MWIF Game Interface Design

[c92nichj]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

1 - CWIF had a lot of this. I need to review it to see if it does all that you are talking about.

What CWIF had was excellent, but what I am talking about is that you can do thoose filters on map. instead of only in the unit screen. so I can look at part of the map and only show aircraft for example. if you also can step though them that's a bonus.

4 - CWIF does this but the units in the hex are at the bottom of the screen. Perhaps you mean a display of the units that is closer to the cursor position?

This is how it looked like in Vassal when I hoover over a unit stack. The view window in CWIF is a little bit to big I think.

When talking about the view pane, it was always difficult in CWIF to see where a militia unit came from, you had to look at it's name which where not displayed anywhere easily. I like to deploy the Chungking militia near the fron and take losses with as I know I can rebuild it. The Peking militia I rather keep guarding some remote area where it is not at risk since I can not rebuild it anyhow.

[Froonp]

It would be interesting to create a PDF showing all the present dialog boxes used in CWiF (all those you listed in your post) and make it available to everyone interested.

If you're interested, I did make a PDF file containing most of the dialogs from Steve's post. It is here : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/froon/Transfert ... ialogs.zip
Best Regards

[Greyshaft]

Mucho thankso
I reloaded CWiF last night between nappy changing but didn't get back to it afterwards. Your pdf will make life easier

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

It would be interesting to create a PDF showing all the present dialog boxes used in CWiF (all those you listed in your post) and make it available to everyone interested.

If you're interested, I did make a PDF file containing most of the dialogs from Steve's post. It is here : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/froon/Transfert ... ialogs.zip
Best Regards

You sure do beautiful work. Thank you very much.

[stretch]

This is sort of an about face for the way this discussion was going but it seems to be the place to put it.

The one thing I really hated about the interface in CWiF was the representation of naval units. They were hard enough to keep track of in ports, and units at sea were darned near impossible to follow without clicking on every sea area and seeing what was in there. It felt like the naval side of the game, which is already abstracted quite a bit, had practically been buried.

It may not have felt that way to others, I only know how it felt to me. Please try and make the naval side of the game stand out more within the interface and be smoother to use, particularly with respect to units which remain at sea. Try to make it feel more like an integral part of the game, which it is.

my 2 cents.

[Froonp]

It may not have felt that way to others, I only know how it felt to me. Please try and make the naval side of the game stand out more within the interface and be smoother to use, particularly with respect to units which remain at sea. Try to make it feel more like an integral part of the game, which it is.

my 2 cents.

I too found the Stay at Sea part of CWiF quite awkward.
Maybe for this phase (remain at sea) we could have a dialog popping-up, showing to the player the list of all ships at sea, sorted by sea area, sea-box section, ship type, etc... (at the layer's will), with only a checkbox to check to say that a unit will stay at sea. Maybe you could have also an option you could check in the same dialog to say that all the ships in a given sea area sea box section will remain at sea.
Also, there could be a warning given from the game to the player if CPs are programmed to not stay at sea, because it happened to me many times that after spliting convoys for example, they were not automatically sentried, and they would return to base at the end of the turn. The player would just have to confirm that it is normal that CPs are not staying at sea.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: stretch
This is sort of an about face for the way this discussion was going but it seems to be the place to put it.

The one thing I really hated about the interface in CWiF was the representation of naval units. They were hard enough to keep track of in ports, and units at sea were darned near impossible to follow without clicking on every sea area and seeing what was in there. It felt like the naval side of the game, which is already abstracted quite a bit, had practically been buried.

It may not have felt that way to others, I only know how it felt to me. Please try and make the naval side of the game stand out more within the interface and be smoother to use, particularly with respect to units which remain at sea. Try to make it feel more like an integral part of the game, which it is.

my 2 cents.

This is why I asked. What 1 person mentions, there are many others who think the same but are hesitant to say it.

So, do you have any ideas about what you would like to see? Just being wild and crazy for a moment, how about each sea area displaying all the units in the sea area spread out? What I am picturing is more or less what I do when playing over the board. Rather than a stack of naval units, the navies are spread out so they do NOT overlap and you can see every unit. We keep them organized so you know what sea box they are in. Expanding on that a bit, we could spread out the naval units that are in a port too. Because there are often more than 10 naval units in a single port, they would have to occupy some of the land hexes around them. This is a somewhat disjointed presentation; I apologize. First we would remove from the screen all land units except those in a port that they could embark/disembark. Then we would remove all air units that have nothing to do with naval combat. That would give us room to spread out the navies for inspection/review.

Another way to try to acheive the same goal of seeing everything clearly might be to redraw the entire map removing all terrain except coastal hexes (because of invasions). The land hexes would just be shown as a bland tan or something. Any air units that have air-to-sea or air-to-air capabilities AND could reach a sea area would be shown (in their current hexes) but every thing else would 'disappear'. Then spreading out the navies that are in port over nearby land hexes wouldn't look so weird.

A third possibility would be to let the players create a separate (semi-permanent) window to display the naval units in a sea area or a port. There might be 4 or 5 sea areas and ports that are of interest and the player could create as many as he wanted. They could be positioned freely on top of the map and you could lay them out however you think best.

Other possibilities? Try not to feel restricted to working within the boundaries of what has gone before. What do you need to really enjoy playing the game? If you can visualize something that you would love to have be part of MWIF, describe it to me.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

I have some ideas after glancing through this topic. I hope all of these are appropriate for this topic. I am a programmer and I realize I am asking for the moon on a silver platter with some of these, but if I don't ask.....

[&o] Oh Mighty Designer [&o]
[&o] Please Hear My Prayer [&o]
[&o] Even Though My Asking [&o]
[&o] Is Not Close To Fair [&o]

I like tabbed forms, but have noticed that users often don't notice there are tabs! (RTFM has become RTFS - read the fine screen!!!!) It might be nice to have a NEXT button between the OK and CANCEL button to advance the tabs.

Watchable computer vs computer games would be great to help newcomers get ideas on what to do with this monster game. I remember when I was trying to learn how to play (and trying to relearn after not playing for a few years) how difficult it was. One of the reasons involved not having a CLUE what to try or how to go about it.

Additionally, if the AI would create a diary of explainations as to why it was doing something, it could go a long way toward increasing playership. At first blush, this sounds hopelessly complex, but as the different routines are being coded, it should not be too hard to post an entry to the diary based on the ifs, loops, and cases being executed. Some rudimentary examples would be:

Moving units to XXXX because there needs to be a continuous line of ZOC on the border.

Moving units to XXXX to defend because there are enemies nearby and likely to attack.

Moving units from away from the front because the enemy is likely to break through and overrun them.

Strategic Move units in preparation for an attack against Yugoslavia.

And so on...

The catch is that anything that happens is happening for a reason. In addition to making it happen, it should not be hard for the code to give an inkling of why it is being done. (If this does not make sense, please ask questions.)

I think a DVD style interface is too cool for words. If would allow experts to post recordings of their monumental games, it would be even cooler!

Logical and consistent placement of controls (buttons, etc.) is crucial.

I think that having the ability to play the game with a keyboard (and not just the mouse) is also a good thing to try to accomplish. Once someone understands how the game works, there are many things that can be done MUCH quicker with the keyboard. It is clear that many functions will have to be accomplished with a mouse, but any that can be done with the keyboard should be enabled. This includes but is not limited to :

• (already mentioned) Intelligent use of the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts.
• Function Keys taking the user to certain functional areas of the screen.
• User customizable map 'hot spots' - i.e. being able to assign and remember map view positions.
• User customizable unit groups - i.e. being able to assign and remember unit groups that can be reselected with a keystroke.
• I think this is very important, the ability to open multiple views of maps and hop between them using ctrl+tab.

Please make sure the user interface will work well on the 'wide-screen' resolutions available on many laptops.

Right Click context dependent menus are WONDERFUL. The first words in your manual should be 'When it doubt, right-click!' [;)]

It would be nice to be able to hit the print screen button and know that there is a file with a name resembling the name of this game that has a screen shot saved as a jpg or png.

It would also be nice to be able to hit ctrl+print screen and get a large jpg or png of the entire map with units. This would be great to clip and print for planning.

It would be nice to be able to have some keyboard commands that are screen filters and are not toggles. For example, if I am holding down the W key, the map will have an overlay that shows the weather. As soon as I release the W key, the overlay goes away.

Candidates for Overlays would be :

• Weather
• Political Control
• Zone Of Control
• Selected Unit Movement Range
• In Supply
• Selected Unit Supply Range
• Highlight Resources
• Highlight Factories
• Highlight Armor, Infantry, FTR, NAV, etc.
• Highlight Rail
• Highlight Supply Sources
• Highlight Ports

It is absolutely crucial that the moves in progress can be saved before finishing the impulse or turn.


This is all I can think of at this time. I promise not to spit and curse and villify you if you don't do all of them [;)]

Keep up the great work!!!!!

[Greyshaft]

It would also be nice to be able to hit ctrl+print screen and get a large jpg or png of the entire map with units. This would be great to clip and print for planning.

Except for the fact that a stack of units would only show the top unit Maybe need to replace multi-unit stacks with an ID Code (eg GER001) and allow a second printout of what is under each code.

I'm kinda stretched right now. My boss is on leave for three weeks and I'm doing her job and mine, and my bosses boss resigned two months ago and hasn't been replaced so I'm reporting directly to the IT Director with one hand and helping the troops with help desk calls with the other. And did I mention the new baby ???

I will be back

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer
I have some ideas after glancing through this topic. I hope all of these are appropriate for this topic. I am a programmer and I realize I am asking for the moon on a silver platter with some of these, but if I don't ask.....
.
.
.
.
This is all I can think of at this time. I promise not to spit and curse and villify you if you don't do all of them [;)]

Good ideas. Of course I laughed and laughed.

Once I could dry my tears, I gave them another read. I guess my starting point will be to group these features. In some cases doing all of them would be no more difficult than doing one of them. I also need to understand what routines would be needed to make them happen. For example, I have already dumped bitmaps to JPEG files for my Impact! Analysis program but I haven't worked with PNG files.

Adding text comments to AI routines seems like just good documentation practice. Making them available to the players as explanations shouldn't be that hard. What would be missing are all the things the AI didn't do. For instance, why didn't the AI attack that hex?

Remappable keys for short cuts is not that hard to do. They would not be applicable all the time - when entering a file name is one place.

So how does one write to a DVD? I have tried magic markers but they don't seem magical enough.

If you haven't already, I strongly recommend you download the PDF file Patrice put together for all the current forms/windows. [ http://perso.wanadoo.fr/froon/Transfert ... ialogs.zip ] You could pick one window and detail how you would like it improved. This is in response to your request for a NEXT button.

I intend MWIF to have a help capability that actually helps. It is another thread that I plan on starting either later this month or in September. What I will asking for is: What to say When. Essentally context sensitive help that actually is aware of the context (game turn, phase, subphase, unit selected, etc.). Like many computer terms the marketing types have so abused the phrase "context sensitive" that it has almost become a negative.

Some of the things you are asking for raise the issue of how does the player keep them all straight: multiple map views, function keys, shortcut keys, overlay keys, ... At some point it seems that the plyaer will have to have a window that lets him review all his current settings. Perhaps a more austere design would work better. Using every color of the rainbow doesn't mean that we produce a beautiful work of art. The design needs a structure that the player can learn easily and then rely on knowing how to do things whenever he needs something done. I recognize that this can drift into the realm of philosophy but I think it is important.

What that means is that I will take all the ideas generated in this forum over the next couple of weeks and organize them. It will require some thought but I should be able to develop a conceptual framework that encapsulates them all. After the conceptual design comes an intermediate structural level and finally the detailed design.

Meanwhile keep giving me ideas.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

It may not have felt that way to others, I only know how it felt to me. Please try and make the naval side of the game stand out more within the interface and be smoother to use, particularly with respect to units which remain at sea. Try to make it feel more like an integral part of the game, which it is.
my 2 cents.

I too found the Stay at Sea part of CWiF quite awkward.
Maybe for this phase (remain at sea) we could have a dialog popping-up, showing to the player the list of all ships at sea, sorted by sea area, sea-box section, ship type, etc... (at the layer's will), with only a checkbox to check to say that a unit will stay at sea. Maybe you could have also an option you could check in the same dialog to say that all the ships in a given sea area sea box section will remain at sea.
Also, there could be a warning given from the game to the player if CPs are programmed to not stay at sea, because it happened to me many times that after spliting convoys for example, they were not automatically sentried, and they would return to base at the end of the turn. The player would just have to confirm that it is normal that CPs are not staying at sea.

Improvements are clearly needed.

Building on your idea, how about having the entire screen used to display all the occupied sea areas in separate panels on the left. Each panel would show the naval units spread out with indications of which sea box they were in. On the right would be all the possible destinations (ports) they could return to. As you cursor over each unit, the ports it could reach would be highlighted. You click on the unit then click on the port to mark it as returning to base.

The default setting for convoy points could be that they are staying at sea.

Groups of units could be selected (say, using shift/click incrementally, or by clicking on a indicator for all units in a sea box/area) and then the clicking on the port to send them all home to the same base.

In addition to the list of ports there could be a check box for "remain at sea".

As you go through the units setting them to stay at sea or return to base, their status (including port they are returning to) could be updated so you will know what you have decided. It is also important to check that you haven't exceeded the capacity of a minor port. Finally, the program could prevent you from exiting until you have marked all units as either staying at sea or returning to base. As a way to simplify this, the final question could be "all remaining units stay at sea?", to which you can just say yes.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Good ideas. Of course I laughed and laughed.

I am glad to have lightend your day. Your professionalism in attacking this project with vigor has made me happy. Somehow, I don't think we're even yet.

PNG files are, I believe, a public domain compressed graphics format. There is likely a free Dephi Component that will do them. If I come across one, I will let you know.

As for the question of why didn't they AI do something, it will bloat the code, but anytime you have an if statement that does something, it can have an else statement that feeds the 'General's Diary' with a remark about rejected because it was too low odds or too high odds. As long as the AI programmers commit to the concept from the beginning, it won't be too hard to work into the code, I think. The real question is how useful will it be in selling copies of the game to those who do not already play. Will the advertising department run with "Unique feature that lets you learn from the AI by seeing how it makes its decisions"? And will that be worth the extra cost?

I didn't mean to suggest that you create a dvd that can be played on your television. I mean to be able to watch the game with buttons like Play, Pause, Rewind, and Fast Forward.

You are right that it will be difficult for a new player to absorb everything that experienced gamers are asking for. Perhaps traditional tool buttons that cause overlays will be more appropriate. I just thought it would be nice to have a way to alter how the map looks without dropping whatever counters you have selected. As for multiple maps, if the player is the one who opened a second (and so on) map, he would likely be able to decipher it. It is just nice to be able to customize views based on what I need to see now rather than what a designer thought would be the most useful views most of the time.

I applaud your open mindedness and as I said before... I respect your decisions. You have shown that you are really going to great lengths to determine what is wanted.

Confidence is high.

I told you I was asking for the moon on a silver platter..... Soon it will be the galaxy on plutonium plated gold.

Have a great day and good luck in your search for par.

Sincerely,

Dean

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer
The real question is how useful will it be in selling copies of the game to those who do not already play. Will the advertising department run with "Unique feature that lets you learn from the AI by seeing how it makes its decisions"? And will that be worth the extra cost?

Actually, I do not take the marketing of the game into consideration very much (don't tell Dave). What has been my practice in the past, and which I intend to follow now, is to do what I, as a player, think is 'right'. My other self, the programmer, will mumble nasty things, but my higher being, the player, can usually stand firm. My driving principle is that if I do what is 'right', players will like the game and buy it.

As for multiple maps, if the player is the one who opened a second (and so on) map, he would likely be able to decipher it. It is just nice to be able to customize views based on what I need to see now rather than what a designer thought would be the most useful views most of the time.

I read (past tense) a different meaning into what you wrote. Try this idea. You only have one map visible, but it is large, filling the screen.

You position the map just so with the correct zoom factor, focused on just the area you want and with the units filtered to eliminate those not currently of interest. Perhaps you have the names of the cities turned off too. You save those settings as, say EF (Eastern front, Germany - USSR) and go onto North Africa where besides the land units you are concerned with naval transport and the like. Again you set the picture exactly to your liking and then save it as NA (North Africa). Continuing merrily on your way you check out the Atlantic (At) for submarine possibilties followed by the land war in China (Ch), Manchuria/Vladivostock(MV), and maybe even a Western Pacific (WP) view.

Now you can jump from any view to any other view with a drop down menu/mouse click/keystroke. This lets you get to each front no muss/no fuss. If the area of concern shifts a bit, you just redefine EF with the new view. The problem I am curing with this solution is having to reposition the detailed map to see just what you want to see whenever you switch from playing Germany to Italy to Japan. Or, even worse, from USA to China to CW to USSR.

I am not eliminating the multiple maps that CWIF gives the player, where you can cut up the screen into separate map views. I am augmenting that capability. The number of views could grow very large if you think about separate ones for strategic bombing, planning convoys, naval missions, and so on.

Anyway, that brings me back to the point I was making that the player may have trouble keeping track of all the shortcuts he has set up.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Try this idea.

Great Idea!

The only thing it gives up is the ability to look at two non adjacent areas. I can't decide if that is important or not.

As for helping the player remember the codes he set up... it is easy.

If when the user defines the map view he also has a field to put in a description .... for example :

NA
North America

Then you can dynamically add menu entries to represent the different views. An example of this would be in a word processor. You can see the last few documents you openend. Does this help?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Try this idea.

Great Idea!

The only thing it gives up is the ability to look at two non adjacent areas. I can't decide if that is important or not.

As for helping the player remember the codes he set up... it is easy.

If when the user defines the map view he also has a field to put in a description .... for example :

NA
North America

Then you can dynamically add menu entries to represent the different views. An example of this would be in a word processor. You can see the last few documents you openend. Does this help?

That is one solution. I was hoping for something more elegant - maybe a column of 2 or 3 letter abbreviations/buttons that is always visible and clickable so you don't have to go through the drop down menu process. Cursoring over one of the buttons would bring up the description you mentioned clicking on it changes the view.

You could still split the screen into a couple of maps if you wanted to. They both would provide the player with the ability to jump from view to view. Here are some examples of how using two maps might be helpful:
(A) Eastern Front - land units ........... (B) Eastern Front - air units
(A) Great Britain - naval units with land and air units that can be embarked ......... (B) Eastern Mediterranean - their destinations
(A) Eastern Front - land units ................. (B) Manchuria/Vladivostock - land units that can be railed to support the Eastern Front
(A) Eastern US - extended range air units ........... (B) Great Britain - destination for rebasing
(A) Eastern Front - German land and air units in the rear areas .......... (B) Western Europe - defendng against Allied invasion

[stretch]

One last request on the naval units aspect... I think in CWiF (been a long time) the only way to see naval units in a sea zone was to click on the sea zone first so they would be displayed in a units window. This left me with a feeling totally unlike the table top version. The naval units were never really "on the map". If at all possible could naval units in a sea zone show up stacked over their respective boxes just like land units staked in hexes? i.e. make it look like it would on a table. here is a sea zone, in the middle are the box numbers, the counters are sitting in the boxes.

It may seem trivial to some but to me that was the one area where CWiF felt totally and completely unlike it's cardboard parent.

[Mziln]

ORIGINAL: stretch

One last request on the naval units aspect... I think in CWiF (been a long time) the only way to see naval units in a sea zone was to click on the sea zone first so they would be displayed in a units window. This left me with a feeling totally unlike the table top version. The naval units were never really "on the map". If at all possible could naval units in a sea zone show up stacked over their respective boxes just like land units staked in hexes? i.e. make it look like it would on a table. here is a sea zone, in the middle are the box numbers, the counters are sitting in the boxes.

It may seem trivial to some but to me that was the one area where CWiF felt totally and completely unlike it's cardboard parent.

I think this would be a good idea but only when being viewed by your side. Task force markers should be displayed for the opposing side.

[rtamesis]

I don't know if any of these ideas would be useful or applicable for designing MWiF, but here goes. I don't have CWiF, so forgive me if these features are already in it.

1. How about a context-sensitive Inspector pallete window (like what you can find in Adobe applications such as Photoshop CS2 and in Apple's Keynote and Pages applications) which will display information about counters/units that you select with your mouse. It can also display all the different units that are present in a stack and the order in which they are stacked too from top to bottom. The Inspector window could also have different tabs to show different kinds of information on the unit, eg. supply status. This could be a way of quickly giving players as much information as they want about any unit. You can also toggle from the Menu bar whether to display the Inspector window or not. You could also limit the amount of information available to you if you click on an enemy unit, which might be a way of introducing a limited amount of fog of war into the game.

2. Clicking on a unit will visually display (by lightly changing the color) all the possible hexes that the unit can move into during its movement phase. This will allow the player to quickly decide where to move the unit instead counting how many available movement points will be expended if they move to a particular hex. Moving a unit through enemy territory will also change the color of the hexes moved through to indicate that those hexes are now controlled by your side, which can then help you determine how to trace supply lines as well as zones of control.

3. During a combat phase, selecting a unit or groups of units on the map or in the Inspector pallete window will then change the appearance of the mouse arrow to a bullseye or cross when you move it over a potential enemy target. Clicking on a target then initiates combat and its resolution with appropriate sound and visual effects.

[stretch]

ORIGINAL: Mziln


I think this would be a good idea but only when being viewed by your side. Task force markers should be displayed for the opposing side.

Absolutely. Good catch. This is another great point about something lost in CWiF. The opposing stacks should be subject to the same standards of FoW as the board game.

Generally convoy points are placed directly on the map. And in my experience the escorting surface forces are placed directly in the boxes with them. But larger forces, and in some cases, small ones used as decoys, were placed on map as TF markers. This entire concept was completely lost in CWiF.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: stretch
One last request on the naval units aspect... I think in CWiF (been a long time) the only way to see naval units in a sea zone was to click on the sea zone first so they would be displayed in a units window. This left me with a feeling totally unlike the table top version. The naval units were never really "on the map". If at all possible could naval units in a sea zone show up stacked over their respective boxes just like land units staked in hexes? i.e. make it look like it would on a table. here is a sea zone, in the middle are the box numbers, the counters are sitting in the boxes.

It may seem trivial to some but to me that was the one area where CWiF felt totally and completely unlike it's cardboard parent.

Let me paraphrase your suggestion and combine it with the follow up posts immediately below it.
Friendly units in a sea area would appear stacked in sea boxes within the sea area. Enemy units would also appear similarly stacked but perhaps in a separate set of sea boxes within the same sea area. If the fog of war option is being used, then the enemy units would be obscured in some way (more on that later). There is nothing to prevent doing this except possibly room within the sea area. Some of them are pretty small and on the paper map the 5 sea boxes are kind of squeezed in at an odd angle (e.g., Baltic, Persion Gulf, Azanian Sea). I will have to look at each sea area and see if there is enough area (as always, the puns are intended).

What I am pretty well convinced is a better approach to fog of war than task forces is the scheme used in CWIF. The quantity of units and their types are visible, but their details are not. You know there is a carrier with 3 battleships and a bunch other riff raff in sea box 3 but you don't know whether it is the good stuff or the dregs. For more on why I would prefer to not use hidden task forces as an optional rule see the thread on Optional Rules.