FreeOrion

The point that the player could pick location and what to build in either order was repeating what you wrote because I forgot that you'd written it after I read it and started my reply. However I also added some potential refinements to this point, and mentioned the need for the way to indicate how many of a type of ship to build.

For the production screen:

-Indication of what buildings / wonders are currently located on or being constructed on a given planet or at a given system. This might be integrated with the system sidepanel.

Perhaps we should also look ahead a bit, so as to avoid having to overhaul the production UI later... One thing we might want to make room for, but which won't be needed for v0.3:

-Indications of what buildings are not buildable at a given location, and an indication of why they aren't. eg. "requires X special", "requires Y resource", "requires Z other building", "cannot be built on Q environment" and so forth. This might be as simple as greying or redding out stuff on the list-o-things to build and indicating in brackets why they're not available.

Similarly, we could indicate the reasons why a selected ship or building can't be built at places where it can't be built (in addition to showing where it can be built when selected)

Is anyone working on the production screen? If you are working on a mockup, just let us know in this thread so that we know something is happening. If not, then we are still in need of a volunteer to create it. Also, the research icons thread has been very quiet - so if anyone is working on that I'd appreciate a note there too, thanks.

Zach is getting close to finishing the 0.3 programming, so we need to get these parts together for 0.3. Thanks!

Since nobody seems to be working on this, I figured I'd take a crack at it. I'm not done yet with my mockup, I'd like some feedback on a few thoughts (some already mentioned)...

Be warned that my graphics manipulation skills are... lacklustre at best. (Luckily cutting and pasting prerendered stuff and editing out the tails on R's to make P's in that difficult...)

I'd like the Production screen to be a cross between the Research screen and the system sidepanel. I figure that since Production will at least occasionally needs a way to pick specific planets to build things on, as well as a way to get detailed info about specific planets and systems while picking where to build, it would be most efficient to have the Production UI be an additional set of sidepanel-like windows arranged around the screen with the standard system sidepanel still visible, since it will presumably still show much of this information.

Here's an in-progress mockup, which uses the same look as the research queue, item description box and summary (eg. PP totals) boxes.

Uhm... please pretend the names of stuff on the queue and description box are those of buildings or ships.

The middle bottom section of the screen shows the galaxy map, which can be scrolled around and used to pick build locations and display building ranges and the like.

The stuff on the sidepanel obviously needs a lot of work... I don't really like most of the mockups on the sidepanel thread. In particular, those that want to widen the sidepanel in particular are problematic for the combined Production-Sidepanel view, as a widened sidepanel cuts into the galaxy map portion of of the production screen a little too much.

I'll spend a bit more time working out what and how to display stuff on the sidepanel later... but I would like to point out the little icons below the planet images, which are supposed to represent specials affecting the planet. We could do something similar (at the top?) for strategic resources if they are implemented, which I hope for. I figure that similar icons could be displayed below systems on the galaxy map, or at the top right in the system summary panel above the planets (which I've omitted from this image as well, as it needs to be reworked to fir the style of the Production UI... as does the sidepanel proper, actually...) Another thing for the individual planets displays is that if we have one race per planet, and planets can have different races, we should probably indicate the race of the population on each planet next to the population.

Another issue is how to display what buildings are located in a system on the sidepanel or galaxy map, and on planet in the sidepanel. I considered having tabs in the sidepanel, one for "Resources / Summary" that shows population and various meter values and / or resource production, and another that has a list of all buildings on each planet... but this seemed a bit clunky.

Instead, why not use the existing Fleets-Window style for buildings? We'd add another icon next to each system that contains a building (or building being constructed) on the galaxy map. Clicking this, or a similar button on the sidepanel, would open a Buildings-Window, which would look at work just like the fleets window, except that the "fleets" of buildings would be equivalent the the sets of buildings located on each planet. As well, if we later have user-targetting of effects through the UI, both ships and buildings that have targettable effects could use exactly the same UI features for this targetting, since they both are shown in the same fleets-window style UI. (see here for discussion)

Another issue is how to select what the player wants to build. I'm not sure what the best way to do this is... There's not a lot of space left on the screen for a big box of options, and it would be beneficial to leave as much of the screen as see now visible, so as to provide feedback to the player about where a particular building or ship order could be build before they actually pick it. Eg. imagine something like a windows start menu for the options of things to build. When an item on the menu is moused-over, the sidepanel and galaxy map are updated to show the potential build locations and range (if applicable) for that item. As well, it would be nice to be able to drag an item from the list of things to build onto the queue of production, into the exact spot you want it, rather than having to enqueue it and then move it. Further, when mousing over an item in the list, it would be nice to get instant detailed feedback about what the item is and does in the middle upper info box. Unfortunately the above situations require that almost all of the screen remain visible when selecting what to build... I suppose we could have a floating window of options that the player could move around, so as to uncover whatever the player wants to see while picking the building, but IMO this would be clunky and annoying. I'm not sure what the best solution is... thoughts?

Oh, one question for tzlaine: Could you shrink the tech boxes in the queue? Breadman's mockup had much smaller boxes than those you've put on the Research tree view and queue. It would free up a lot of space and fit a lot more on the screen on both the Research screens and a potential Production screen if these boxes were smaller. There's not really any need for them to be more than 200 pixels wide, while currently they're 300, if I'm measuring correctly... If these boxes were smaller, I might be able to fit a list of build potential build projects on the screen next to the queue, without taking up too much galaxy map space, which would solve my problem of where to put said list... And I realize this isn't the reserach screen, but IMO the research screen would benefit from smaller boxes as well, and keeping otherwise identical UI widgets looking consistent between screens seems like a good idea.

Edit: It'd be nice to have some GUI feedback from systems. Systems near / under the mouse would highlight, similar to how Fleet Icons highlight when rolled over. This would work in general, including when the production view is open. This should work in conjuction with highlighted / normal / greyed out systems, which would be used to indicate their status as valid / invalid production locations. (Not sure if we need 3 states, or if just ("normal" and "greyed out") or ("normal" and "highlighted") are sufficient...

Did some more...


The left list is the queue, the right is the stuff you can build. You click the buttons (Ships, Buildings, Misc.) to filter the results (each toggles its stuff on off, so you can have both or neither options on). You then can drag the item on the the queue, then select a location for it. Alternatively, you can click a planet, then drag from the build list to the queue, to build something at the selected planet.

Since the queue and build list take up so much space, I've included close buttons on them. When closed, "Build" and "Queue" buttons would appear at the same place, over top of the galaxy map (while the prod screen is open only) to get the queue / build list back.

The queue and build list item boxes are only 200 pixels wide now. Would be nice if they could go a bit smaller too, but then names of stuff won't fit... and presumably we'll want some icons on the boxes too... SO...

The text in the buttons (Ships, Buildings) will probably need to be replaced with icons of some sort. There's not enough room in there to be sure that translations of those words will fit...

The items in the build list will probably be sorted by cost.

You can also click on an item in the build list to get it's info in the box up top (same as with items on queue).

Double clicking item in build list adds it to bottom of queue.

Figured I should try putting the build options box at the bottom, instead of at the side.

This makes the remaining galaxy map space a much nicer shape.

I also reduced the size of the things in the buildable items box... perhaps they won't be drag-droppable onto the queue, as being a different size on the queue makes doing that less intuitive, but double clicking or selecting planets then clicking nor somesuch might work.

Edit: In the buildable box at the bottom, there should be only one lightly coloured item. That is the selected item (click once). Doing this shows info about the item in the info box at the top of the screen. The darker blue ones are unselected but available to build at the selected planet, and the dark grey ones are things you can't build at the selected location for some reason. Clicking on them would also put their info in the box at the top, though they can't be selected (so clicking on a dark grey box would deselect whatever was selected).

Another idea: Rather than putting "5 Turns" at the top right of the box for the tech on the queue, why not write that text over the progress bar, in inverted colours? This frees up some extra space on the reduced length boxes for project names that would otherwise be used up by the durations...

To get a list of the buildings in a system, we can add a buildings window, similar to the fleets window.



(Edit: updated image)

You'd get to this window by clicking on a new icon on the galaxy map that appears next to planets with buildings.



Also, clicking on a planet on the sidepanel would highlight the clicked building's box in the buildings window.

These icons, and the buildings window, would appear and work both on the normal galaxy map view, and while the production screen is open, allowing the player to see what buildings are at a particular planet or being built at a particular planet.

EDIT: moved my post to the techscreen ui thread.

Retouched and resized some stuff, added example content to the buildings palette, and redid a bunch of sidepanel stuff...

I ended up making the sidepanel larger than I'd originally wanted since the planets sticking out took up a bunch of space I couldn't use for anything else anyway for the rest of the prod screen. It ended up giveng me enough space to put all 5 specialized resource focus buttons in a row with production amounts below them for each planet, and for the system.

Thanks to Mystiqq for most (all?) of the building icons (not that that's what they were originally intended for... but they're great to illustrate the idea)

Playing around with the sidepanel more...

Added some extra boxes there, to show as-yet undetermined info. I've already got the buildings window idea, so I don't think we'd need to show buildings on a planet in the sidepanel necessarily, but it might be useful contextually when placing structures, to see which of the other required structures are present on which planets... There's not enough space for a full list though, so some scroll buttons would be necessary, which isn't terriby elegant in that arrangement. Presumably other data could be fit into that space though... and perhaps it should be left empty until later versions with diplomacy, espionage and such... They might end up being control buttons to open views that show other info or something as well.

Also, the focus buttons are there. I figure having a "Balanced" button is redundant. We can click once on a specialized button to set focus to that button, and click again on a set focus button to set the focus to balanced. Right / Left click would be secondary / primary, as now. Some highlighting / icons to indicate which focii are primary / secondary are also needed, regardless of how they're set.

It's also rather unattractive right now... all boxy and such... though I think getting the layout working and figuring out what to display first is a good idea. A skin or somesuch can be applied over top later. Also, given tzlaine's use of GG widgets, most fancy graphical sidepanel ideas probly wouldn't have happened anyway... (Compare BreadMan's research mockup to what we actually got... (not that I or anyone is/was complaining tzlaine...))

As you already said, it's way to much information displayed at the planert slot. We should reduce only to vital infos. Maybe we can also use different viewing types. I would perfere seeing minor info at planet view.

BTW: Did anyone see miu lately?

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I started to think about this UI stuff little more "extensively", heres a very rought mockup.

UI layout

Not sure where to start but ill give a try to explain.

Lets start with explaining the items in that picture.

So far im not sure what kind of functionality and information is needed to display at the planet sidebar, but its not all that important in the overall way ive thought how the UI would work. Main thing is that its tool to select indivitual planets and possibly the system as whole (extra slot for the star of the system that represents the whole system when selected(?)). When selecting star in the "galaxy view", the selection in the planet sidebar will default to "system".

Some random tests i did before i thought about the whole UI thing...
sidebar test colonized
sidebar test basic
For now, think the planet sidebar just a selection tool for planets/system.

Under the "planet sidebar", ive reserved space for tabs for selecting what information is shown in the "planet sidebar". If those are needed.

Next the left side.

What i want from this side is to have same space to control various things in the same way. I even want to have functions to show fleets/ships in system/planets by selecting specific planet or system but this will need some more thinking to do. Basic thing is that i want it all here.

Tabs for the left sidebar are probably "Production", "Ship building" and "Research" (and even "fleets" or something for showing ships on selected system/planet, but it might be "possible" to put this under the "ship building/ships" tab). These tabs change what is shown in the left sidebar. ie. production queue when "production" is selected, and research queue when "research" is selected.
Note that when "research" is selected, the planet sidebar is not needed so theres more space for research stuff. For production or other that gives you the option to choose the building/construction location, the planet sidebar is needed/shown.

Left clicking "project" tab will open the leftsidebar only, right clicking opens the leftsidebar as well as the workspace area. Idea is that you can have the leftsidebar open without the need for the workspace, workspace area is mainly to create (and even edit?) projects OR to see the project information.

The list of "in development" projects (assigned/incoming/completed projects area) is "dynamic", depending on what you select in the planet sidebar, it will show only the projects on that system/planet.
In example you are in the galaxy view, go to some system. Now the leftsidebar will show only projects under development in that system. When you select planet, it will only show projects that are underway in that planet only.

Then there is the "workspace" area. This area is where you have all the nessary "tools" and "information" to create new production (or other) "projects".
After these "projects" have been created, they will show up in the leftsidebar in the "unassigned list". This list is always top of all the "already assigned/in development" projects. You can either have preselected location (planet/system) and press button to "assign currently selected planet" or you can assign these "unassigned" projects afterwards. To do this you just hide/close the workspace, now you have the galaxy view open. Then you select the "project(s)" in the leftsidebar, then the galaxy view/starmap (whatever) will show up all the places this project can be "build/intiated". In the planet/system level, it will grey out planets that the currently selected "project" cannot be "build" on.

Also this could work in the other way. You have put "projects" in the list and you select planet, this will grey out all the "projects" in the unassigned list that cannot be "build/initiated" in the current location.

Details on where the information is shown if the "project" cannot be started on certain selected planet/system is unknown to me, as is lot of other "smaller" things.

Any comments and ideas are welcome.

I probably forgot most of the things i was about to say...

PS. Sorry for typos and such, i know theres plenty of that in this text.

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Geoff:

Sorry if this is a dumb question: what are the funny looking symbols underneath the planet's graphic?

btw: Back in the day, when we still had building slots (limited number of slots per planet) I had planned on displaying the building icons actually on the planet's graphic itself. I envisioned icon circles arranged haphazardly on the planet. The idea was to suggest that the structures had a geographic position on the planet (...although, of course, many structures aren't really conventional buildings...)

Something like that might still work. The most important (expensive) buildings could appear on a "page 1". If there's enough buildings to take up all the page 1 slots, little navigation arrows appear underneath the planet to change pages. Rolling over the icons displays a tooltip with details on the building. Of course, the buildings would also appear on the planet information screen, layed out in a table.

Believe the sidepanel should keep the balanced icon, if for no other reason than to have something to light up to indicate a balanced focus.

re: the building palette on your latest mockup. Looks sharp, I think you're headed in the right direction. I'll probably (maybe) (possibly) modify it with some hazy ideas floating around my head tommorrow.

From: http://freeorion.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18208#18208


Can't say I'm too keen on this... IMO buildings need a separate tab on the sidepanel. That is, there'd be a general / population / focus / resource production tab, and a buildings tab that would list the buildings on a planet (and a list of the system as a whole). This needs to be more than just an icon, as buildings will probably have more important info about them than can be usefully represented with just an icon. They've got a name, maintainence cost, status of some sort (active, damaged, targetted), perhaps a small description of their effects, and maybe some UI widgets for targettable effects or to activate / deactivate them.

Also, the planets should just look pretty... all spinning in space... so if it's spinning, the icons wouldn't really seem to be at a particular location... and even if they did, they'd not be very pretty, I expect... So if we want to show info about specials or buildings visually, we could do it with nice 3D model alteration due to specials or buildings.... ie. show rings for the rings special, or little blips floating around for orbitals or fleets, or little lines for a space elevator, or colouration for environmental specialties like heavily forested or additional small models near it for the presence of moons... And also have icons for important things, but below or to the side of the spinning globe, as in my mockup.


I'd hope we'd have few enough buildings per planet that something like Mystiqq's sidepanel buildings list would be sufficient (which would appear when on the buildings tab of the planets sidepanel): here


I'm not convinced we need a planet info screen for each planet... and it seems like a thing we should avoid if possible, other than for eyecandy purposes... It seems like it'd encourage micro quite a bit. Everything should be doable from the system level, IMO... Having to go down to the planet level to do things is unnecessary clicks / bad design.


We could light up all of them to indicate balanced. Or just partly light them up, similar to what's done now.

I also had another idea that not many people liked. This was a hex select box:

The hex would show the selected focus, until you downclick, when it opens up and shows the other options. You move the mouse to the one you want, and release, and it selects. Alternatively, you could click once to open and again to select (or away to revert to what you had). We'd need separate indicators for production of each resource though.


The whole look of what I was doing then needs to be reworked to be a bit more like what pd's been doing for the research screen... I'm more concerned about the basic functionality of the palette.

I like this idea. I expect there'll be a number of buildings that exist on the system level. This might include the shipyards... (or the shipyards could themselves be another separate level, with shipyard improvements being treated as buildings built on/at the shipyard).


Tabs should be at the top, IMO. The most important info should be up top, to minimize the need to move the mouse all the way up and down to get to the tabs and info near the top.


This is for the left side panel...? We already have a fleets window... it could be remade as a sidepanel, I suppose, though I don't see the need at the moment... (should probly wait until ships are designed for v0.4).


Why separate "Production" and "Ship Building"? They both use the same resource: Production Points (PP). There should be only one global queue that contains both buildings and ships.

Research does need its own queue, but we've already got a research screen. And there's no real reason, afaik, to integrate the research and production screens. The two can be done separately, and are not both equally best served by the same UI design...


Avoid using right click to do anything important. Helpful context menus or shortcuts are ok, but a main UI function shouldn't involve the right button. If you expect you'll want to do two things often, make two buttons, not one button that does two things.


Not sure what you mean by create / edit projects... We need to be able to enqueue and place buildings and ships on the production screen. Designing ships will be a separate screen likely, and you don't design buidlings.


Wouldn't this info be better shown next to / under that planet's name on the planets sidepanel? It seems odd to select a planet on one side of the screen and then see info on the other... this would involve lots of moving the mouse all the way across the screen to get to a particular building on a particular planet... And where would the production queue be...?


Ok... so are you talking about a queue, or a list of buildings at the planet (under construction and completed) for the left panel? Filtering the queue to only show things at a particular planet is probably a useful function, but IMO it'd be better to just list the projects finished or in progress at a particular planet as items under the planet on the right panel on the buildings tab of that planet, and leave the left queue full of all projects in the empire. It's supposed to be an empire queue, and the ordering applies empire-wide, so only showing the projects at a single planet on the queue is kind of counterintuitive... The projects under the planet on the right panel that are still incomplete would be labelled as such, and appropriately greyed out or with a progress bar and expected ETA.


This seems kind of odd... IMO all production that requires a location should have that location assigned when the production project is ordered... You could assign multiple projects to one location by selecting the planet first, and then enqueuing several things. You seem to want some sort of batch processing where you order a bunch of projects, then pick the locations for them all at once as a separate step... I suppose this might be useful in some cases, but it seems odd...


This can all be applied to a system where you assign a location to a build project immediately when ordering it... You can pick a planet first, then all valid build projects are indicated, or you can pick a build project, then all valid planets are shown, and you select the other or do some dragging to the queue or onto the planet / system to make the order.