Re: Weird fuel behavior

[Hans Ronne <hronne at comhem dot se>]

>On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Hans Ronne wrote:
>
>> >In SDL, I assume we'd get to write our own window code (or use one of
>> >the many libraries out there which are designed to go on top of SDL).
>> >I don't know whether that is better or worse than having (possibly
>> >buggy or quirky) floating windows provided for us.
>>
>> SDL doesn't support multiple windows at all. So I guess one would have to
>> implement something like a row of unit info panes in order to examin
>> several units at once.
>
>If this is true, then it is somewhat of a blow against SDL.

Being used to the Mac interface with its multitude of windows I thought so
at first. However, Stan long ago pointed out that professional games almost
never use multiple windows since "users don't like Office-type
applications". And I think he has a point here. You can go a long way with
just one screen and panes instead, provided that the interface code is fast
and not clunky, like Tcl unfortunately is. I think that the SDL interface,
though still in its infancy, proves this point.

What you can do with SDL, I believe, is transparent overlays and such. Not
the same thing as a floating window but a decent alternative.

Hans