled resources. What does pressing this button will display ?

Also, and this is true for all forms where flags are used as buttons, it would be more beautiful, and the players would understand immediately that the flags are buttons, if the flags had a bottom & right shadow.

Well, I thought about using just a solid white flag for uncontrolled resources (held by neutral minor countries) but that didn't seem quite right. I am open to sugestions, ... and examples (BMP 24 bit color, 84 pixels wide by 56 pixels high).

[Norman42]

I would just put the resource symbol on a white flag for uncontrolled.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Norman42

I would just put the resource symbol on a white flag for uncontrolled.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Norman42

I would just put the resource symbol on a white flag for uncontrolled.

Since oil resources are also shown, perhaps non-oil and oil images side-by-side?

[Froonp]

Or :