Re: SDL interface ideas

[Hans Ronne <hronne at pp dot sbbs dot se>]

>If a panel is semi-permanent, then sooner or later the action is
>going to end up trying to happen underneath it.  Even a text-only
>display is going to be a problem, and what if there were buttons
>with images in the panel?  You'd be seeing a battleship in the
>water, but actually it's just a button to build one.  While there's
>no obstacle to trying translucent panels as an experiment, I suspect
>we'll just rediscover what the commercial developers have apparently
>discovered already - permanent see-through displays don't work well,
>the main exception is HUDs in flight simulators.  (HUDs work because
>they are very thin and light, so nothing is obscured.)

HUDs  are exactly what I was thinking about! This idea works, both in real
life and in games, so I think it's worth looking into. Air combat (real or
simulated) tests your ability to assimilate and integrate data to the
limit. If HUDs perform well under such conditions I think they would work
fine in a game like xconq, too.

There is another analogy, and that is the increasingly popular use of
transparent windows in GUIs such as KDE and Gnome. It takes some time
getting used to, but once you have, you don't want to go back to opaque
windows that hide your desktop.

I can see that this is a matter of taste, though. I would therefore suggest
that we do like the GUI designers and make it a user preference to have
transparency for things like mouseover and unit info. As you pointed out,
some other panels are not well suited for this.

>This was motivated by practical experience in multiplayer games,
>so you know who to yell at to "hurry up" 1/2 :-) .  The people who
>take the longest to play are always the ones who are completely
>oblivious to the passage of time - and the fidgetings of their
>speedier opponents!

I see the problem. But it could be handled by a notice being broadcast when
only one player has not finished his turn: "Now everybody is waiting for
X". I bet it would be even more efficient than yelling :-).

Summing up the discussion so far, I think what you have proposed: one big
full-screen map, a limited number of small panels (mouseover, notices, unit
info, world map, game status?) in a single bottom row, popups or separate
screens for other stuff, all makes good sense.

Actually, there is a strategy game that comes pretty close to this
description, and that is Alpha Centauri. I think the mac version was even
ported using SDL, so it could really tell us what xconq might look like in
the end. Not too bad, in my opinion. The bottom panel is overdone and takes
up too much space - you could easily squeeze all useful information into
half that area. And you quickly tire of those slide-out menus that at first
seem nifty. Popup menus would be much better. But on the whole, I would
give it an OK for user friendliness.

Hans

Hans Ronne

hronne@pp.sbbs.se