MWIF Game Interface Design

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Well, I like both what Samurai proposed, and your B proposal.

What could be exciting (Vista thing) would be for the flyout to be semi transparent, allowing the counters to be seen in the flyout, but also keeping the on map situation in sight.

What is needed on the other hand is for some data about the stack to be displayed somehwere. The most important of them is the total land combat strengh of the stack. It could appear in the status bar, kind of what Excel show in the task bar (bottom grey row of the screen of Excel) when you select numbers. You right click in the task bar to ask Excel to see averages instead of sums, or standard deviations, or countings, well, your choice. MWiF could have the same kind of feature. Right click on it to choose to see total land combat strength, total tactical support factors, strat factors, max movement, or whatever.

About the flyout, I could also envision it spreading fan-like, showing all the units in the stack, the units overlapping a little (fan-like), and un-spreading when closing. [:D]

No transparency or waving fans. That begins to sound like some sort of oriental dancing girl. And besides, there is enough work before me already without additions.

I don't think I will put any other info in either. If you are really interested in the atack values et al, just have the Units Under Cursor panel visible and you can get all that information updated as you move the mouse over different hexes. Flyouts is a supplement to, not replacement for, the UUC. I see its main advantages as: being able to find a specific unit you are looking for (the larger visual image will help for that), checking a stack to see that it has the types of units in it that you think it does (e.g., review prior to pressing the End of Phase button), a quick examination of a stack without having to flick your eyes over to the UUC.

The more we add to Flyouts the bulkier and more cumbersome they become.
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I am still thinking seriously about splitting the unit data box out as a separate entity, which the player can position anywhere he wants. Right now it is enbedded in the UUC. As a floating box on the screen this could fulfill your request without requiring the full footprint of the UUC. I'll see how things go in this evolving player interface.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Largus_Means

ORIGINAL: Froonp

About the flyout, I could also envision it spreading fan-like, showing all the units in the stack, the units overlapping a little (fan-like), and un-spreading when closing. [:D]

Thats a nice solution, in VASL thats exactly what you can do, you can fan it out and get a full view of what is in the hex. Then using the arrow keys allows you to move units up/down top/bottom in the stack. This is still the best solution I have used in many different wargames that have stack of units being used. Also the ability to use shift to select a few counters and pull them out of the stack is another nice option.

Cheers

MWIF (inherited from CWIF) uses a Select Units form to perform the task of selecting specific units from a stack. That permits a wide range of options such as selecting all the carriers, battleships, etc. using check boxes. The order of units in the stack is usually controlled by sorting them according to type.

Moving items (units) up and down in a stack is of lesser importance in MWIF than in many other applications I use. That's because the WIF stacks change a lot during play and the order of the items in the stack has no effect on game play.

Getting a "full view" has an upper limit given screen space - there can be dozens of units in a major port (over 100?). I choose 9 as the max for the Flyout, which I am pretty happy with. The UUC, besides having a scrolling capability, can now (added today) be resized horizontally to show as many units as your screen can display.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
No transparency or waving fans. That begins to sound like some sort of oriental dancing girl. And besides, there is enough work before me already without additions.

I could have used that oriental dancing girl [:D].

I don't think I will put any other info in either. If you are really interested in the atack values et al, just have the Units Under Cursor panel visible and you can get all that information updated as you move the mouse over different hexes. Flyouts is a supplement to, not replacement for, the UUC. I see its main advantages as: being able to find a specific unit you are looking for (the larger visual image will help for that), checking a stack to see that it has the types of units in it that you think it does (e.g., review prior to pressing the End of Phase button), a quick examination of a stack without having to flick your eyes over to the UUC.

OK, I thought that it were replacing it.

I am still thinking seriously about splitting the unit data box out as a separate entity, which the player can position anywhere he wants. Right now it is enbedded in the UUC. As a floating box on the screen this could fulfill your request without requiring the full footprint of the UUC. I'll see how things go in this evolving player interface.

A good idea I say.

[Froonp]

The UUC, besides having a scrolling capability, can now (added today) be resized horizontally to show as many units as your screen can display.

This is great ! Greater than it looks like !

[Jimm]

I had not previously given control interface much thought.

My wish would be to have as much mouse control as possible, lots of key combos can be daunting and make an already complex game potentially even more impenetrable. After all its not a flight sim!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Jimm

I had not previously given control interface much thought.

My wish would be to have as much mouse control as possible, lots of key combos can be daunting and make an already complex game potentially even more impenetrable. After all its not a flight sim!

Yes. That was my opinion when I read what the the code was doing. Here are my proposed changes. Not ethat I have removed all the double key presses used in combination with a mouse click. Though I do have them in reserve if something important comes up.
============================
Mouse Click Functions
(as of October 17, 2007)

1. Locked stack
Space bar key: toggle units in hex as the locked stack for the Units Under Cursor panel.

2. Pick up and move units
Left Down
• Empty hand, no locked stack: pick up top unit
• Empty hand, locked stack active: pick up entire locked stack
• Units in hand: place units in hex

Control Left Down
• Empty hand during land movement, land combat declaration, and advance after combat: pick up the entire stack.
• Empty hand during phases not listed in 3.1: display the Select Units Form to select units to pick up.
• Units in hand: move units to hex and pick them up again. This permits moving units from hex to hex, specifying their movement path precisely.

3. Rearrange units in stack
Shift Left Down
Move top unit to the bottom

Alt Left Down
Move bottom unit to the top

4. Flyout grid
Double click Left Down
Activate Flyout grid display as the cursor passes over hexes. Any mouse click deactivates this display.

5. Unit menu
Right Down
Display the unit menu for top unit or entire stack.

Control Right Down
Display unit menu for 2nd unit in stack. This permits access to the first unit transported by the top unit.

Alt Right Down
Display unit menu for 2nd or 3rd unit in the stack. This permits access to the second unit transported by the top unit.

6. Other
Shift Right Down (equivalent to pressing the forward slash ‘/’)
Toggle units in the hex as Selectable/Not Selectable. Not Selectable indicates a unit a player has considered (for movement or whatever) and wants to skip when cycling through all the units on the map for decision making. All units are set to Selectable at the start of each phase. There is an alternative setting of Sentry which has a similar effect, but Sentry lasts from turn to turn and is not cleared at the start of each phase. Sentry status can be toggled using the unit menu (right click displays the unit menu).

Double click Right Down
Unused (available for future use)

Shift Control Left Down (and other double key combinations with left or right click)
Unused (available for future use)

[Zorachus99]

I'll give my opinion because not everyone has one [;)]
 
IMO...
 
Left Click:  Select a unit
Right Click:  Always the second most used function of a click (this is from the Blizzard dev team which I met)
Double Left Click:  Select all units in the hex (in this case the selectable ones)  OR  Unselect all the units in the hex.  This allows you to pick up an entire group easily and release them just as quickly.
 
That's about it.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

I'll give my opinion because not everyone has one [;)]

IMO...

Left Click:  Select a unit
Right Click:  Always the second most used function of a click (this is from the Blizzard dev team which I met)
Double Left Click:  Select all units in the hex (in this case the selectable ones)  OR  Unselect all the units in the hex.  This allows you to pick up an entire group easily and release them just as quickly.

That's about it.

Certainly this is a good suggestion. I've decided not to take this advice though.

There is a trend in the industry to use Right Click to bring up a menu. That, in combination with that the unit menu will be a frequent choice, I think makes using it for that purpose is not too bad. Although I do not know if statistically I could defend it as the second most frequently used function.

Double Left Click to select all units is very tempting. But in WIF there is often a mixture of unit types in a hex and most phases of the game only involve decisions for one unit type at a time. So I translated your statement to "pick up all currently selectable units". Still, I do not believe that is going to be used very much (as a percentage of player choices). Moving individual land units, and one/some but not all of the air/naval units in a hex dominates game play. Therefore I am opting for Double Left Click toggling the Flyout Grid.

I now have the programming structured so I can change these around in less than a minute. CWIF had one player interface setting for redefining these (i.e., reversing the meaning of Left Click and Control Left Click). I have left that ability in tact, but I could rather easily change it to let the player decide what does what for all the key combinations. This is a new idea for me (20 seconds old) so I'll let it gestate for a while.

[cockney]

I hope that with the mouse and keyboard you will be able to customies your own settings eg insted of space to drop a stack fwd slash yadda yadda yadda

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: cockney

I hope that with the mouse and keyboard you will be able to customies your own settings eg insted of space to drop a stack fwd slash yadda yadda yadda

Maybe. No promises.

[mavraamides]

Another possibility would be to have the keyboard mappings in a file that could be edited. This has some advantages:

1) Most people will use the defaults so they won't have to bother with any settings anyway.
2) It allows a lot of flexibility in KB assignment for those that do care.
3) (Most importantly): It saves the programming staff from having to design, implement, and test yet another settings screen so they can concentrate on the important stuff (***cough*** AI ***cough***).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: GordianKnot

Another possibility would be to have the keyboard mappings in a file that could be edited. This has some advantages:

1) Most people will use the defaults so they won't have to bother with any settings anyway.
2) It allows a lot of flexibility in KB assignment for those that do care.
3) (Most importantly): It saves the programming staff from having to design, implement, and test yet another settings screen so they can concentrate on the important stuff (***cough*** AI ***cough***).

The main problem with making the keyboard settings dynamic is that all the documentation (e.g., interactive tutorials) become out of sync. The long term gain here seems minor to me. Whether the command is a Control left mouse click or Shift left mouse click, what's the diff? Whether you press Control G or Control H, matters little in the larger scheme of things. I'll review the decisions I have already made on these once everything is in complete (i.e., all player interface features are in place).

I don't mind being a dictator on these issues. Afterall, there is a point where a totally flexible interface becomes needlessly confusing.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The last couple of days I have been straigthening out the code for displaying units in forms. There were a few bugs and I wanted more capabilities than the CWIF component definitions provided. One of the new capabilities I added was the ability to display different zoom levels for units depcitions inside of forms. Previously there had only been two: zoomlevel 8 and zoom level 4. I have added 5 and 6.

Here is the use of zoom level 6 in a new form: Flyouts. The units on the map are zoom level 4. The flyout is zoom level 6.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Here is another example of Flyouts, with the map at zoom level 2.

When you pass the cursor over the hex, the flyout appears. There are different grids for flyouts that depend on the # of units in the hex: 1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 2x2, 2x3, and 3x3. I presently have them not show any units if there are more than 9 units in a hex.

I see this being a very useful tool for looking at the map with a low zoom level and checking on each hex in a front line. The Flyout enables you to see clearly what the units are in the hex.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

3rd and last in the series.

Here is a side by side comparison of flyouts with the units under cursor panel:

1 - the details of the units in the UUC are hard to read, while the units in the Flyout are quite easy to read.
2 - the UUC shows all the status indicators.
3 - the UUC shows summary information on the hex.
4 - the UUC can be locked, so the unit images remain visible while the cursor about doing other things.
5 - Flyouts have a much smaller footprint - what is shown here is the largest footprint a flyout will occupy.
6 - the UUC has provision for scrolling at the bottom, so for a major port hex with 30 units in it, all teh units can be examined.

[Froonp]

Seems great !

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is another example of Flyouts, with the map at zoom level 2.

When you pass the cursor over the hex, the flyout appears.

You mean "When you pass the cursor over the hex, and you double click" do you ? (it was settled to the double click wasn't it ?)

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

Seems great !

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

Here is another example of Flyouts, with the map at zoom level 2.

When you pass the cursor over the hex, the flyout appears.

You mean "When you pass the cursor over the hex, and you double click" do you ? (it was settled to the double click wasn't it ?)

I set it up so you have to have an empty cursor (no units "in hand") and then double left click on any empty hex. That activates the Flyout display. Then moving the cursor around the map will bring up the display for any occupied hex. A single click anywhere deactivates the Flyout display.

This makes it very easy to turn the Flyout feature on and off - it doesn't require holding down a key. The empty hand + empty hex requirement prevents confusion with other commands involving a single left click.

[Jimm]

Excellent.

Does the flyout always appear to the bottom right of the hex? I'm thinking about what the flyout might obscure and if it would be good to be able to vary the positioning of it relative to the hex. Say to keep visible the hex you are planning to attack, for instance. Perhaps it doesnt matter though?

Good feature.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Jimm

Excellent.

Does the flyout always appear to the bottom right of the hex? I'm thinking about what the flyout might obscure and if it would be good to be able to vary the positioning of it relative to the hex. Say to keep visible the hex you are planning to attack, for instance. Perhaps it doesnt matter though?

Good feature.

The upper left corner of the flyout is where the mouse entered the target hex. If you come in from the bottom, it is at the bottom, from the left, then it is on the left, etc..

I thought about this some, but it seemed like too much detail to add more player control. If you are serious about attacking, then zoom in on the hex using the entire map display.

A new idea (5 seconds old) would be to have a double right click bring the the menu up so the top right corner is in the the target hex instead of the top left corner. That's a major commitment for a small change though.

[Jimm]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Jimm

Excellent.

Does the flyout always appear to the bottom right of the hex? I'm thinking about what the flyout might obscure and if it would be good to be able to vary the positioning of it relative to the hex. Say to keep visible the hex you are planning to attack, for instance. Perhaps it doesnt matter though?

Good feature.

The upper left corner of the flyout is where the mouse entered the target hex. If you come in from the bottom, it is at the bottom, from the left, then it is on the left, etc..

I thought about this some, but it seemed like too much detail to add more player control. If you are serious about attacking, then zoom in on the hex using the entire map display.

A new idea (5 seconds old) would be to have a double right click bring the the menu up so the top right corner is in the the target hex instead of the top left corner. That's a major commitment for a small change though.

Having the option to alternate between top right & top left say would be cool. But I cant say whether it is worth the commitment of your time & resources!