TOAW 3.4 Interface changes

[pionier]

great larry

[larryfulkerson]

Okie Dokie.....I've fixed it so it's putting out pictures too. Anybody have any suggestions to make it better? Maybe some different colors?

[Silvanski]

OK nice, but the SdKfz's have the silhouette of the Mark I tank[&:]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski
OK nice, but the SdKfz's have the silhouette of the Mark I tank[&:]

That was an early version which used a lot of "default" pictures....I have since fixed the Sdkfz's pictures. I'm attaching the output as it looks now. Just drop the ".txt" off the filename and unzip it and double click on MyOutput.html to see the output.Here's a list of the equipment types we have so far:

Code: Select all

		
 case 0:	return "Rifle AT squad -.bmp";
 case 3:	return "engineer.bmp";
 case 5:	return "Medium MG.bmp";
 case 7:	return "SMG AT squad -.bmp";
 case 9:	return "Motorcycle Squad.bmp";
 case 11:return "truck.bmp";
 case 12:return "Halftrack.bmp";
 case 18:return "50mm AT Gun.bmp";
 case 19:return "75mm AT Gun.bmp";
 case 20:return "88mm Dual Purpose Gun.bmp";
 case 25:return "150mm Light Gun.bmp";
 case 31:return "81mm Mortar.bmp";
 case 45:return "PzKpfw V Panther.bmp";
 case 59:return "Sturmgeschütz IV.bmp";
 case 67:return "Sdkfz 10-4 SPAAG.bmp";
 case 68:return "Sdkfz 251-1.bmp";
 case 69:return "Sdkfz 251-9.bmp";
 

Code: Select all

 case 70:return "Sdkfz 251-10.bmp";
 case 71:return "SdKfz 7-1 SPAAG.bmp";
 case 74:return "Sdkfz 234-2.bmp";
 case 158:return "M5 Stuart.bmp";
 case 161:return "M4-76 Sherman.bmp";
 case 162:return "M4-105 Sherman.bmp";
 case 166:return "Halftrack 75mm SPAT.bmp";
 case 171:return "M18 GMC Hellcat.bmp";
 case 174:return "Halftrack 75mm Howitzer.bmp";
 case 176:return "M8 Greyhound.bmp";
 case 241:return "Halftrack 81mm Mortar.bmp";
 case 254:return "Medium Scout Car.bmp";
 default:return "Motorcycle Squad.bmp";

[pionier]

What do you think about gruops? Inf, Art, SdKfz, Tanks, Planes, Helikopters etcpp?

greetings

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: pionier
What do you think about gruops? Inf, Art, SdKfz, Tanks, Planes, Helikopters etcpp?
greetings

I've been outputting the results in the order they are found in the input file but putting the results into group sets is an idea that merits looking into. That's possible but it would involve saving or holding the intermediate results from previous records while parsing the rest of the input file and that could get messy. The same problem occurs when trying to process more than one file at a time. So I'll probably have to do something like that. Good thought. Thanks.

[larryfulkerson]

White on Green looks better than black on white.

I'm thinking of grouping the combat results sets according to where they occured since the input file provides us with the location where those losses occured. That would allow the grouping of US and German losses in each specific combat and maybe put a totals group at the end of the output file for each side.

I'm open to ideas, suggestions and demands. Lemme know what you'd like to see in the output and I'll see what I can do.

[Abnormalmind]

Hey Larry, very nice job! You've asked for suggestions, so here is one. Sort the equipment alphabetically.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the problem:  Sometime soon now my program will be able to read more than one input file at a time.  Ralph supplied me with 8 of them.  So each file can have a different combat date and each file can contain the equipment for both sides of the combat ( force1 and force2, in this case the US Army and the Germans ) and the different combats can occur at different places on the map.  So there are a myriad of ways to sort this stuff each of which might make sense to someone depending on who you ask.  But we can dispense with most of that if I just publish the totals.  Rather than get bogged down in what were the losses in what particular battle on what day where I can just list the total losses for both sides and let it go at that.  I'm just talking to myself here probably.

So sorting the equipment alphabetically....yeah I can do that.  Probably.  I did say probably.  I'll see what I can do and get back to you.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

White on Green looks better than black on white.

I'm thinking of grouping the combat results sets according to where they occured since the input file provides us with the location where those losses occured. That would allow the grouping of US and German losses in each specific combat and maybe put a totals group at the end of the output file for each side.

I'm open to ideas, suggestions and demands. Lemme know what you'd like to see in the output and I'll see what I can do.

Depending on what this can do, why not leave it up to the user as to what information is shown? If you can do a check box list have the user check off what they want to see then spit out the results. You could make this very flexible.

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson
I'm open to ideas, suggestions and demands. Lemme know what you'd like to see in the output and I'll see what I can do.

Here are a couple of off the wall ones, these are a bit more work...

Since it has the coordinates of the battle, you could stitch together a movie, or a set of maps which would show things like the major battles over time, or the battles where large numbers of tanks were lost, etc. In other words, you could annotate your movies with more information on the combats, showing things like only combats with over 25% of one side's units lost, etc.

Or your own after battle map where you could click on the battles and see what the results were. There's no automatic way of getting them from your opponent for PBEM, but you could do a replay system for your attacks over the war.

Ralph

[Silvanski]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

White on Green looks better than black on white.

I'd like a darker shade of green, easier on the eyes, but that's just personal preference

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Panama
Depending on what this can do, why not leave it up to the user as to what information is shown?

Hey, that's a good idea. I'll see what kind of parameters we'll need to put together some different ways to display the output.

ORIGINAL: Panama
If you can do a check box list have the user check off what they want to see then spit out the results. You could make this very flexible.

If you mean a checkbox that you can see on your screen to click your mouse on then you're talking about a diffferent kind of program than this one is so far. I have written a "console" type of program that runs inside an "MS-DOS" window. To put together a program that has checkboxes and stuff I'd have to almost start over and include what I've put together so far into it somehow. Not too messy just time consuming. I'll see what I can do.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
Since it [the input file(s)]has [have] the coordinates of the battle, you could stitch together a movie, or a set of maps which would show things like the major battles over time, or the battles where large numbers of tanks were lost, etc. In other words, you could annotate your movies with more information on the combats, showing things like only combats with over 25% of one side's units lost, etc.

You're correct in that this would be a little bit more work. But I think maybe it's doable. The problem is that I can't read the *.sce file to get a representation of the map somehow. The user [me probably] would have to do a cut and paste of TOAW while it's running the scenario and use THAT as the map. And that might cause some slightly off-center pasting of the battle images so that a battle that took place at [8,10] on the map might get displayed at [9,11] or something like that. So getting the map 'right' might take several iterations. But I like the idea.

ORIGINAL: ralphtrick
Or your own after battle map where you could click on the battles and see what the results were. There's no automatic way of getting them from your opponent for PBEM, but you could do a replay system for your attacks over the war.

I had several AARs where the battles were displayed when you clicked on the location where it occured but putting together such an AAR took about two days and Dave got ansy for my moves. After a couple of "where's your moves" emails I decided that perhaps it's not all that important that my readers get to look over the battle results. But it was cool for a while. I could probably put out some kind of script that another program could use as input ( as well as the cut-and-paste map talked about in answer #1 above would also be in the input category ) so that the battles could be depicted on the screen and the user could click on the location and another window might open showing the losses of the various equipment types. Lots of possibilities are coming to mind. I'll see what I can do.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski
I'd like a darker shade of green, easier on the eyes, but that's just personal preference

How about yellow on purple??

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: Silvanski
I'd like a darker shade of green, easier on the eyes, but that's just personal preference

How about yellow on purple??

my eyes, MY EYES, AGHHHHHHH

When reading the brain prefers something with less contrast so the reading becomes more important than preservation of sight. [:D]

Black on white is the norm. Black on a very pale yellow or off white. Anything without a lot of contrast like yellow on purple, red on black, blue on green. Stuff like that is a lot of contrast.

[L`zard]

What Panama said!!!!
 
(my ghod! ASPIRIN!)

[parzival]

Just a suggestion: any possibilities to get the sound of katyusha to rocket artillery?

[ralphtricky]

ORIGINAL: parzival
Just a suggestion: any possibilities to get the sound of katyusha to rocket artillery?

Yiu can probably do that per scenario, although I'm not sure how without some research. There is a SAM audio already, so there should be some way to tell it to use the SAM audio file, and replace it with something else. It's probably keyed off the unit icon, so that would be a simple way to get the SAM audio at least.

You can override the audio on a per scenario basis too, although I believe that the mechanism is a bit different from graphic files. Let me know if anyone is interested in how to do this after 3.4 is out. I believe that you can simply set the scenario year to a specific year, and create special audio for that year. I didn't follow the same method that's used by the graphics files since I don't expect the same number of designers wanting to customize the audio.

[ralphtricky]

BTW, is you're into the audio, it's now in stereo [:'(]. I set the direction for the sound to come more from the left or right speaker depending on where the unit is on the screen. You can listen to a rail unit going from one side of the screen to the other now. It's been a while since I implemented it, but I believe that it's independent, so each sound could come from a different direction. You can also set the background and foreground volume to different levels. It may help immersion for some people.']

You can also adjust the brightness and contrast of the screen, although I haven't played with that a while lot.