The in game UI is terrible!

[zaroblan]

Greetings,
I have been a long time fan of Forge but have recently moved to using other freely available applications to play Magic solely because of the absolutely awful and terrible UI when in game.
Why was the option removed to use the original in game UI?
It looks atrocious when you play 1 land and it completely fills your playing area. On a large monitor this looks even worse. Even with the card size set to smallest it made no difference.
I am a software engineer by trade and a UI design specialist and can guarantee you that I would shoot down a design idea such as is currently being used. It is not user friendly, is very intrusive and completely unconfigurable.
Please put the option back to use the old UI which was much better ... even though it was slightly dated.
Until this happens I will not be using Forge but will rather keep on using Cockatrice which has a UI which just works. Look at how they have implemented their in game views.
Thanks for your attention.
Yours in hope for a better a UI,
Robert "The Turquoise Mage" Lancaster

[friarsol]

Software Engineer/UI Specialist? Why don't you help Forge out with some of your spare time? We'd love to have the UI completely overhauled, but noone on the team has that particular set of skills.

[zaroblan]

Sol, I would love to help out.
Unfortunately I work in a very stressful environment where I work long hours, and when I get home I have an autistic child who needs lots of attention. This on top of having a wife and another child who also both obviously need some attention too.
Why can't you guys just put the original in game UI back.
It was way better.

[Doublestrike]

Software Engineer/UI Specialist? Why don't you help Forge out with some of your spare time? We'd love to have the UI completely overhauled, but noone on the team has that particular set of skills.

I thought Rob was doing this? I'm waiting anxiously for his release so I can work on the GUI too!

[friarsol]

I thought Rob was doing this? I'm waiting anxiously for his release so I can work on the GUI too!

No. He's redoing the main screen. The OP is referring to the Battlefield UI.

[Doublestrike]

Ahh ok then that's great news! I was waiting for something to happen, but apparently nothing was going to

Redoing win/lose gui right now, after that (maybe Sunday?) will get crackin' on other parts of the UI - finally!

[Forger]

I actually kind of like the Battlefield UI and I have seen much much worse in other magic programs. When I first started using Forge, I was actually impressed by it and I do find it a lot nicer looking than Cockatrice.

It's functional, resizeable and just works and I would hate to loss any of its functionality just for better looks, so I hope you guys can improve upon it, without making other parts worse.

Oh and I have a pretty huge screen and I love the card size, what is not to love about magic art?!

[Chris H.]

The original battlefield UI had zones which scrolled horizontally and this created some UI problems. The new UI was meant to be an improvement.

There was a period of time in the past where people were noticing slow downs and java heap space errors. The older style UI allowed people to avoid these problems. Those who had tech abilities could increase the java heap space for themselves and this allowed them to use the nicer New UI.

We now include launchers that automatically increase the java heap space and there is not as much of a need to include both battlefields at this time.

[Chris H.]

Choppic had some good ideas for improving the player panels in the New battlefield UI for both the computer and the human. There is still a message topic with his ideas that are stickied in the main forge forum.

We currently have a fairly minor problem where the icons are only drawn on top of a card if it is below a certain size in pixels. It may not be too difficult to change this.

It also may be possible to modify the card scaling algorithm to prevent cards from increasing in size more than 2x or 3x. It might be worth consideration.

[zaroblan]

Hi Guys,
While I am all for modern user interfaces, having a UI where the first card you play fills up virtually the entire play area is terrible. The cards should be organised in some more organised form. This is one of Cockatrice's big advantages over Forge. All the cards are neatly layered and organised. The play area scales based on the number of players and the card and card zones scale based on the play area. This is logical and good UI design. Your user interface should not rescale and resize every time a visual element is added or changes orientation. You need to add options to 1) disable the autoscaling and autosizing if the user would like it thus, 2) you need to use the card size selected in the menu to make card sizes fixed and 3) add options for the user to set the background colours and textures for the play area. The white background is rather heavy on the eyes.
When I first downloaded Forge I played it every day, for at least two hours per day ... now, however, I cannot even get through a single duel due to the in game UI.
Please put the old user interface back as an option, or fix the new user interface!
Thanks,
RObert

[Sloth]

1) disable the autoscaling and autosizing if the user would like it thus, 2) you need to use the card size selected in the menu to make card sizes fixed

As Chris said both of these points means scrolling becomes necessary, are you really sure you want that?

and 3) add options for the user to set the background colours and textures for the play area. The white background is rather heavy on the eyes.

In the main screen -> menu -> display options -> enjoy

[zaroblan]

As Chris said both of these points means scrolling becomes necessary, are you really sure you want that?

Yes it is. I cannot stand the resizing at present. The way the whole play area pops in and out as cards are placed on, or removed from, the battlefield is unsettling and quite off putting. On a big monitor seeing the first card you play fill half the screen looks dreadful. I want to be able to set the card size and use that setting. Resizing should only be done when necessary, and IMHO playing your second or third card should not necessitate resizing as there is more than enough space on the battlefield. In a 1v1 game of Magic with more finely tuned decks going beyond 7 to 10 turns should be a rarity (except for more control oriented) and there should therefor be enough space to not have to resize. I should as the user have some control over how I want the battlefield presented to me ... and not have it forced on me.

It does appear that I am the lone voice in the wilderness when it comes to my dislike of the in game UI. It just makes me sad that what was once my favourite of all the Magic based games out there (this includes MODO) is now not played at all due to the annoyance and dislike of the UI. I cannot even bring myself to recommend Forge to my Magic playing community as I find it so unusable. It is a real pity as Forge has such nice other features like the draft, sealed and especially the quest.

I really do hope that some kind of compromise can be reached as I miss playing the quest. For my Magic questing I have had to resort to playing the the very old Microprose Shandalar. How is that for desperation?

[moomarc]

@any of the devs with a grasp on the current UI code: Is it possible to limit the max size of the cards on the battlefield. This should address zaroblan's primary issues while avoiding the return of the scroll bars (especially if the user can select the max dimensions, even if from a list of predefined options). It might help with other issues such as the card state icons disappearing over certain sizes.

I think Doublestrike will be looking into features like having tiling backgrounds that aren't linked to the LAF themes when he gets to the battlefield UI after his current project (not sure though, but I hope so). Maybe player avatars could be looked at as well.

[Sloth]

@any of the devs with a grasp on the current UI code: Is it possible to limit the max size of the cards on the battlefield. This should address zaroblan's primary issues while avoiding the return of the scroll bars (especially if the user can select the max dimensions, even if from a list of predefined options). It might help with other issues such as the card state icons disappearing over certain sizes.

I will try to add this.

[Doublestrike]

I think Doublestrike will be looking into features like having tiling backgrounds that aren't linked to the LAF themes...maybe player avatars could be looked at as well.

Shirley will be doing both of those.

My main concern with the GUI at this point is support for future multiplayer handling, but I think I've got a good plan for that.

I'll try to explain - it's similar to a CAD software, where the mouse wheel will zoom in/out to where the mouse is at. So you could have 16 gameboards going - all similar - with a map on the side showing your current viewport, and you could move up, over, and down as necessary. There could be a "lock viewport" button, or a few "preferred views", or something, we'll see. Of course, this functionality would be locked right away for now, since there's no multi yet.

After debugging the win/lose UI, I'll crack out the first attempt at this (without cards in it), but results are still a while away...I want it now!