Main Screen update

[Lodici]

There is some really cool background artwork used in Magarena none more so than on the main screen. But for some reason the enormous splash image was plonked right on top obscuring much of the background. So I have just published an update that removes it and adds the version to the window title bar so now you will always know which version of Magarena you are running wherever you are. This will will also be useful for any screen shots posted to the forum for support, etc.

Check out the before/after images running Magarena at its minimum resolution. On big screens the artwork really fills the screen.

And now that there is all this space, how about adding a list of main options kind of center-left? Like you would normally get in most games. Certainly I think we can do better than New and Load which are hardly self-explanatory.

[Lodici]

This is probably heading down a blind alley but I am interested in finding out if it is possible to create a menubar-less UI. Here is what I have done to the main screen in all its 1280 x 1024 full screen glory using the Mystic theme.

Don't worry - I am not planning on publishing this on the trunk but if anyone wants to have a play then I think I can publish this as an anonymous branch.

[Huggybaby]

You're right, the menus as they are right now could use some streamlining, right now they seem a bit "added-on".

The Magarena logo could be turned into a splash screen, fading into the cool artwork you're emphasizing.

[melvin]

This looks awesome! We should definitely push towards menu-less as far as possible. Starting with the main screen is a good start as there is limited options one can choose from there. We should include this in the next release.

How about using a right click menu to replace the menu in other screen? The only issue may be discoverability, but I think right click is common enough that someone will try it.

[Lodici]

The Magarena logo could be turned into a splash screen, fading into the cool artwork you're emphasizing.

If there is a copy of the Magarena logo on its own (without the orange splash background) that would make it easier to integrate into the various theme backgrounds. Unfortunately, I am not aware of such a file.

This looks awesome! We should definitely push towards menu-less as far as possible. Starting with the main screen is a good start as there is limited options one can choose from there. We should include this in the next release.

Thanks although TBH I don't think it is ready to go live just yet - it is very much in the proof-of-concept stage. I am happy to publish to my clone if that does not cause any problems but I don't plan on merging it into the main branch anytime soon. Presumably, I can still merge main branch changes into it though so it does not diverge too much (for some reason I find Mercurial confusing even though I work a lot with Git and Subversion).

My inspiration for this was MagicGrove which has a really nice clean, simple, game-orientated interface which I think Magarena could do worse than try to emulate to some degree.

How about using a right click menu to replace the menu in other screen? The only issue may be discoverability, but I think right click is common enough that someone will try it.

Sure, I think that is quite a common mechanic in games - especially strategy types. But I still think it would be interesting to see if it is possible to redesign the UI such that no additional menus would be required because everything required is there on the screen. A nice side effect is that it should make Magarena very playable on touch-screens, etc.

[Lodici]

Now that version 1.44 has been released I have published the UI revamp as detailed below. There are a lot of changes so this gives a month to test, feedback and refactor before version 1.45 (or may be this even constitutes a new major release for 2014!). I recommend any theme with a home screen image (eg Mystic, green forest, gothic, etc) on Full Screen to get the full effect.

- Complete UI revamp to present a simpler, more focused game-like UI.
- New look should improve touch-screen access.
- Menubar removed and replaced with "menu" screens accessed using ESC or standard screen icon.
- F12 toggles UI visibility for those want to view the background art in all its glory.
- ESC is global key for displaying options/pause menu.
- Readme screen revamp.
- Keywords screen revamp.
- Show confirmation dialog on Save Duel.
- Version info now set in one place in MagicMain.
- Added Backspace and Delete keys as undo action in duel screen in place of ESC.
- Remembers Full screen mode between sessions.

[melvin]

Amazing stuff, I would have released 1.44 earlier if I knew this is what was coming Just merged and pushed to main repo, a new build with the UI changes will be out soon. Will update this post with the link.

Update: Build with UI changes that is a drop-in replacement for 1.44's Magarena.exe available at https://buildhive.cloudbees.com/job/mel ... garena.exe

[Lodici]

Amazing stuff, I would have released 1.44 earlier if I knew this is what was coming

No rush, I needed the 4 weeks!

As this is opensource I should probably mention that the options icon came from http://game-icons.net/ and I used GIMP to make it transparent. The inspiration behind the look was MagicGrove.