Making a prettier GUI

[choppic]

You're right, Sloth. I think we should stick with the official icons.
Let me try something 'similar' then

[Chris H.]

This is what I have after I played with Deck Editor.
I upload the files necessary to test the changes.
Unzip the file, and copy the content into src/forge.
Let me know what you guys think..

`
RE: New Game Window

I see in the Gui_NewGame class:

Code: Select all

ImageIcon bkgd = new ImageIcon("src/forge/images/newgame_background.jpg");

`
The forward slash works on my Apple iMac but will this work on all OS'? At some point in the past, Silly Freak or Snacko mentioned a java call that would add in the appropriate file path separator which would depend on which OS was being used. Just a thought, and I know that I am getting in past my knowledge base.

The white colored "New Game" shows up with the included picture but on other pics it may become hard to read. May want to consider creating a panel for the title that would use the same characteristics as the other three panels.

[Chris H.]

Does anyone know the reason why we have a separate DeckEditor for Quest Mode? It would be nice if all of these improvements went across the board without additional tampering.

`
We also have a separate deck editor for draft mode and there may be one for sealed deck mode. People might have found it easier to modify a copy of the original constructed mode deck editor and make it a separate class file.

I agree that it would be nice if at some point someone could modify the constructed mode deck editor and then this class file would be able to handle all modes. This would allow us to ditch the other deck editors and only have one.

[friarsol]

Does anyone know the reason why we have a separate DeckEditor for Quest Mode? It would be nice if all of these improvements went across the board without additional tampering.

`
We also have a separate deck editor for draft mode and there may be one for sealed deck mode. People might have found it easier to modify a copy of the original constructed mode deck editor and make it a separate class file.

I agree that it would be nice if at some point someone could modify the constructed mode deck editor and then this class file would be able to handle all modes. This would allow us to ditch the other deck editors and only have one.

Oh god. I didn't realize it was that wide-spread. I'll try to unify all of this once we have some of these updates from choppic in there.

[Chris H.]

Oh god. I didn't realize it was that wide-spread. I'll try to unify all of this once we have some of these updates from choppic in there.

`
Yeah, we need to unify it into one class at some point. And you may want to look into adding the card shop at that time.

We also need to give Choppic committer status. Choppic should send his Google gmail address to DennisBergkamp by private message. Dennis will then add Choppic to the growing list of committers.

[DennisBergkamp]

This stuff looks great, Choppic. Yes, PM me with your email address and I will give you commit privileges to our SVN.

[Rob Cashwalker]

forward-slash worked perfectly fine in XP, still works in Vista. I think the Java library for each platform takes care of translating if necessary.

[silly freak]

Yes, I think so too. As long as we don't expect to find slashes in our paths (say, for String.split()), it should be fine.

[choppic]

Without the frames the main game screen looks slightly more 'professional'.
What do you think, guys?

[choppic]

These are the new icons for the Deck Editor.
These new icons have 'similar' look and feel as the official symbols (suggested by Sloth).

[pinecones]

Let's admit it, Forge is a wonderful MTG game, with all the cards, planeswalkers, and of course the great cast of programmers working pro bono.

I love this game, and I honestly think that this game deserves a prettier GUI.
I don't know if any other members of this forum has tried this before. I played around with the source code, and this is the New Game dialog I currently have.

Feel free to share your comments, and (fingers crossed) maybe some line of codes to make the GUI better.

WOW. thank you for the inspiration. that is elegant!

[DemoneNero]

I got a question
can we use background images with the old gui too ?

[Salasnet]

I do like the main background without frames, but in the battlefield, some folks may want a divider between the "sides". Just a thought. I know that is how Magic Online does it, and it's pretty elegant.

Two things:

First, I would love to see what the version without frames looks like with the traditional green felt background that I am attaching to this post. I use this green felt background for many games, and it always adds a touch of class when I use it.

Second, it might be worth our while to have a look at the "Mage" program located here:

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=3763

It is also a Magic playing program written in Java that uses a client/server model for internet play, and also running a local server for playing against the AI. The AI uses a Min-Max hybrid model. You can see in the attached screenshot for version 0.5.1 that it uses Magic Online as its GUI blueprint.

Still, it does some things well, including a nice tapping animation that shows the card turning like in Magic Online. A nice log of moves played on the right hand side, etc.

At the very least, it would be worth it to take a look at their Java code to see how they did some of the GUI things.

[choppic]

First, I would love to see what the version without frames looks like with the traditional green felt background that I am attaching to this post. I use this green felt background for many games, and it always adds a touch of class when I use it.

Our 'transparent' UI with the green felt background by Salasnet.

[choppic]

I got a question
can we use background images with the old gui too ?

I didn't check the old GUI source file. Is the old GUI better than the new one?