Applying Graphic Design to the Info Bar
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- Eleazar
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I think what DFool (and others) are trying to do (weather he has thought about it this way or not) is create a theme suitable for advanced players. I, however, have been thinking more about the needs of new players. Though a lot of the things so far discussed apply to both kinds of players, some of the differences of opinion come from these different goals. Fortunately Wesnoth supports multiple themes.Darth Fool wrote:The guest essentially got this right,Eleazar wrote: • I don't understand the order and indentation that the unit's name, description, and attributes have been placed in. Well, i guess i can think of a reason, but IMHO, it would be clearer in this order:
Name
Unit Type
level (indented)
traits, alignement, and abilites (indented, each on it's own line)
the traits are associated with the individual unit. everything below the unit's type and above the attacks is associated with the unit-type. I am not particularly tied to the current layout, but I found that having everything beneath the unit-type led to having a really ugly large indented area.
The ordering and indentation of these five lines is a prime example. DFool's order makes logical sense, but i don't think new(ish) players would be familiar enough with Wesnothian concepts to see the reason behind it.
In general "basic" themes would be simpler, and present less information, while "advanced" themes can be more condensed and present more information. At least some of the AMLA icons should probably belong only to an "advanced" theme. (I haven't had much chance to play with the DFool theme to get a more solid feel for it)
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
I admit to being an "advanced" player. However, the ordering of the lines made perfect sense to me already when I started playing Wesnoth at 0.8.0. Let me rehash it once more: Traits belong to the individual, while alignment and abilities belong, in common, to all the units of the same type. In sum: Having all these bits of "lesser" information (from your example above, "traits, alignment, and abilities") may be unnecessary clutter, with too much seemingly insignificant information in one place to be able to easily scan through.Eleazar wrote:I think what DFool (and others) are trying to do (weather he has thought about it this way or not) is create a theme suitable for advanced players. I, however, have been thinking more about the needs of new players. Though a lot of the things so far discussed apply to both kinds of players, some of the differences of opinion come from these different goals. Fortunately Wesnoth supports multiple themes.Darth Fool wrote: The guest essentially got this right,
the traits are associated with the individual unit. everything below the unit's type and above the attacks is associated with the unit-type. I am not particularly tied to the current layout, but I found that having everything beneath the unit-type led to having a really ugly large indented area.
The ordering and indentation of these five lines is a prime example. DFool's order makes logical sense, but i don't think new(ish) players would be familiar enough with Wesnothian concepts to see the reason behind it.
In general "basic" themes would be simpler, and present less information, while "advanced" themes can be more condensed and present more information. At least some of the AMLA icons should probably belong only to an "advanced" theme. (I haven't had much chance to play with the DFool theme to get a more solid feel for it)
Also, I certainly hope you don't intend to "hide" information from new players - that will probably add to confusion, rather than reduce it.
Otherwise, I am for somewhat more flexible themeability, but as I am not a coder, I am aware of the task that this would present to the coders on those parts of the UI that are not currently "themeable".
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I don't think that there is any intention to hide information from any user, rather the efforts are aimed at making the information more accessible. Eleazer is correct that what seems accessible to an expert may differ from what seems accessible to the novice. Generally, icons are good for experts because they enable more information to be crammed into less space. Icons are not as useful for novices as they need to become used to them before they will readily recognize what they mean. In my mind, this indicates that icons should be used principally for things of lesser importance, like traits, but not for things of more importance, like abilities.guest wrote:I admit to being an "advanced" player. However, the ordering of the lines made perfect sense to me already when I started playing Wesnoth at 0.8.0. Let me rehash it once more: Traits belong to the individual, while alignment and abilities belong, in common, to all the units of the same type. In sum: Having all these bits of "lesser" information (from your example above, "traits, alignment, and abilities") may be unnecessary clutter, with too much seemingly insignificant information in one place to be able to easily scan through.Eleazar wrote: I think what DFool (and others) are trying to do (weather he has thought about it this way or not) is create a theme suitable for advanced players. I, however, have been thinking more about the needs of new players. Though a lot of the things so far discussed apply to both kinds of players, some of the differences of opinion come from these different goals. Fortunately Wesnoth supports multiple themes.
The ordering and indentation of these five lines is a prime example. DFool's order makes logical sense, but i don't think new(ish) players would be familiar enough with Wesnothian concepts to see the reason behind it.
In general "basic" themes would be simpler, and present less information, while "advanced" themes can be more condensed and present more information. At least some of the AMLA icons should probably belong only to an "advanced" theme. (I haven't had much chance to play with the DFool theme to get a more solid feel for it)
Also, I certainly hope you don't intend to "hide" information from new players - that will probably add to confusion, rather than reduce it.
Otherwise, I am for somewhat more flexible themeability, but as I am not a coder, I am aware of the task that this would present to the coders on those parts of the UI that are not currently "themeable".
All of this can be addressed by novices being given a good tutorial and using tooltips, but how many people play the tutorial when they get a game?
There are actually many things which are themable in the sidebar at the moment, but the attacks are not one of them, since they require formatting within each attack. I have some ideas about how to make the attack list themable, but I am not sure that the benefits are worth it. Everything else (level, traits, abilities, hp, mp, xp, etc...) is possible to move using only the theme WML.
"you can already do that with WML"
Fight Creeeping Biggerism!
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 760#131760
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 1358#11358
It would make more sense to me to put a unit's name above its picture, both in the attack panel and the side panel.
Also it seems like most things (unit alignment, attack name, attack type, etc) should be capitalized. I've noticed people have capitalization in their text examples, so subconciously you know its better 8]
Also it seems like most things (unit alignment, attack name, attack type, etc) should be capitalized. I've noticed people have capitalization in their text examples, so subconciously you know its better 8]
Eleazar wrote:Code: Select all
16-2 Hammer Melee--Impact 5-2 Faerie touch Melee--Impact Magical 3-10 Tentacles Melee-Blade 12-10 Super Kraken Tentacle Slap Ranged--Impact Marksman
- irrevenant
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- irrevenant
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yes.irrevenant wrote:Could I get a reply please?
Once I have finished my move, hopefully this weekend, I can revisit the color definitions.(a) What do the different xp colours indicate.
(b) Can we please do away with that purple? It's awful hard on the eyes.
Thanx.
"you can already do that with WML"
Fight Creeeping Biggerism!
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 760#131760
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 1358#11358
- Eleazar
- Retired Terrain Art Director
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- Joined: July 16th, 2004, 1:47 am
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the current trunk version doesn't show a bar for AMLA at all. Is that intentional?
Perhaps if we implemented some other changes to the HP/XP bars, the colors could be changes to work better for both, since my proposed bars have a dark background as well.
Perhaps if we implemented some other changes to the HP/XP bars, the colors could be changes to work better for both, since my proposed bars have a dark background as well.
Last edited by Eleazar on January 20th, 2006, 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
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No. It did last time I checked, but that was > 1 week ago.Eleazar wrote:the current trunk version doesn't show a bar for AMLA at all. Is that intentional?
"you can already do that with WML"
Fight Creeeping Biggerism!
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 760#131760
http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 1358#11358