Gui Improvement requests

[DennisBergkamp]

I almost never released it onto the Internet.

Pfew, well I'm very glad and grateful you did

[Chris H.]

Now that the work on improving the visual experience via the tokens is winding down, I would like to bring up for discussion an issue that I notice at times. This issue involves the text panel which displays card text. This panel is displayed in the Game Window and the Deck Editor for normal and quest modes.

I will include an attachment to show how the card in question contains info that is longer than the display area:

.
.
.

[GandoTheBard]

Major Feature Request:
Please include a link or button or some such that opens a window showing all removed cards for each side. This is a key element that is missing from the UI imho.

Minor Feature Request:
Please please Please return the sorting to ascending and descending for all gui parts of the game. Thanks.

Trivial request:
Also it would be nice if you could add a Round counter to the turn sequence string so we can tell how many rounds a game has gone. I for one almost never remember to keep track.

The first feature is a must have I think. Particularly for forgetful people (like me) and MOST particularly since the AI never slows down on its turn to show you what it did. boom creature disappears, not in graveyard? swords to plowshares in computer graveyard? I guess some creature was removed and gave me x life...particularly annoying when you have 18+ creatures in play.

Id be most grateful for this. Also while we are on the subject of making things nicer...it would be nice if you could add in a pause whenever the computer does something like that. In addition, a log file option would be great too. Just a dump to plain text of actions taken during the game on all sides. (Might help spot a few bugs too)

[GandoTheBard]

Is it at all possible that you guys could install a "KILL LAG" button? Maybe a save state menu item too so that games could be paused inbetween if the game is lagging out of control for some reason? (that could also aid in helping to detect and eliminate bugs when they occur...the saved game state would be output to a .sav file which you guys could import as needed.

[GandoTheBard]

While Im requesting improvements, it seems to me that having the ability to cancel attacks or blocks before ending the attackers, blockers assignment steps would be most beneficial. Sometimes an over eager clicker ends up clicking something they did not mean to, particularly on smaller screen resolutions I imagine.

[Rob Cashwalker]

While Im requesting improvements, it seems to me that having the ability to cancel attacks or blocks before ending the attackers, blockers assignment steps would be most beneficial. Sometimes an over eager clicker ends up clicking something they did not mean to, particularly on smaller screen resolutions I imagine.

I would like to see that too - each click on an attacker or blocker should be a toggle.. I'd say use left-click/right-click, but macs don't have a right-click.

[Chris H.]

I would like to see that too - each click on an attacker or blocker should be a toggle.. I'd say use left-click/right-click, but macs don't have a right-click.

Apple changed over to multi-button mice some time ago. I think that the change occurred at about the time that they went to Intel processors.

My old Mac died and I replaced it with a new iMac ... 5 button mouse and a 3.06 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. I'm happy and prepared for left-click/right-click.

There are still some hold outs with one button mice and the old style IBM Power PC processor. Later this year Apple will be releasing an updated version of it's OS and it will be Intel only. The last of the hold outs will then need to consider buying a new machine or be left behind.

I think that the people in the *nix world likely have been using multi-button mice for many a year.

[DennisBergkamp]

At my work there's still a bunch of 1-button apple mice. But, you can always just CTRL+click to get the same result as a right click on a mac

[GandoTheBard]

Ok just to recap, currently the requests which haven't yet been implemented are:

-- Removed Card list/link
-- Restore Ordering in all directions in the GUI
-- Sidebar order panel (or submenu (like the set editor) if the client doesn't yeild enough realestate) for multicolumn ordering.
-- Round Counter (maybe even with the decks
-- Action log (so that both sides show up in a plain text file)
-- Reformatting Text Panel.
-- Fix the sizes for ALL the columns in the game.
-- Kill Lag button
-- Save game State function
-- Toggle Attacker/Blocker assignment on and off. (right/left click system).

[DennisBergkamp]

Ok just to recap, currently the requests which haven't yet been implemented are:

-- Removed Card list/link
-- Restore Ordering in all directions in the GUI
-- Sidebar order panel (or submenu (like the set editor) if the client doesn't yeild enough realestate) for multicolumn ordering.
-- Round Counter (maybe even with the decks
-- Action log (so that both sides show up in a plain text file)
-- Reformatting Text Panel.
-- Fix the sizes for ALL the columns in the game.
-- Kill Lag button
-- Save game State function
-- Toggle Attacker/Blocker assignment on and off. (right/left click system).

- Removed Cards I can (and will) do, it should be pretty easy, however, currently I don't think cards that are removed from the game actually get assigned to a "Removed" PlayerZone. Should be possible to add though.
- Restore ordering in all directions in the GUI? I'm not sure what you mean by this, are you talking about sorting ascending/descending in the deck editor?
- Sidebar order panel? Same deal, I'm not sure what that means.
- Round counter should be easy.
- Action log - this is a great idea.
- Reformatting Text Panel - I've messed around with this, with unsuccessful results I was thinking to generate some HTML stuff and render this in the text panel, but this is apparently way tricky in Java.
- Fix sizes for ALL the columns in the game - I assume this has to do with the various deck editors? Which columns are currently sized incorrectly?
- Kill Lag button - this would be awesome, but how ?
- Save game State function - a great idea (which could even support saving and running replays like in Incantus), but I doubt MTGForge's architecture supports it at this point.
- Toggle Attacker / Blocker assignment on and off: this would be a great feature too, and I'll look into it. But it's probably trickier than it sounds (not sure how creatures with exalted would handle it, gotta make sure that creatures like Zur the Enchanter / Jedit Ojanen of Efrava won't trigger multiple times, etc. ...)

[GandoTheBard]

Ok just to recap, currently the requests which haven't yet been implemented are:

-- Removed Card list/link
-- Restore Ordering in all directions in the GUI
-- Sidebar order panel (or submenu (like the set editor) if the client doesn't yeild enough realestate) for multicolumn ordering.
-- Round Counter (maybe even with the decks
-- Action log (so that both sides show up in a plain text file)
-- Reformatting Text Panel.
-- Fix the sizes for ALL the columns in the game.
-- Kill Lag button
-- Save game State function
-- Toggle Attacker/Blocker assignment on and off. (right/left click system).

- Removed Cards I can (and will) do, it should be pretty easy, however, currently I don't think cards that are removed from the game actually get assigned to a "Removed" PlayerZone. Should be possible to add though.
- Restore ordering in all directions in the GUI? I'm not sure what you mean by this, are you talking about sorting ascending/descending in the deck editor?
- Sidebar order panel? Same deal, I'm not sure what that means.
- Round counter should be easy.
- Action log - this is a great idea.
- Reformatting Text Panel - I've messed around with this, with unsuccessful results I was thinking to generate some HTML stuff and render this in the text panel, but this is apparently way tricky in Java.
- Fix sizes for ALL the columns in the game - I assume this has to do with the various deck editors? Which columns are currently sized incorrectly?
- Kill Lag button - this would be awesome, but how ?
- Save game State function - a great idea (which could even support saving and running replays like in Incantus), but I doubt MTGForge's architecture supports it at this point.
- Toggle Attacker / Blocker assignment on and off: this would be a great feature too, and I'll look into it. But it's probably trickier than it sounds (not sure how creatures with exalted would handle it, gotta make sure that creatures like Zur the Enchanter / Jedit Ojanen of Efrava won't trigger multiple times, etc. ...)

lets see one at a time:
1) removed area -- not only would this be great for the current game but would probably make suspend possible.
2) yes sorting via columns...currently descending is disabled.
3) Sidebar Order panel. this is referencing a post earlier in this thread. Refering to being able to sort by color, mana cost, cmc, power/toughness, etc. But like the way other programs work so you can exclude colors/types etc, and also able to sort multiple items at once (color + cost + type for example)
6)If you could import HTML you could add in CSS to give more graphics to the game that way.
7)Of hand I don't know but I think the quest mode columns, drafting, and others.
If there is a loop in the AI logic it should enable a kill lag button which breaks the loop and forces the AI to take whatever actions the AI was last considering. Not as elegant a solution as we'd like but better than it is now.
9) Why not? All you need to do is have a savebuild/rebuild function to set all the proper objects and variables to the right values then start the game with the appropriate player's turn where it left off.
10) I think what has to happen to make this work is to not trigger any effects during assignment until assignment is done. The attacker's assignment step should also end with an instants/abilities response substep anyway so set up combat so that attackers are declared, then the player presses ok and the attackers triggered effects take place, then attackers instance and abilities. then blockers and the same thing is done here.

[GandoTheBard]

Intelligent Mana? It would be great if once all colored mana costs are paid for in an ability or spell the computer would just tap land/artifacts for the excess mana without asking what color you want it to be...though of course there are some cards that care what color was spent there aren't many in Forge that I know of. We could make this an option so that it could be shut off in such cases. (in the in game menu so that it could be situational.)

[Rob Cashwalker]

Intelligent Mana? It would be great if once all colored mana costs are paid for in an ability or spell the computer would just tap land/artifacts for the excess mana without asking what color you want it to be...though of course there are some cards that care what color was spent there aren't many in Forge that I know of. We could make this an option so that it could be shut off in such cases. (in the in game menu so that it could be situational.)

I don;t know about that one.... IRM (In Real Magic) you have to be very deliberate with your mana... most players don't do take-backs, or re-arrangment of mana once declared.

You're asking the game to tap mana for you... the AI doesn't use its mana 100% effectively, what makes you think the game could decide the best sources for the remaining mana?

[GandoTheBard]

The problem is...the way it is now the tapping of lands when you need to tap say 10 takes a really long time particularly if you are a slow clicker like me. After all you have to click the land wait for the stupid pop up to stabilize click on the pop up then select the color and then click on the ok button...just for one mana...how is it unreasonable to ask for that to be a bit more automated???

oh and a response to this:

You're asking the game to tap mana for you... the AI doesn't use its mana 100% effectively, what makes you think the game could decide the best sources for the remaining mana?

Decide sources?? no...not sources just take the land click as enough. Why make me go through all those steps just to provide vanilla mana?

[Vecc]

Intelligent Mana? It would be great if once all colored mana costs are paid for in an ability or spell the computer would just tap land/artifacts for the excess mana without asking what color you want it to be...though of course there are some cards that care what color was spent there aren't many in Forge that I know of. We could make this an option so that it could be shut off in such cases. (in the in game menu so that it could be situational.)

Oh yeah, I was just thinking about that the other day. It'd be very practical if lands and artifacts able to generate multicolored mana simply tapped without bringing up the Add Mana window after all colored mana is paid for. This doesn't sound too hard to code (must be because I'm not the one who has to code it ), but then again it might not work properly with stuff like Sunburst, Court Hussar, etc... and would be lost code if/when a manapool is implemented in Forge. Maybe left-click/right-click scheme to decide wether to just generate a random mana from among the types the source can generate or to bring up the list?