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Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 29 Dec 2010, 02:43
by choppic
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.

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 29 Dec 2010, 13:13
by DemoneNero
Nicely done mate :D
Since I'm not a programmer it would be nice if anyone could change the background picture just renaming the image file
thanks :D

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 30 Dec 2010, 02:49
by Chris H.
Will we be using the forest pic for the game? Or do you have some other sort of picture in mind?

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 30 Dec 2010, 03:29
by choppic
I want to use a painting specially made for Forge, the forest pic serves only as a placeholder for now.
I create an additional folder to store the images. So everyone can use whatever image they want.

I'm working on the Deck Editor right now. I find it very slow, so I remove the datagrid refreshing on every check/uncheck.
Instead, I create a filter button to execute the filtering process.
And I also add a filter by card name.

But in the end, of course it's you guys who decide if these changes should be included in the 'official' release :)

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 30 Dec 2010, 05:11
by Rob Cashwalker
I'm getting very frustrated with the Deck Editor - in trying to enable set selection for a card, due to the constant refreshing. There is a TableModel that stores the data in the table, but each time the refresh occurs, the model is cleared, wiping out the set selection. Clicking between cards seems to cause the clearing as well.

I'd almost want to write a new Deck Editor... but doing this stuff in Java sucks.. oh how, I love VB....

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 30 Dec 2010, 08:49
by choppic
I managed to remove the refreshing, and added a 'Filter' button so users need to press that to execute the filtering. I attach the java file so you can try it on. Let me know what you guys think.

I'm adding the icons for each of the filtering component right now. I'll upload a screenshot after it's done.

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 30 Dec 2010, 10:35
by slapshot5
I like it. A lot. Also interested to hear others' thoughts.
-slapshot5

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 30 Dec 2010, 16:02
by Chris H.
I built a project using the new deck editor code. Interesting work. I turned off a few of the filter check boxes and then tapped the Filter button. It seemed to work fairly quickly on my iMac. :D


I started forge and I had the monitor set to the smallest resolution supported by forge, 1024 x 768. The deck editor appeared to be about 100 + pixels wider than this resolution will show at one time.

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 30 Dec 2010, 16:51
by silly freak
Rob Cashwalker wrote:I'm getting very frustrated with the Deck Editor - in trying to enable set selection for a card, due to the constant refreshing. There is a TableModel that stores the data in the table, but each time the refresh occurs, the model is cleared, wiping out the set selection. Clicking between cards seems to cause the clearing as well.

I'd almost want to write a new Deck Editor... but doing this stuff in Java sucks.. oh how, I love VB....
this could be optimized... right now, I think that filtering and sorting is sort of implemented manually by changing the table model. However, java has its own means of table filters and sorters, which are likely to perform better and work smoother. E.g. these won't wipe out the grid and thus the selection on every refresh.

http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutor ... ml#sorting

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 31 Dec 2010, 00:49
by SoulStorm
choppic wrote:I managed to remove the refreshing, and added a 'Filter' button so users need to press that to execute the filtering. I attach the java file so you can try it on. Let me know what you guys think.

I'm adding the icons for each of the filtering component right now. I'll upload a screenshot after it's done.
This is awesome Choppic! Can you do the same thing for the Card Shop? =D>

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 31 Dec 2010, 05:27
by choppic
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: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 31 Dec 2010, 05:28
by choppic
And this is the screenshot for the Deck Editor :)

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 31 Dec 2010, 05:54
by choppic
SoulStorm wrote:This is awesome Choppic! Can you do the same thing for the Card Shop? =D>
Thanks, dude. I'll try to do the same for the Card Shop.
But honestly, I'm more interested in playing around with the main game screen :)

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 31 Dec 2010, 05:57
by friarsol
Well, aside from the images needing to be organized in the /res folder I like where this is headed. The Artifact and Enchantment icons may be too similar, especially being right next to each other. Maybe this would be solved by organizing the Types Alphabetically?

Artifact, Creature, Enchantment, Instant, Land, Planeswalker, Sorcery.

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.

Re: Making a prettier GUI

PostPosted: 31 Dec 2010, 10:28
by Sloth
This a great improvement. Thanks a lot choppic!

I just want to point out, that there are official icons for card types (introduced in Future Sight). I don't think we should copy them exactly, but maybe we can use similar ones. They can be found here http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Type.