General UI support

[squee1968]

Hey Doublestrike, I've got a few requests for you. If you think they're good ideas, maybe you can add them to your TODO list.
1) In the Message Report, perhaps in parenthesis on the Player line next to Human/Computer, could you put the current turn number?
2) Could you make the Log (both the in-game log and the the end-game log) easier to read by giving the messages different background colors similar to how it's done on the stack?
3) I have the Stack and the Card Detail (among others) on the same tab, with the Card Detail showing. When something gets added to the stack, it switches, but doesn't switch back. Can that be fixed?
4) For the Simpsons theme, I think the Message Report window, at least, possibly other windows that you think would be cool, the font color should be white, with a chalkboard background, similar to Bart's opening scene.

[Doublestrike]

Hi Squee - yep, all doable except #3. Not quite sure what you mean, but if I understand correctly it's not really feasible. There's a specific update for when something lands on the stack, but there's no way to tell when the user is done viewing the stack, and wishes to return to the detail.

But the other ones are pretty easy, be happy to help out, will put on the list. (If you can commit stuff, the Simpsons font color can be changed in its sprite very easily. It's moomarc's design/vision so you may want to run it by him.)

[Milod]

squee if iam corect the first tab that is showing in the tab wil be switched back but it cant go to the second tab in the main tab for switching back thats how it works for me

[squee1968]

What I meant was it would switch back to the card detail when the stack emptied. Maybe there could be some way to prioritize which tabs are shown, or at least have a default setting of some sort? Are the stack and combat the only things that cause a switch? Also, I do not have commit privileges.

[friarsol]

What I meant was it would switch back to the card detail when the stack emptied. Maybe there could be some way to prioritize which tabs are shown, or at least have a default setting of some sort? Is the stack the only thing that causes a switch? Also, I do not have commit privileges.

When it Emptied would be the way to go. I think the "best" way to handle it is to remember what was switched away from when the Stack gained visibility, and restore that tab (if it still shares a panel) when the Stack next empties.

[timmermac]

...but I admit that I am really enjoying this new UI...

Ah ha - dragged it out of him! Took a combination of The Rack, a Black Vise, and even Cursed Rack, but the truth emerged.

(...cheers, thanks)

You forgot Wheel of Torture and Iron Maiden. <grin>

[Doublestrike]

In case someone wants to tackle this:

Maybe there could be some way to prioritize which tabs are shown

There already is; they prioritize according to the order they've been viewed, so if you view tab FOO then BAR then BAZ, then move FOO, BAR will automatically show. Methods are in forge.gui.framework.DragTab.

or at least have a default setting of some sort?

You mean a choice like, "when stack is empty, show _____ "?

Are the stack and combat the only things that cause a switch?

That, and the message panel. Easy enough to make panels show; but done carelessly and there'll be complaints about how things are switching at strange times, mysteriously submitted with explanations like "wan dev panel 2 sho but lost all time"

===

@Sol - that's a great solution. I'm not putting my hand up to code it yet but it might not be that hard to do, and that'd be the way to do it.

[moomarc]

...the Simpsons font color can be changed in its sprite very easily. It's moomarc's design/vision so you may want to run it by him.

I don't have any problem with people changing the skins I add. The whole idea of skins is that they're customizable. The problem with changing the font color is that it is carried across the board. You can't pick different font colors for different panels and screens so you have to pick what works best overall. That said, I'll try implement some of those changes and post a replacement pack somewhere here. Not sure when I'll get to it though. I'm half done with the croc pet art, almost literally. The base drawing is done and digitising was going swell - until I tried to drop the frame over it and I discovered that I hadn't laid it out well for that shape frame. Now I need to create some extra foreground art :sigh: And after that its just the hound left!

Then there's AVR that needs to be attended to and some scripts that need testing, so don't expect to get to it this month.

[Doublestrike]

Maybe we could change "croc pet" to "half-croc pet"...sounds almost scarier...

[friarsol]

I'm not sure how this should be handled. I have Card Picture and Detail on the same Panel. When one of them isn't active, it's not updated when hovering. So when I hover over a Card, it appears in the Card Detail Panel, but when I switch over to the card it shows some older Card in the Panel, instead of the card that is currently appearing in the Card Picture panel.

[Doublestrike]

Nice catch, sol, should be fixed.

[Doublestrike]

I then attempted to narrow the three panels in the middle and was able to so ... but the right hand panels failed to widen.

Finally nailed it. This bug should be fixed as of r15227. Hopefully the last of the resize/rearrange bugs, but please report if something is awry.

[friarsol]

Card Detail Panel should be scrolled to the top and not to the bottom. This might not be something for you specifically Doublestrike, but I have to scroll up all the time to see what a card does, and it's pretty annoying.

[friarsol]

I've asked about this before, but maybe it got lost in the shuffle, so just in case:

When going from a Quest without a Pet, to one that has one I have to restart Forge for the Pet drop-down to appear. This generally annoying when you start forge, notice you are on a newer quest, switch to older quest, close forge, reopen forge just to get it to appear. Related, the Pet settings are not saved out, so every time I reopen Forge I have to check my plant box, and select what Pet I want to use. (This may more be like a QuestData thing, which I guess max might have been the last one doing things with). I would think metadata about Plants/Pets would just allow us to have an "enabled" flag somewhere to parse, and set appropriately.

[Sloth]

A little thing that could be improved:

When a spell or ability hits the stack during combat, the combat panel will not switch to the stack panel (if they share the same panel). This makes it easy to miss important stuff.