UI roadmap - discussion of recent and future changes

[spr]

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1516&p=130452#p130452

...Clone: add a shadow, an icon or a color layer to distinguish cloned cards from original cards.

I think the whole highlighting thing could do with a revamp and some new ideas. For example, when I move the mouse pointer over a card in Hand it highlights the card with a green border. Why? I can see where my mouse pointer is. It is not as if you can move card focus using the keyboard in which case the highlight would be useful. Another example, I think it could be clearer whose turn it is - highlight the avatar that would make easier. Then there is the icons/tokens for blocking etc which obscure the P/T for a card.

I think if we could come up with some consistent rules in the way higlights and other indicators are applied in game that would be a good start.

Cheers,
Steve

[spr]

An area I would like to take a look at is creating a more consistent, comprehensive and flexible keyboard control system in Forge. Do you think there would be much demand for being able to play Forge using only the keyboard? If so, would this also make Forge easier to use on touch-screen devices?

Cheers,
Steve

[spr]

[*] Card overlay options added to game menu including new Card Id.

Would you be able to add an option where I can pick which are shown in my hand and which on the battlefield? I don't really need P/T in my hand, and I don't really need mana cost on the BF. Thanks!

It's something I intend to look into since I would prefer to only show the card name when the card image is missing. But once we start going down this route things start getting more complicated and the menu will not suffice so I want to be certain on how to present these options in a clear and efficient way (ideas welcome!).

For each of the current four overlays you need to be able to specify the zone/area in which they apply...
- Player(s) Hand,
- Player(s) Battlefield,
- Player(s) Command,
- Opponent(s) Battlefield,
- Opponent(s) Command,
- Card Preview,
- Zoomer (Card Id?).

But I only want to display the name for missing cards while I do want to display P/T regardless. How to make this future proof? At this point I tend to give up because my head hurts.

Cheers,
Steve

[friarsol]

Can we get the same scrollbar thing on the Combat panel that the Log panel has? I just got attacked by 400 creatures, and it would be nice to find which ones I have to deal with better.

[moomarc]

I have a request for the UI gurus: Currently in a match the player field icons (zone and mana icons) are slightly transparent when the element is hoverable. Would it be possible to instead have them at full opacity (taking into account inherent icon alpha information) and rather brighten the icon when hovered over or it gains focus. At the moment they tend to look dull and washed out.

The alpha info is currently set in forge.gui.toolbox.setSelected.java via <label>.setHoverable(true) calls in forge.gui.toolbox.special.playerDetailsPanel.setUpMouseActions

I think something like this that I found on stackoverflow would be great, but I'm not sure where or how to actually apply it.

I hope one of you can look into it, but it's nothing critical.

[drdev]

Now that I've added the Forge button and made the titlebar skinned and hidable, the next step is to add navigation tabs to the right of the Forge button. One of the most common questions/complaints I've read from users is about using the X button in the upper right to navigate back to home screen, which is very unintuitive, particularly for anyone who's ever used Windows.

My plan is have a tab for the Home screen, the Deck Editor, and the current game (if any). I'll then make the X button actually close Forge like everyone expects (though I'll prompt for confirmation from all screens besides the Home screen). I'll then put a separate X button inside the tab for closable screens (the game screen only at this moment) that can be used to close the tab and jump back to the previous screen.

Hopefully this will make navigating Forge much more intuitive for new users and easier for existing users (once they adjust to not clicking the X button in the upper right to go back).

I'm also hoping this will allow having multiple games running at the same time and being able to switch between them, the Deck Editor, and Home screen without conceding the game or closing the screen, though I'll have to see if that becomes too much of a resource hog.

The other thing this will allow is removing the Deck Editor and Exit Forge buttons from the home screen, making more room from the Home menu. We could also break off stuff in the Home menu into its own screen and tab if we want, like maybe Preferences.

It also makes room for adding a tab for the Card/Set Editor I've mentioned in the past and that I want to get back to working on soon.

Does anyone have any implementation requests for this?

[drdev]

I'm about to starting working on skinning all the dialogs (JOptionPane.show*) in Forge, but while I'm at it, something I'd like to do is change card activated abilities to appear in a context menu rather than a dialog, which I believe will make them much easier to select and activate. Left click will still open the menu (as will right-click), and I'll make sure Enter, Escape, and the arrow keys work the same as the dialog, including the first ability being selected by default.

Any objections?

[RumbleBBU]

Sounds good.

While you are at it, might I make a wish? I feel that the current implementation of the activated abilities dialog is a bit awkward and could use some improvement, from the usability point of view. For example, if there were keyboard shortcuts for the different options(e.g., "1" = the first option, "2" = the second option, etc.), that would make the dialog faster and smoother to use, at least for me.
(Don't know if that's actually doable.)

EDIT. And/or maybe make the options directly clickable buttons? In the current implementation, what bugs me is having to 1) first choose an option, and then 2) separately click OK. That second part seems rather unnecessary to me, and it can quickly get tedious when you're, e.g., repetitively pumping a pump cleric or the like. So instead of clicking "WW: +1/+0 until end of turn" + "Ok", it would be nice if you only had to click once on "WW: +1/+0 until end of turn" (or hit a keyboard shortcut).
(Of course, the "Cancel"/ESC option would still be needed.)

[drdev]

Given it will be a context menu, it will be single click to select and confirm the ability. As for number key shortcuts for each, that's definitely doable.

[Max mtg]

What do you think of playing sevaral games simultaneously (that will appear as tabs in the new interface)?

[RumbleBBU]

Given it will be a context menu, it will be single click to select and confirm the ability. As for number key shortcuts for each, that's definitely doable.

I was referring to the dialog (which could use some improvement) rather than your suggested context menus, but your context menu idea sounds so good that I probably would use the context menu instead of the dialog anyway.

New context menus or an improved dialog, either or both would be welcome from the usability point of view. And yes, I would certainly appreciate keyboard shortcuts. (Speaking as someone who likes to play pump weenies in limited and Quest game modes. )

[Chris H.]

I'm about to starting working on skinning all the dialogs (JOptionPane.show*) in Forge, but while I'm at it, something I'd like to do is change card activated abilities to appear in a context menu rather than a dialog, which I believe will make them much easier to select and activate. Left click will still open the menu (as will right-click), and I'll make sure Enter, Escape, and the arrow keys work the same as the dialog, including the first ability being selected by default.

Any objections?

 
We have a problem in some of the current dialogs. The text in the title bar gets truncated and you do not get to see the entire message.

It appears that the width of the dialog is determined by the contents of the window and the width of the tittle bar text does not factor in.

[drdev]

I'm about to starting working on skinning all the dialogs (JOptionPane.show*) in Forge, but while I'm at it, something I'd like to do is change card activated abilities to appear in a context menu rather than a dialog, which I believe will make them much easier to select and activate. Left click will still open the menu (as will right-click), and I'll make sure Enter, Escape, and the arrow keys work the same as the dialog, including the first ability being selected by default.

Any objections?

 
We have a problem in some of the current dialogs. The text in the title bar gets truncated and you do not get to see the entire message.

It appears that the width of the dialog is determined by the contents of the window and the width of the tittle bar text does not factor in.

I'll be sure to fix that while I'm at it.

[drdev]

Given it will be a context menu, it will be single click to select and confirm the ability. As for number key shortcuts for each, that's definitely doable.

I was referring to the dialog (which could use some improvement) rather than your suggested context menus, but your context menu idea sounds so good that I probably would use the context menu instead of the dialog anyway.

New context menus or an improved dialog, either or both would be welcome from the usability point of view. And yes, I would certainly appreciate keyboard shortcuts. (Speaking as someone who likes to play pump weenies in limited and Quest game modes. )

The context menus are done, including the keyboard shortcuts you asked for. See here for more details.

[Agetian]

I'm posting this here in the UI thread because it has to do with the user interface side of things.

In the context of the ongoing restructuring of the Forge codebase into modules, a couple issues showed up that have no easy solution (well, the easy solution is to delete the related functionality, but I think that's hardly the ideal solution). As of right now, there are two user preferences (Randomize Card Art and Use Random Foil) that are passed into a game class (Match) via the UI singleton. These preferences allow the game to utilize multiple pictures for cards with different art (e.g. basic lands) and to apply random foiling to a small percentage of cards in Constructed. As Max told us, it will be impossible to pass these options as flags into the Match class once the module restructuring is complete. As such, something has to be done with this functionality for it to be supported in some other way.

This probably needs some discussion because there are several alternatives available.

For now at least, I'd say we should probably keep the random art feature as enabled permanently by default - there is really little reason to disable it, to be honest, because we don't support true distinction between multiple card art (at least not yet) and having the same picture on all the lands with no variation is, at the very least, boring (at most, it makes it senseless to have varied art for different lands and whatnot in the first place). Eventually, full support for true distinction between cards with different art can be made, kind of like in Wagic (so, e.g., two Forest cards from the same set but with different art are different cards). Do you think it's worth going for it, or is randomizing card art by default enough for now? P.S. Committed r24162 where random card art is the default feature instead of an option - let's see if there is any positive/negative feedback about that.

Now, there's the foil support issue. I think random foiling can eventually be ditched in favor of true foil support (with per-card distinction of foils, foil cards available in boosters, etc.) - a lot of work was actually done in the past towards true foil support. Different types of foil are implemented, and all the MTG editions are "aware" of what kind of foiling they had (if they did) and what the chance of a foil in a booster pack should be. I was working on that last year but, I'll be honest, I got stuck once I faced the deck editor issues (adding support for foils to the deck editor with a way to visually indicate whether a card is foil or not, kind of like MTGO) - for that, I'd need help of a UI expert who is good with the deck editor code (I know drdev is consistently making amazing UI improvements but he might be too busy with other things to work on this... anyhow, drdev, your input on this problem is very welcome!). If anybody is willing to help with this aspect I got stuck with, I'd really welcome your help with the deck editor side of things. I can tackle generation of foils in boosters later if that comes to fruition (because there really is no reason to implement foils in boosters if foils are not distinguishable from other stuff in the editor). Once it's possible to add foils in the deck editor separately from non-foils (and maybe even switch foil/non-foil via a context menu or something, like a flag), and once foils are available in boosters in Quest Mode and Sealed/Draft, there will be no reason to keep the Random Foil option around.

Your input is welcome, guys! If you have other ideas, let me know.

- Agetian