Text Mode : what is the point?

[Lodici]

Does anyone use Text Mode and if so why? Just trying to decide whether it is safe to remove this option.

[Huggybaby]

Why remove it just to remove it?

[Lodici]

The same reason you remove dead code - to simplify the code base and make it easier to maintain.

[Huggybaby]

Understood.

What about adding text-to-speech for the log so sight-challenged people can play?

[ShawnieBoy]

Does anyone use Text Mode and if so why? Just trying to decide whether it is safe to remove this option.

I was wondering the same thing when I was doing the counter-type revision. Having to give every counter type (100+!) an abbreviation for Text Mode was a pain, but hopefully someone somewhere is using it. Maybe a survey or something would be better? Find out if it's being used, or if people even know it's there.

Might even end up being a 'feature' for Magarena.

(The whole accessibility thing is quite interesting really, there's ISO guidelines for software development (ISO 9241-171:2008) Although I never thought they'd charge extortionate prices!)

[melvin]

I was wondering the same thing when I was doing the counter-type revision. Having to give every counter type (100+!) an abbreviation for Text Mode was a pain, but hopefully someone somewhere is using it.

We broke text mode in rendering the new counters as TextImages was not updated. This was reported in https://code.google.com/p/magarena/issu ... ext%20mode

I've put in a quick fix for +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters.

[ShawnieBoy]

Never encountered that file before - sorry >.<
And what's kinda annoying is that all the information in TextImages is already found elsewhere

[melvin]

Never encountered that file before

Me neither, it appears that none of the active devs use text mode, which means it is not easy for us to support it going forward. I'm in favor of removing text mode. For reference, ubeefx has remove text mode from Magarena 2012 in May 2013, https://code.google.com/p/arena-card-ga ... tail?r=590

[ShawnieBoy]

Looking at the code that's there - I'd say we can support visually impaired users with a better system - we already have names for icons and counters etc which can be retrieved - and we also have the oracle text for each card available, which could be linked to the card images (Thinking of something like the img description in html)

[Lodici]

Me neither, it appears that none of the active devs use text mode, which means it is not easy for us to support it going forward. I'm in favor of removing text mode. For reference, ubeefx has remove text mode from Magarena 2012 in May 2013, https://code.google.com/p/arena-card-ga ... tail?r=590

Thanks for the ubeefx references. How about before the next release I remove the Text Only option from the game menu first and lets see whether this causes massive "!!!!!" during the following month. If not (which I expect), then remove the code.

[melvin]

How about before the next release I remove the Text Only option from the game menu first and lets see whether this causes massive "!!!!!" during the following month. If not (which I expect), then remove the code.

Sounds good.

[hong yie]

i only use the text mode once, when i'm trapped playing magarena in a "NSFW environment". you can consider it as cheating, like pretend to work on something else while looking at Magarena text mode. But i don't do that for long, since i can'y play well while supposed to work on something else. It's a silly application of text mode, but that's all i can tell you guys about my experience with this "text mode".

[melvin]

Another user report on uses of text mode - https://code.google.com/p/magarena/issues/detail?id=490 second comment

Some interesting items there, there are some things are displayed by text mode which cannot be found in image mode.

[Lodici]

Another user report on uses of text mode - https://code.google.com/p/magarena/issues/detail?id=490 second comment

Some interesting items there, there are some things are displayed by text mode which cannot be found in image mode.

Indeed, good post - if there is (essential?) information that is only available in Text mode then I don't see how we can remove it until the same info can presented in Image mode. Some ideas -

• Add a new viewer to the LHS which shows the equivalent Text Mode info for the currently selected card.
• The zoomed/pop-up card image should mirror the in-play image and include the same effect/ability icons but larger and possibly with explanatory tooltips.
• Display applied effects next to the zoomed/pop-up card image, may be something similar to that suggested by @vitid - download/file.php?id=13920&mode=view, except only showing info that cannot be gleaned from the base card itself.

[ShawnieBoy]

Allowing ability/counter icons to have tool-tips would help immensely, as there would be less need (for counters anyway) to have icons for the more obscure types - an icon could be used as a 'miscellaneous counter-type' and give more info in the tooltip if needed.

The applied effects box would be excellent for things like color-changes and type changes too. (And why I'd love the card text and frame to be generated in-game and only a cropped image downloaded and used)

Something like this (But with the color indicator dot to show colors)

Creeoing Tar Pit as a creature