MWIF Game Interface Design

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Yes. That had been my understanding too. I had a few imprecise statements when describing it in words.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Assignments for Keystroke Shortcuts
(as of May 16, 2006)

During play the availability of keystroke shortcuts makes things go faster for experienced players. It saves having to figure out which menu lets you perform certain actions or call up informational forms. I intend to revise the keystroke definitions from CWIF and here is my current list.

All of the following are in combination with the control key <Ctrl>. Some of these are common conventions (F, L, S, X, Z). Others are really obvious (A, B, C, G, H, I, M, N, O, P, R, T, U, V, W). A few depend on a little mind twisting to figure them out and hopefully remember them (D, E, K, Y, 2, 5). And lastly there are those which were stuck with choosing from the remaining letters (J, Q).

A. Activities available
B. Strategic bombing/Resource losses
C. Chat window
D. CAP/Air defense
E. US Entry
F. Find city/port
G. Global map
H. Help/Charts
I. Initiative/Impulse
J. Units in hex
K. Captured facilities
L. Load game
M. Show valid moves
N. Neutrality pacts
O. Optional rules
P. Production/Resources
Q. Units in pools
R. Relationships between countries
S. Save game
T. Trade agreements
U. Units in game
V. Victory totals
W. Weather
X. Exit game
Y. Rules (why?)
Z. Undo all
2. Distance calculator
5. Partisans (5th column)

I expect I will have to modify these somewhat as I add more interface features. But these will do for now.

Comments?

[fuzzy_bunnyy]

flip x and w? ctrl w is frequently used to close windows, x is not. confusion is best avoided imho.

EDIT-
also r and y. I find myself looking at the rules often, and Id rather have that be the intuitive keystroke than the relationships between countries which I can usually remember off the top of my head.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy
flip x and w? ctrl w is frequently used to close windows, x is not. confusion is best avoided imho.

EDIT-
also r and y. I find myself looking at the rules often, and Id rather have that be the intuitive keystroke than the relationships between countries which I can usually remember off the top of my head.

Any other opinions out there?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy
flip x and w? ctrl w is frequently used to close windows, x is not. confusion is best avoided imho.

I agree wholeheartly.

EDIT-
also r and y. I find myself looking at the rules often, and Id rather have that be the intuitive keystroke than the relationships between countries which I can usually remember off the top of my head.

[/quote]
For this one I'll be OK with any choice. In other words, I don't care [:D].

Any other opinions out there?

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy
flip x and w? ctrl w is frequently used to close windows, x is not. confusion is best avoided imho.

EDIT-
also r and y. I find myself looking at the rules often, and Id rather have that be the intuitive keystroke than the relationships between countries which I can usually remember off the top of my head.

Any other opinions out there?

W is pretty logical for weather. Is a shortcut for quitting such a good idea? By getting rid of it we help prevent accidental quitting and we can keep W for weather.

R for rules is probably a good idea. Y could be for "Your Relationships". A bit untidy though. People would get used Y for "Why?" in short order. Shortcuts are usually for the well practised anyway.

Cheers, Neilster

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy
flip x and w? ctrl w is frequently used to close windows, x is not. confusion is best avoided imho.

EDIT-
also r and y. I find myself looking at the rules often, and Id rather have that be the intuitive keystroke than the relationships between countries which I can usually remember off the top of my head.

I tried a couple of applications and Ctrl+W seems to just close a window within an application. I would be using Ctrl+X for closing the application itself - quitting. Of course I could use Ctrl+Q, I guess, but Exit strikes me as a good fit (both X and Q are hard to use otherwise).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I am almost done the new Units form. When you first get MWIF, you will probably want to visit this form early on. It contains the cmoplete list of units in the game as thumbnail bitmaps. What I have changed is to add the full size bitmap and accompanying historical text on each unit (text all provided by Greyshaft.

These are for you Greyshaft!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I wish I could show the whole screen, but the jpg is too large to upload. So I am doing this in three parts.

This second screen shot shows the list of all the units on the left. As you pass the cursor over each unit, the large bitmap on the right and the accompanying text updates immediately.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is the bottom left corner of the same screen as the two previous screen shots.

When a unit is on the map, the small map portion you see here is also updated.

I have filtered for just the HQ units. Which is why you see only HQs on the list to the left.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy
flip x and w? ctrl w is frequently used to close windows, x is not. confusion is best avoided imho.

EDIT-
also r and y. I find myself looking at the rules often, and Id rather have that be the intuitive keystroke than the relationships between countries which I can usually remember off the top of my head.

I tried a couple of applications and Ctrl+W seems to just close a window within an application. I would be using Ctrl+X for closing the application itself - quitting. Of course I could use Ctrl+Q, I guess, but Exit strikes me as a good fit (both X and Q are hard to use otherwise).

Indeed, there is no need for a keyboard key to close the game. there is already the ALT+F4 combination key to quit any program.
There is also CTRL+F4 to close Windows within an Application.

Isn't that enough ?

Just get sure that both are understood by MWiF, and it will be ok I think.

[Froonp]

I have filtered for just the HQ units. Which is why you see only HQs on the list to the left.

And where the hell is Manstein ????




[:D]

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy
flip x and w? ctrl w is frequently used to close windows, x is not. confusion is best avoided imho.

EDIT-
also r and y. I find myself looking at the rules often, and Id rather have that be the intuitive keystroke than the relationships between countries which I can usually remember off the top of my head.

I tried a couple of applications and Ctrl+W seems to just close a window within an application. I would be using Ctrl+X for closing the application itself - quitting. Of course I could use Ctrl+Q, I guess, but Exit strikes me as a good fit (both X and Q are hard to use otherwise).

Indeed, there is no need for a keyboard key to close the game. there is already the ALT+F4 combination key to quit any program.
There is also CTRL+F4 to close Windows within an Application.

Isn't that enough ?

Just get sure that both are understood by MWiF, and it will be ok I think.

I have been using Windows for over 10 years and I did not know you could close applications with ALT+F4. Not common knowledge.

Saving a key combination by eliminating a shortcut for closing the application would be nice. Players might expect there to be one though.

This piece of the design has a long way to go. I want to enable players to switch between screen layouts and detailed map views too. Game replay, Standing Orders for PBEM, and so on are all yet to be set in place. I anticipate that they all will be deserving of some shortcut keystrokes.

So, suggestions and comments are welcome, but nothing definitie is going to be decided until the other stuff has been worked on some more.

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I have been using Windows for over 10 years and I did not know you could close applications with ALT+F4. Not common knowledge.

Don't feel bad....

I have been programming in windows for over 12 years and did not know about the other ones that were mentioned.

I once spent part of several days trying to find documentation on what the 'standard' windows command keys were and was never able to find it. Of course that was before the MSDN knowledgebase.

Experience has shown that it really doesn't matter what keystrokes you pick. Some will like them. Some will hate them. Most will use the mouse no matter how much quicker it is to use the keyboard.

Keep up the great work. I have never worked with a programmer who was so interested in what the users thought. You are a shining example to all of us in that industry.

Kudos

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I have been using Windows for over 10 years and I did not know you could close applications with ALT+F4. Not common knowledge.

Don't feel bad....

I have been programming in windows for over 12 years and did not know about the other ones that were mentioned.

I once spent part of several days trying to find documentation on what the 'standard' windows command keys were and was never able to find it. Of course that was before the MSDN knowledgebase.

Experience has shown that it really doesn't matter what keystrokes you pick. Some will like them. Some will hate them. Most will use the mouse no matter how much quicker it is to use the keyboard.

Keep up the great work. I have never worked with a programmer who was so interested in what the users thought. You are a shining example to all of us in that industry.

Kudos

Thanks.

I have worked independently for quite some time and discovered early on that no matter what you do, you always have a boss. The easy way to figure out who your boss is, is to see how the money flows. From person X to you means person X is your boss. For the independent contractor that is the customer. I find it amusing when people I am paying to do work for me act as if they can override my decisions/judgments whenever they want. They clearly haven't grasped the idea that I can simply stop paying them.

Anyway, the players are the paying customers here. The money flows from them to me (eventually, I hope) when they buy the game. So, to me, it seems borderline insane to not solicit and respond to their opinions. Can't please everyone - requests are often mutually exclusive. But I should be able to get MWIF to please most WIF players.

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I am almost done the new Units form. When you first get MWIF, you will probably want to visit this form early on. It contains the cmoplete list of units in the game as thumbnail bitmaps. What I have changed is to add the full size bitmap and accompanying historical text on each unit (text all provided by Greyshaft.

These are for you Greyshaft!

Thanks for the thanks. It's a real buzz seeing my work embedded within the game. Next job is to finish off sixteen air units I missed the first time around.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Things are kind of running together as I work on different pieces of the player interface. The result is that I need to finalize the design for the status indicators so that is in place as I work on other interface issues.

Here is what my current design looks like.

A - The large square number 10 indicates how many units are in the hex. When there is only one, this indicator does not show at all.

B - I have slightly rounded the corners of the units.

C - I have not added shading (3-D effects) but that would only be for the counter itself - not for any of the indicators that appear along the outside of the counter.

D - The circle indicators have been numbered 1 through 6 for reference only. Those numbers would not appear on the screen.

E - #1 & #2 are related to moving a unit. If a unit is not eligible for movement during a phase (e.g., a naval unit during an air phase), then the 1st circle would be missing completely.

F - #2 indicates units that are passive. In common WIF parlance they are called face down or disrupted units though both names are inappropriate for MWIF. Face down is wrong for obvious reasons. Disrupted is not quite right either for sometimes it is more closely related to 'expended' or "not fully functional". I prefer 'Passive', especially because a unit can have this status changed through a variety of means during a turn. This circle only appears if a unit is passive.

G - #3 indicates supply status and #4 indicates combat status. For units with normal supply status this circle does not appear. HQs always have circle #3.

H - Since I made the pretty picture I noticed that I need to add another indicator for Damaged naval units.[&:]

I - #5 is just for naval units.

J - #6 is for units transporting or being transported by other units.

K - It is quite possible that many units will have no indicators at all!

L - I believe the placement of the indicators at the side as well as on the top will make them easier to learn and remember. Therefore I strongly prefer these placements, despite the fact that that means the units will take up more room when shown in a unit's panel.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here my next pass at this.

1 - I have used a colored background since the background will never be pure white.

2 - I have added an quasi-3D effect

3 - I have removed the outlines from the circles since they will not scale well through all levels of zoom

4 - I added a 7th circle which is for damaged naval units. It is possible that you will have damaged naval units that have been forced to abort and are fighting through an enemy controlled sea area on their way home. In that case the 5th circle will be colored to indicateForced Abort rather than Fighting Through (since the latter is required).

5 - I added a sea box number to the side. This will not be shown for units that are on the map, but will be helpful when examining displays of units engaged in naval combat. I am working out a design for revising that form and want to be able to shown all the units grouped by unit type for each side. For example, in a naval combat you might have several BBs in sea box 2 and others in sea box 3. When reviewing the combat as a whole, knowing which sea box they are in can be important. Slicing and dicing the form into sea box areas makes it too complex. When I get the form farther along, I'll post it here.

[Zorachus99]

YES YES!!

[Neilster]

Are you still going with rounded squares/rectangles for the indicators; maximum number of pixels and all that? Are you going to size the indicators proportionally to their importance?

Cheers, Neilster