working on new Forge user interface

[mtgrares]

I plan on working on a new user interface (ui) for Forge. I didn't realize that the previous ui was so annoying, see Rob's post. I plan to use the smallest, simplest videogame library I could find, which is called fly. My goal is to provide something that can be tweaked and modified as needed. The final result will look something like Magarena and I even plan to use Magarena's theme's so Forge will be skinnable. Below is a screenshot of Magarena.

I think I should be able to do this but we will see. It is only 2D graphics and no animation, so it should be the simplest project possible.

[Rob Cashwalker]

Hey, it's not MY post with the complaints... My only gripe is that the UI is difficult to modify, because of JBuilder being defunct, and we all currently use eclipse.

[zorglub]

Hi,

Maybe you will find the following idea usefull...or not.

Creatures affected by summoning sickness can be displayed "half-tapped" : I mean rotated by 30° or 45° (or sheared).
I think it could be intuitive :
- the creature is not really tapped
- but it cannot be tapped (as if it were already tapped)

Good luck for taming the UI beast

[Rob Cashwalker]

I finally played Duels of the Planeswalkers a couple weeks ago at a friend's house. It displays summoning sickness with a swirly effect... almost precisely like our current icon overlay.

[timmermac]

Microprose did something similar as well with their game.

[jeffwadsworth]

The current symbols are perfect.

[Xitax]

This is heading in a great direction! Two thumbs way up!

One thing that might help in gaining some additional play area, is to take something from Octgn (which I assume you've seen). You can have the card pic as a fade-in popup on the side of the screen when you mouse over a card. That way you don't have to dedicate any space for it. Also you might consider having your hand slide up and down from the bottom when you mouse to the bottom.

I feel it would be best to have the max possible table area for permanents, can't you tell?

[mtgrares]

Hey, it's not MY post with the complaints... My only gripe is that the UI is difficult to modify, because of JBuilder being defunct, and we all currently use eclipse.

I understand, I'm not blaming you or anything. You want to modify the gui and I'm probably the best guy to help. Hopefully this is one more step toward becoming a full-fledged videogame.

[mtgrares]

Yeah I worked on the gui for a few hours last week. Mostly I played around learning how the library expects you to do things. I think I have a better understanding but nothing is done yet. I still plan to copy Magarena since I'm not great at doing gui design.

I'm going to try to remove the "card detail" panel on the right. At worst it will slide in and out of view and at best it will popup the card picture and Forge's card text.

[slappysquirrel]

what if, forge stacked our permanents better. many times ill play heavy creatures or whatever, cast one, and think "woa where'd all my land go!" everything gets really small, and you can see there would be a whole row to put cards on, but it doesnt do that for some reason.

[drekonja]

Yes, I think that interface of Forge should be really improved. This may be the main reason I can't get hang of Forge. So far, best interface is done by incantus, but magarena interface is still decent. But I really ask for a side bars, which indicate current phase, similar way that is done in incantus and microprose's game. An optional sound effect when changing phase would be welcomed too.