Sneak Peeks, Coming Attractions, Works-In-Progress Redux

[Crossroads]

It's been a while, sorry about that. Just to show something, today I squashed the CTD bug when a missing unit 3D image was encountered. Now, an error dialog (and log entry) naming the guilty potty, and a missing-image marker displayed instead.

That's the internal early beta for Cold War game, by the way. Brits and their mortar coy gone for a brew, it would seem!

[Jason Petho]

This is sooooo useful!

Thank you for that!!

[Crossroads]

With the internal test ongoing, there's been a few tweaks as how the new CS IntelFeed damage report and intel stream functions. As IntelFeed is not similarly limited in space as the old (and retained) Damage Results dialog is, there's still perhaps too much intel revealed there. It just feels a bit too chatty. So either I will add a new Details Level to Low, Medium, and High Details, such as High Details+, or we'll limit what is written there. To be continued.

While at it, I tried to revise how the Options Menu reveals the Damage Report options. I still have a User Preference Dialog in my wish list for an actual dialog with radio buttons, check boxes, dropdown lists etc, but for now, this is what we have to do with.

Options - Damage Reports => Damage Reports Dialog, with three pop-up menu sets for the options there:

• IntelFeed stream dialog or persistent or one of the time delayed Damage Report dialogs that pop-up and close automatically after selected delay. Less options would have sufficed perhaps but I kept them all in.
• Report Details: Low, Medium, High
• Dialog Position (for the current Damage Report only): Center, Top Left, etc

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[Crossroads]

For instance, the Command Report was brought back when IntelFeed stream was opted. Testing found out that it provides a clear break between opponent (replay) and friendly phases. Once it is closed, the Command report continues to be written to IntelFeed as well, with hexes as hyperlinks. They do not appear together in display, I combined them to this screenshot to show them both together.

Also, for this version, as we have more space now, I extended the <effected unit> list to 12 units from previous 6, so in this case all 10 undisrupted units display. After the limit text "and others..." is appended.

Perhaps the limit could be even higher, like 24, but in larger scenarios it is likely the limit will stop each individual unit displaying anyway.

[Crossroads]

Perhaps the limit could be even higher, like 24, but in larger scenarios it is likely the limit will stop each individual unit displaying anyway.

Actually, for "Helicopters Low on Fuel" report the limit is already 24, as this is very handy for locating those birds out of gas before they make a forced landing.

[Crossroads]

In today's episode, I finally found the code snippet that had broken the targeting highlight when the new Roaming mode was introduced.

Roaming mode (Looking Glass icon in Toolbar) allows one to hover over the map with Infobox updating itself with active hex the mouse is over.

The new targeting mode (Fire Mode) now also comes with updated tooltips, both when pointing at a unit (top) or pointing at a hex (bottom). Note that the targeting cursor was not captured by PrintScreen.

Little things, which were surprisingly hard to find. Targeting is such a core function so I am happy to have these back.

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[Crossroads]

Targeting is such a core function so I am happy to have these back.

Tweaked it a bit further. Within context it is known if pointing to a Soft or Hard target, so why not spelling that out, too. Better, yes?

From Middle East Sneak Peeks post:

[Crossroads]

Okies, so with that accomplished, time to get back from Targeting (ie. when moving mouse while in Fire mode) )to Roaming (moving mouse while in Move mode) mouse pointer events, with organizational information as a tooltip.

This was more complicated to introduce than what I assumed, but alas, that is Campaign Series coding for you. Here we are! Rather neat.

Note that enemy intel is only available when playing with No Fog of War, or Fog of War options selected. From Enhanced Fog of War on, including Enhanced Fog of War and Reporting, this intel is available only on friendly units.

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Similarly, when targeting an enemy unit, unit intel is obscured per how it is done with Damage Reports as well.

targeting_efow.jpg (272.15 KiB) Viewed 3523 times

[Jason Petho]

Oh wow, this is so awesome!

I'll have to definitely make sure the structures are accurate for scenarios.

[Crossroads]

Continuing with my task of updating all dialogs within the game to modern standars, at least as far as the MFC framework allows: The Unit Handbook

Now a true MFC dialog with system title bar and all text written by code in system font instead of section and row titles being part of the dialog bitmap image. Movement Cost parameters in alphabetical order now per popular demand.

It now toggles all units within the selected hex, and while at it, it also shows the passengers units, and marks those units carrying one as well. Cycling between units supports keyboard arrow keys as well. With EFOW or higher, enemy units are not displayed.

Oh, and not a static dialog stuck in the middle of the map, but can be moved about.

Next, the same deal for Scenario Information dialog, which has the same issues as this one had. Then, onto the new Unit List and UnitInfo and HexInfo modules there.

handbook_vn_rev2.jpg (552.55 KiB) Viewed 3356 times

[Crossroads]

Next, the same deal for Scenario Information dialog, which has the same issues as this one had.

Tick in the box

sceninfo_vn.jpg (174.23 KiB) Viewed 3321 times

[Crossroads]

Next, the same deal for Scenario Information dialog, which has the same issues as this one had. Then, onto the new Unit List and UnitInfo and HexInfo modules there.

With Scenario Information done, I realised I want to spend a couple of hours smoothing down the Command Report and Damage Results dialogs as well. Both of those of old load an image to display as background. Worn leather pattern or something like that.

Now, these two are calmed down a bit too as proper, vanilla Windows dialogs. While at it, I enagle the right mouse click (secondary mouse click, to be precise) to dispose of them as well. Command Report already had the left mouse click for that, while Damage Results used the left mouse events to track the cursor to store the position where the dialog is moved to. Next time, the dialog will open there. But as such, the left mouse click is not available for closing the Damage Results (if you chose persistent, and not one of the time delayed option of course).

But the right mouse can now be used for closing both of them, if you so wish. And right mouse click closes the Phase Box as well, so a uniform way to dispose of them all for your muscle memory.

There's a ton of options in Options menu, so here's a little reminder that if you continue to prefer to use Damage Results dialog instead of the coming IntelFeed streaming dialog, you can not only select where you want to have it opening, but if you drag it to a new position, that is stored for the duration of game play. But not on Windows Registry preferences. A custom positioning needs to be replaced. This option here is stored however.

This completes the first iteration of freshening up each and every dialog in Campaign Series.

Now, onto Unit List side panel redesign, next!

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[Zovs]

Very cool! What is the ETA roughly on arrival?

[Crossroads]

Hopefully sometimes in October, as then it will be some six months from the previous update. We haven’t asked for a release window yet, though.

[Zovs]

Hopefully sometimes in October, as then it will be some six months from the previous update. We haven’t asked for a release window yet, though.

Cool thanks for the update, and looking forward to the changes.

[Crossroads]

Copying my post from the CS Middle East forum Sneak peeks, as I am programming the first mock-ups with Middle East.

What do you guys think? What would you like to see on the new unit cards?

----

So here we are: first baby steps taken! This is one of the areas still running on quite an old codebase; not much has changed since the original JTCS days.

I’ve doubled the space for the Unit List, it’s now 360 pixels wide. With that, I’m trying to move away from the old "Compass Rose" unit infobox toward more of a unit card view. I thought there’d be a crazy amount of space to play with, but alas, it gets eaten up pretty quickly.

Please don’t focus too much on aesthetics at this stage. Instead: what unit intel would you like to see there?

This is a rather busy picture on purpose.

On the left side, I’m hovering over the map with my mouse, with the 2nd Platoon highlighted as a result. The mouse tooltip properly represents the 2nd Platoon with its complete unit organization data.

On the right, I’ve selected the hex with two platoons: the HMG that double-timed there to provide fire support and is now Fatigued (among other things) as a result. The 1st Platoon, which has already taken some casualties, is in Low Ammo / Conserving Ammo status but is bravely Assaulting the hex next to it.

There isn’t enough space to describe all unit status icons, but I’m trying to highlight the key ones: Low / Out of Ammo, Fatigued, Disrupted...

Also, there’s now space to draw all three thermobars: clicking any of them activates the corresponding unit thermobar on the 3D map as well. I haven’t changed the right-click behavior, where the unit list shows the passenger unit in a similar fashion.

I added some Organization data here as well, but just the platoon and company levels, as that is the space I have without making the unit card taller from what it is now. Stacking limit is six units per hex + a Leader unit, so there might be up to seven unit cards stacked on top of each other.

What do you guys think? Again, what intel would you like to see there that isn’t shown yet—something you’ve always wanted to see?

[Crossroads]

MERDC! No, not misspelling French while i an a bad mood here, but the US Army camo standard from the past that we used to set our game color standars.'

I wrote a blog post about that in the Middle East Sneak Peeks blog.

The Vietnam game defines its color scheme based on the MERDC Tropical pattern, although with some liberties taken as explained there. Have a look.

The upcoming Cold War game will likely, for the first time, adopt a three-color scheme: Dark Green borders, Field Drab dialog backgrounds (which should each cover 45% of the area per MERDC standard), and the Sand-colored toolbar carried over from the Middle East game. To be defined, with geek pun intended. One or two C++ #defines, and we're set

[Crossroads]

^ Fixed the broken image links on my pics there.

[Crossroads]

MERDC!

Good moooorning Vietnam! It is back, and with the original MERDC scheme as well. At some stage the game dialog colors, particularly the MERDC Dark Green had shifted to a much darker hue.

We have something like three weeks before handing out the 2.10 Update build to Matrix Ops team, for preparation of the 2.10 Public Beta. I would believe we are in a reasonably good state now, with the new Unit List side panel there for the first iteration.

csvn210beta.jpg (1022.02 KiB) Viewed 1510 times

[Crossroads]

Per popular request from Jason’s Twitch sessions, on-map tooltips are now an option. You can toggle them on and off via the Options menu, as well as through the All, Common, and Info toolbars.

Regarding the Info toolbar: instead of adding yet another button, I repurposed the three existing info buttons. They now stand for Unit List | Tooltips | Unit Handbook. Previously, the same three buttons were used for Unit List | Unit Handbook | Manual, but I think this setup makes more sense. The Manual is still accessible via the various Help buttons in multiple dialogs, each opening the manual to the relevant page depending on context. It’s also available via F1 or the About menu.

As for the tooltip toggle, I think we’ve officially run out of hotkeys so no shortcut assigned for now.

What do you guys think? Good to go like this?

With that, version 2.10 enters a code freeze for new features. Testing, testing, testing—and then the Public Beta in a few weeks’ time.

(All of the above applies to the Middle East 3.10 Update as well.)

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