MWIF Game Interface Design

[mlees]

Ahhh! I did not realise that CWiF (and MWiF) had this "New Map" feature.

Thanks for spending the time to educate me! It's all clear now.

Sounds like you have everything well under control.

Carry on, and thanks!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The beta testers have pointed out that I was designing screens that didn't fit in 1024 by 768. To fix that I have had to split the start screen into two forms.

That actually works out better. Here is my first draft of the opening screen. The colors haven't been decided yet, so what you see here are merely "colors of convenience". Also, the lists of files shown in the subdirectories for each game are dummy.

On the other hand, the tutorial list is accurate and reflects my distillation of suggestions from dozens of forum members. The introductory tutorials show & tell the player a bunch of stuff about WIF in general. The scenario tutorials let the player push the pieces around and learn about the player interface while also learning about the mechanics of playing WIF.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

By removing the tutorials and restoring game choices from the old start screen, I have been able to have the new Start of Game form concentrate exclusively on starting a new game. This let me place the sequence for starting a new game in the upper left corner. As the player completes each step, those items will change color to show they have been completed.

I had to trim the previous screen shot, and this one too, because of the limit of 200K imposed on file uploads. Only a small portion of the bottom was cut off.

[Froonp]

I like this "start screen splited into two forms".
This is much much much better IMHO.
I also kind of like the separate load zones, for the different scenarios' saved games.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

I think the ability to 'pin' a form to a particular location is advisable.

I also think it might be interesting to 'link' forms together so that when one is minimized or restored, the others minimize or restore as well.

I think this would be most useful if the positions and links could be saved as a user configuration. It would also be useful to have multiple configurations that could be called up. This would be needed if several players were using the same machine (hotseat) or if a player needed a different configuration for one theater because of what he/she was going to be looking at.

As a developer, I understand how crucial it is to manage 'screen real estate'. Not everyone will be using dual monitors or even highest resolution.

Good luck with these decisions... I (for one) have faith in you.

[Ballista]

I think thats a good subdivision of the older form.

Its too bad some of the Beta testers are having problems with multiple apps (probably due to memory constraints and Microsoft's wonderful way of implementing hugely bloated code in their Office apps). I encounter problems spasmodically with Visio and opening say Microsoft word. Hopefully someone is testing this pretty well, as I would like to move up from using Notepad to something better (Excel would be nice). CWIF had some problems on all my machines with regards to blowing up from time to time too......

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer
1 - I think the ability to 'pin' a form to a particular location is advisable.

2 - I also think it might be interesting to 'link' forms together so that when one is minimized or restored, the others minimize or restore as well.

3 - I think this would be most useful if the positions and links could be saved as a user configuration. It would also be useful to have multiple configurations that could be called up. This would be needed if several players were using the same machine (hotseat) or if a player needed a different configuration for one theater because of what he/she was going to be looking at.

As a developer, I understand how crucial it is to manage 'screen real estate'. Not everyone will be using dual monitors or even highest resolution.

Good luck with these decisions... I (for one) have faith in you.

1 - Yes. I have been thinking along the lines of making all those 'pins' be associated with an edge of the screen. Such a restriction makes me a little nervous - I might have missed situations where the player will want to 'pin' a form to a position that is not on an edge. Nonetheless, the gain (cleaner looking layouts with no blank space between the form and the edge of the screen) seems worth the potential loss of flexibility.

2 - A new idea for me. Nothing comes to mind immediately where this would be "very desireable" during the normal course of play. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to where this would be a valuable addition to the MWIF player interface?

3 - Yes. That is my current intention. Multiple saved MWIF screen/form layouts stored separately by player name and also by player name + major power. In addition, specific detailed map settings (Saved Map Views) that can be called up at any time - stored by player name + major power.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
2 - A new idea for me. Nothing comes to mind immediately where this would be "very desireable" during the normal course of play. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to where this would be a valuable addition to the MWIF player interface?

If I have several (possibly unrelated) forms open on the left side of my screen and I want to peek under them at something else (i.e. the map or other forms pinned there), I can minimize them with one click and the restore them with one click.

This would allow me to have 'pages' of forms that I can switch between easily.

This may be overkill, but I thought I would mention it.


I know this is more of an MDI thing rather than SDI but would it be a neat thing to have a narrow vertical tab sheet that we can add forms to that will open and close them at the click of a tab?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
2 - A new idea for me. Nothing comes to mind immediately where this would be "very desireable" during the normal course of play. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to where this would be a valuable addition to the MWIF player interface?

If I have several (possibly unrelated) forms open on the left side of my screen and I want to peek under them at something else (i.e. the map or other forms pinned there), I can minimize them with one click and the restore them with one click.

This would allow me to have 'pages' of forms that I can switch between easily.

This may be overkill, but I thought I would mention it.


I know this is more of an MDI thing rather than SDI but would it be a neat thing to have a narrow vertical tab sheet that we can add forms to that will open and close them at the click of a tab?

Sort of.

This is the perfect time to mention this, by the way.

I already have a list of saved map views I want to have available for instant access. In addition I plan on lists of units being available (e.g., those that are eligible to move in the current phase). The later list would be both informative and also actionable. For instance, if you click on a unit then the detailed map is centered on that unit, which is also selected.

I have a definitive list of 95 forms that the game currently uses and I am sorting them out into categories. A lot of them pop up for very specific decisions (e.g., do you want to reroll?). But there are still a substantial number that the player might want to have available during normal play. I also have another dozen or so I want to add.

[wfzimmerman]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
2 - A new idea for me. Nothing comes to mind immediately where this would be "very desireable" during the normal course of play. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to where this would be a valuable addition to the MWIF player interface?

My daily workflow, by Fred Zimmerman

1. Open application windows.
2. Repeat, until...
3. Something freezes.

For those of us who tend to promiscuously open windows, the ability to minimize or shut them all at once is always a help. In Firefox this is expressed as "close other tabs".

[Shannon V. OKeets]

For a number fo reasons I have made a nice rendering of the sequence of play for MWIF (WIF in general too).
Here is page 1 of 4 pages.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is page 2. The sequence of play is a real monster. To even cover it lightly I needed 4 pages, and the last section (End of turn) hasn't been done yet.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is page 3. I have only numbered the main sections. Originally I had all the subsections numbered too, but I didn't think it added any information - just made it more cluttered.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The last page in the set. The activity limits are shown in the ovals. A is for an Air action, N is for a Naval action, and so on. If the letter is bold and colored green, then that indicates an unlimited number of that activity can be performed.

I expect to use these draft graphics as I design the forms for explaining the sequence of play to the player:

1 - where the player currently is within the sequence of play,
2 - to explain the game as part of the tutorials,
3 - to serve as a navigational tool for getting help.

Very early in that task I realized that it was very complex and needed to be well thought out before writing code. Hence the CorelDraw rendering you see here. As always, feel free to critique these.

[Froonp]

The Declare War Step (Sequence of play D.2.1 / Chapter 9) is composed of (and performed in that order) :
- Declare War (9)
- Aligning minors (9.8)
You have them in the wrong order in your picture.

Maybe it would be cleaner for action B who is "inside" action A to be displayed as a box inside Action A box. Have you tried ?

[Froonp]

In page 3.
The "Line Up Air Units" box and its 3 daughter boxes, should be attached to the "Air-to-air Combat" box, shouldn't they ?
The "Anti-Aircraft Combat sould be a daughter box of Commit Anti-Aircraft" box (displayed to the right), shouldn't it ?

[Froonp]

In page 2.
What is "Optional Rules", the daughter box of "Place Reinforcements" ?

[Froonp]

In Page 2 :

The "Include Sea Boxes" box (Rule 11.5.5) should be before the "Surprise Points" box (Rule 11.5.6) (after the "Search" Box).

[Froonp]

Page 2 again.

In the Naval Combat sequence.
There is no "Roll for Result" step per see. It should be "Cross Reference the Table for Results".

There is no "attack roll" in the Naval combats.

For instance 15 points of Naval Gunnery on an enemy fleet of 5 ships always does the same damage : 1 ship sunk, 3 ship aborted.

The things that make the results variable are two folds :

1) Surprise allow you to shift the column when you "Cross Reference the table for results". With 4 surprise points, the above gunnery fire could be shifted 2 columns (that is attack as a fleet with 29-38 gunnery factors instead of 15), and inflict 1 ship sunk and 2 ships damaged..

2) Damage is not automatically suffered by the target ships. They are entitled a save roll. Roll higher than their defense factor (Yamato has 0 defense factor, a CL typicaly has 7-9) to suffer a reduced damage (a sink becomes a damage, a damage becomes an abort, and an abort becomes hlf an abort).

No Roll.


The "Assign Damage" box should be followed by a "Defense Roll" box, who should either loop back to Assign damage, or go to the "Abort or Continue" box.

[Froonp]

Page 2 again :

The "Emergency HQ Supply" box (Rule 2.4.3, Option 13) is some sort of Joker that you can pull out whenever you want.
It is not declared in any way at the place you put it in page 2 (just after "Attack Declaration").

Typically it is announced prior to Ground Strikes (to allow out of supply FTRs to intercept the raid) or prior to Land Combats (just before the calculation, after the enemy has announced all support).