MWIF Game Interface Design

[Skanvak]

May be it is the color because nearly half the CW ships seems to have a light green bar around them, which is confusing with the light green one below.

I would rather go with an unselected box and a selected box with a click and drag/drop between the two boxes to select and not make row for BB/cruisers/Carriers (may be a button to show it, but i could do with carrier display first then BB then cruisers with the number of row according to the windows size (like icons in windows)). For the drag and drop multi-select you can then do with a standard greyed out counter (as you wan't really have to care about the counter being readable while selected for the drag and drop).

I don't know how you handle TF, but that could be a way to simplify the system if you compel ships to be a TF to be moved in stack. So one row for each TF would allow easy selection, as you would simply have to select TF on map for move once you form them.

I hope that I am not widely out of topics as I don't palytest, I reason only on the screenshot.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

May be it is the color because nearly half the CW ships seems to have a light green bar around them, which is confusing with the light green one below.

I would rather go with an unselected box and a selected box with a click and drag/drop between the two boxes to select and not make row for BB/cruisers/Carriers (may be a button to show it, but i could do with carrier display first then BB then cruisers with the number of row according to the windows size (like icons in windows)). For the drag and drop multi-select you can then do with a standard greyed out counter (as you wan't really have to care about the counter being readable while selected for the drag and drop).

I don't know how you handle TF, but that could be a way to simplify the system if you compel ships to be a TF to be moved in stack. So one row for each TF would allow easy selection, as you would simply have to select TF on map for move once you form them.

I hope that I am not widely out of topics as I don't palytest, I reason only on the screenshot.

I doubled the size of the area below the selected unit (from 2 pixels high to 4) and used gray instead of light green. That should solve the visiblity issue.
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Selecting and deselecting units is only one of the purposes of the Naval Review Details form. It will be used extensively to review enemy units at sea and in ports - in those cases all the units would be 'unselectable' and the 'selectable' column/row would be wasted space.

Similarly, you will want to examine units belonging to other major powers on your side. The game design is for a player to only be able to 'move' units for the currently active major power. You can switch between which major power is 'current' freely, provided the rules permit that to be done, but while the US player is making decisions, he can not 'move' CW units (for instance). During over-the-board games players are often a little loose in obeying those rules, and no harm is done. But for the computer version of WIF, all rules are strickly enforced.

All-in-all, I would guess that the word Review in the name of the form indicates its primary use.

The NRD form is designed to occupy no more than half the screen. That leaves room for the Naval Review Summary form to occupy the other half. I have also taken to using the double sized global map in the other half of the screen (instead of the NRS form). That lets me move the cursor over the different sea areas on the global map and have the NRD form update when the cursor enters a new sea area (or port).
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I am not a fan of drag-and-drop. It requires some additional dexterity with the mouse - holding down the button while repositioning the cursor on the 'target'. MWIF never employs drag-and-drop. Instead, the player clicks on a unit/object to select it and then clicks on the 'target'. The benefit of this difference should be obvious to anyone who has used drag-and-drop extensively: when the target is not visible and scrolling (or something similar) is required, drag-and-drop requires contortions from either the interface design and/or the user.

[morgil]

How about marking the units with a big phat red stripe right across the chit, just over the name of the unit ?
And then use a white one for japan ?
Unsubtle, but definate..

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: morgil

How about marking the units with a big phat red stripe right across the chit, just over the name of the unit ?
And then use a white one for japan ?
Unsubtle, but definate..

I'll show some more screen shots later today. Right now I am in the middle of making changes and the program does not compile cleanly.
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This is mostly a moot point. The screen shots shown so far are without status indicators, which will be displayed when selecting units - the indicators let you identify which units can be moved. When the status indicators are shown, which units are selected is blatantly obvious.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here are some more screenshots of the Naval Review Details form. I've fixed some of the blemishes, though there are still a couple more that are annoying me.

What you see here are the 4 variations on displaying the Unit Lists. If you look at the Unit Lists radio button group you can see which one is which. Selected units are pretty obvious except when there are so many units in a column that the scroll bar is present. Even that isn't too bad unless you are using Nada as the Unit Lists setting.

The first two screenshots here show the summary stats for the selected units. The 3rd shows the summary stats for all units on the page.

[Skanvak]

For the movement path, will it be one-click move or select path (pathe highlight) and validate (like in blood bowl). As there are possibility of ennemy interception the second possibility is interesting, unless you want to impose an area by area move (ie several click).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Second in a series of 3. Here is a composite screenshot comparing the Flyouts to the NRD form. When there are 9 or fewer units, the Flyouts are probably preferable, since they have a smaller footprint and show the units at zoom level 6, instead of 5. They do that showing the status indicators, but not the sea box section.

The Flyouts don't have any controls/filters - you get the same information every time, and all the units in the hex (which can be a sea area section box) are shown.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

3rd and last in the series.

Here is a case where the NRD form is much easier to use than the Flyouts. With 50 units in the hex, filtering out the CW Mosquito (and other CW units) is a good idea while you are moving the US units. The NRD form makes it easy to load the marines on the transports and chose which of the CVs, BBs, and CAs should accompanying them on their visit to Japanese held islands.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

For the movement path, will it be one-click move or select path (pathe highlight) and validate (like in blood bowl). As there are possibility of ennemy interception the second possibility is interesting, unless you want to impose an area by area move (ie several click).

1. When a stack of units is selected, the program determines all possible/legal destination hexes/sea areas.

2. You can Ctrl-left click on a sea area (or hex) to move the stack of units through a series of contiguous sea areas (hexes). By choosing the correct path, you could go around a sea area where enemy units might intercept your moving stack.

3. If you click on a single destination sea area, then that is where your units are placed - unless that is a sea area where you can be intercepted.

4. If interception is possible, then a series of decisions are made by the opposing sides as part of the "naval interception digression". If the moving stack is permitted to continue moving, and the player wants to have them continue moving, then the program redetermines all possible/legal destination sea areas (and we are back to #1).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: morgil

How about marking the units with a big phat red stripe right across the chit, just over the name of the unit ?
And then use a white one for japan ?
Unsubtle, but definate..

Just a note that I might appear somewhat brusque in my replies (or lack thereof) to suggestions.[8|] That is not intentional, just one of my personality defects.[:(]

I do read all suggestions seriously and throw them into my mix of thoughts & ideas on the game. Some ideas may have zero apparent impact on what I am doing until months later, when they resurface in a modified form.

[composer99]

One comment regarding the NRD form itself: I would suggest that the radio button option 'Nada', assuming selecting it means that players do not want to see either unit status or section, be revised to 'None'. If duplication is a concern, then perhaps 'N/A' would be a good second choice. Nada just seems so... colloquial.

Unrelated to the NRD form but a potential issue, the CV classes seem too high. E.g. in post 1888 the Saratoga and Enterprise should have CV classes of 4, not 6, and the Bunker Hill and Essex should have CV classes of 5, not 7. The CVLs are also too big but I don't know off the top of my head whether they should be class 1 or class 2.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: composer99

One comment regarding the NRD form itself: I would suggest that the radio button option 'Nada', assuming selecting it means that players do not want to see either unit status or section, be revised to 'None'. If duplication is a concern, then perhaps 'N/A' would be a good second choice. Nada just seems so... colloquial.

Unrelated to the NRD form but a potential issue, the CV classes seem too high. E.g. in post 1888 the Saratoga and Enterprise should have CV classes of 4, not 6, and the Bunker Hill and Essex should have CV classes of 5, not 7. The CVLs are also too big but I don't know off the top of my head whether they should be class 1 or class 2.

How about 'PLain' or 'Nil'?

The year is 1944, which is why the CV classes are larger.

[Skanvak]

ctrl-left click seem not user friendly. Should left click select path, right click move fleet to selected destination better?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Skanvak

ctrl-left click seem not user friendly. Should left click select path, right click move fleet to selected destination better?

Right click almost always displays a popup menu. I might have violated that dictum at times - but then again, I might be 100% true to it also.
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Controlling the movement of units by hex or sea area is rare. On land it is usually to overrun air/naval units or take control of specific enemy hexes; at sea it is usually to avoid a sea area, even though doing so costs more movement points. Neither of these things happens very often. For most moves (98%?) you just select the unit(s) and click on the destination.

Therefore the more 'difficult' Ctrl-left click seems to me to be appropriate.

EDIT: For clarity.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: composer99

One comment regarding the NRD form itself: I would suggest that the radio button option 'Nada', assuming selecting it means that players do not want to see either unit status or section, be revised to 'None'. If duplication is a concern, then perhaps 'N/A' would be a good second choice. Nada just seems so... colloquial.

Unrelated to the NRD form but a potential issue, the CV classes seem too high. E.g. in post 1888 the Saratoga and Enterprise should have CV classes of 4, not 6, and the Bunker Hill and Essex should have CV classes of 5, not 7. The CVLs are also too big but I don't know off the top of my head whether they should be class 1 or class 2.

Here's today's first revision.[;)]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: composer99

Unrelated to the NRD form but a potential issue, the CV classes seem too high. E.g. in post 1888 the Saratoga and Enterprise should have CV classes of 4, not 6, and the Bunker Hill and Essex should have CV classes of 5, not 7. The CVLs are also too big but I don't know off the top of my head whether they should be class 1 or class 2.

Warspite1

One little, but effective, example of the extra power of a computer game over its cardboard equivalent. The change in CV class each year is computed by the program and the counter is then updated (rather than the need to look at the back of the counter each time to check the class).

[composer99]

CV counters don't have their upgrades listed on the back of the counters. These are mentioned in the rules. My group plays with CVPs to boot, so no wonder it all seemed so unusual. [:)]

And the change from 'Nada' to 'Nothing' in the unit list options of the NRD form looks great. Would 'Both' be better than the 'S[tatus] + S[ection]' entry in that list?

[BallyJ]

?

[paulderynck]

ORIGINAL: BallyJ






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Do you get all the posts by email? Visit the forum to see the pictures.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: composer99

CV counters don't have their upgrades listed on the back of the counters. These are mentioned in the rules. My group plays with CVPs to boot, so no wonder it all seemed so unusual. [:)]

And the change from 'Nada' to 'Nothing' in the unit list options of the NRD form looks great. Would 'Both' be better than the 'S[tatus] + S[ection]' entry in that list?

There is some rule about increasing the class of older carrier units at some point(s?) in time. That only applies when NOT playing with the optional carrier air units. In the program this is only a few lines of code:

Code: Select all

 // ****************************************************************************
 function TNavalUnit.GetAirCapacity: Byte;
 begin
   if UnitType in CarrierSet then
 	begin
   	Result := GetLongValue(NavalData0, BombardmentMask, BombardmentShift);
 
     if not OptRules.CarrierPlanes then
     begin
 	    if Game.Date.Year >= 1944 then Inc(Result, 2)
    	  else if Game.Date.Year >= 1942 then Inc(Result);
     end;
   end
   else Result := 0;
 end;
 

Carrier data on class is stored in the same location as bombardment data for surface ships (for memory use efficiency).