0.4 UI thread

[The Silent One]

Hi guys, it has been a while! I've been following Freeorion's progress continuously and you guys are doing a great job! I'd like to share some ideas with you about the UI that I had playing.

Production screen:
- open screen by double-clicking planets (like it is with systems now)?
- have the items of the production queue show how much production will be added at the end of the turn (like meter bars do), as suggested by Eleazar previously
- free up map space (at some point), maybe like in the mockup below

Sidepanel (system view):
- meter bars do not feel very useful, at least I never really look at them. ... Opinions?
- system overview could use work at some point

Fleets:
- Tooltip of ship damage icon does not show equipped weapons, as it is with structure, shields etc.

Research screen:
- the research list view does not update on opening/closing the research screen (same for production screen)

Just some ideas, probably nothing that needs attending before v0.4.5.

[Dilvish]

Production screen:
- open screen by double-clicking planets (like it is with systems now)?

Yes, I would consider that a good one-- I can't seem to make myself stop trying to open it by double clicking planets.

- have the items of the production queue show how much production will be added at the end of the turn (like meter bars do), as suggested by Eleazar previously

I have some sort of vague memory there was a reason we're not doing this, but the idea does have appeal, probably worth looking into.

Fleets:
- Tooltip of ship damage icon does not show equipped weapons, as it is with structure, shields etc.

Right, we've already had some discussions about that, it's quite likely to get changed.

[pheldens]

some gripes/tips after playing 2 days;

- I would like the current production queue and the research queue to be resizable like the other windows. so people can arrange them to their own UI preference.

- The 'empires' icon at the top right could be a crown, theres a crown icon used in old versions of free orion, for capital planets

- The fleet management window should be splittable , or have a horizontal mode where fleet contents are shown to the right hand side when you click a fleet. (more efficient on widescreen monitors)

- popups need to be shown further above the mouse cursor and off to the right, particularily in the production selector

- the left up right arrow icons in Pedia need to be a flat theme, not the current << ^ >> pixel art.

- performance on hw accelerated mesa is ass (current git freeorion) , I have tried to profile what causes it but dont see a clear outlier

[wheals]

- The 'empires' icon at the top right could be a crown, theres a crown icon used in old versions of free orion, for capital planets

It's still in the repo if there's anyone around who wants to edit it to look good on the top bar.

[Dilvish]

- the left up right arrow icons in Pedia need to be a flat theme, not the current << ^ >> pixel art.

"need to be"? That's a pretty strong statement-- do you have any justification to share?

[The Silent One]

- The 'empires' icon at the top right could be a crown, theres a crown icon used in old versions of free orion, for capital planets

That's correct, but it does not fit the style of the other buttons. However, the one attached does. It's not perfect, could need a stronger outline, but it's a start.

[The Silent One]

Another idea I'd like to bring up for discussion: in civ V, there are these event markers on the right side of the screen that can be removed by right clicking; by doing so the player can work through the events and make sure he doesn't overlook anything.
This could be a good idea for Freeorion's sitrep as well. I would imagine it to work like this:
- moving the mouse over an sitrep entry shows a check mark at the right side (see image)
- clicking the check-mark hides the entry
- if the player accidently removes an entry, he can enable "show invisible sitreps entries" and will now see all entries that he hid on this turn

I believe this would be a good method to improve the usability of the sitrep.


Also, I'd like to point to an old suggestion by pd on how the sidepanel could be resized:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=865&hilit=sidepane ... 285#p44183

Just want to keep this idea around.

[MatGB]

- The 'empires' icon at the top right could be a crown, theres a crown icon used in old versions of free orion, for capital planets

That's correct, but it does not fit the style of the other buttons. However, the one attached does. It's not perfect, could need a stronger outline, but it's a start.

They look quite nice. Can you do the whole "I release this work under the Creative Commons licence FO uses" statement then I'll mess about seeing if I can figure out how to do image uploads (unless someone else with more experience of Git-with-Linux wants to give it a go, or you can create a pull request on the repo yourself which is the ideal).

- moving the mouse over an sitrep entry shows a check mark at the right side (see image)
- clicking the check-mark hides the entry
- if the player accidently removes an entry, he can enable "show invisible sitreps entries" and will now see all entries that he hid on this turn

This sounds like it could be a good idea, I certainly find it annoying to have to scroll back through to the right place when I've got a lot going on, just confirming, it's not like the perma hide of the filters per type, it's for that specific sitrep on that turn only (and it would presumably reshow itself if you go back a turn in the sitrep menu?)

I'd personally love it if the Sitrep panel could remember where I was in the same way the Objects panel does.

[The Silent One]

Can you do the whole "I release this work under the Creative Commons licence FO uses" statement

Done.

...then I'll mess about seeing if I can figure out how to do image uploads (unless someone else with more experience of Git-with-Linux wants to give it a go, or you can create a pull request on the repo yourself which is the ideal).

I'll see that I make myself familiar with github soon, but if you would upload the images for now, I'd appreciate it.

...it's not like the perma hide of the filters per type, it's for that specific sitrep on that turn only (and it would presumably reshow itself if you go back a turn in the sitrep menu?)

That's how I would imagine it to work.

[Dilvish]

Also, I'd like to point to an old suggestion by pd on how the sidepanel could be resized:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=865&hilit=sidepane ... 285#p44183
Just want to keep this idea around.

So, pretty much the whole purpose of that suggestion is

to resize the sidepanel by dragging somewhere on the left side, instead of having to move the entire window to the left and and dragging from the bottom right corner?

This seems like a rather minor convenience for the coding cost. Sometimes programmers come around who want a little UI project, so it's conceivable it could get taken up by someone, but it seems very low priority to me.

[MatGB]

...then I'll mess about seeing if I can figure out how to do image uploads (unless someone else with more experience of Git-with-Linux wants to give it a go, or you can create a pull request on the repo yourself which is the ideal).

I'll see that I make myself familiar with github soon, but if you would upload the images for now, I'd appreciate it.

Done https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... 53203da1fb

Gave up on command line merging and installed a Git GUI pack.

[The Silent One]

Done https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... 53203da1fb

Thank you.

So, pretty much the whole purpose of that suggestion is

to resize the sidepanel by dragging somewhere on the left side, instead of having to move the entire window to the left and and dragging from the bottom right corner?

This seems like a rather minor convenience for the coding cost. Sometimes programmers come around who want a little UI project, so it's conceivable it could get taken up by someone, but it seems very low priority to me.

The "dragging feature" could be used in various places of the UI, like the top (resource/button) bar. I was also (wishfully ) thinking about my suggestion for the production screen as well, where it could not only be used to adjust the width of the production panel, but also to change how much space the "select production" and the "production queue" panels take up.
To illustrate:

[pheldens]

btw I noticed you can set the width of the buildlist and research list, in the config

[The Silent One]

I would like to suggest two new features/improvements for the fleet window:

- autocycle fleets: after issuing an order to a fleet, the next fleet in the window/system will be selected. Hitting the space key issues the order "hold position" and cycles to the next fleet.

- autoclose fleet window: if all fleets have received orders, the fleet window will close by itself.

Both UI behaviours could be switched on or off in the options, as it is with right-click closing.
On a different note: can the size of sitrep entries be adjusted in the config or options?

Also, a new sitrep icon for combat (works decently on a small size):

[Vezzra]

Also, a new sitrep icon for combat (works decently on a small size):

Committed.