Request - better placed and sized sea/airport icons

[DanNeely]

TOAW 4's seaport and airport icons are a usability regression from TOAW 3's.

In 3 both were visible poking out from behind the edge of unit icons if located behind them, in TOAW4 they're completely hidden by units if not floating on top; and in that position they obscure a lot more of the unit details.

In the attached image TOAW4 is on the left, TOAW3 the right.

At the bottom is a bad MS paint drawing of what I'd really like; the icons offset to the edge like in TOAW3 but slightly smaller and with the airfield flipped around to minimize the impact on unit details when floating on top.



EDIT: pointer to where I managed to get what I was looking for: tm.asp?m=4397525&mpage=2&key=&#4401849

[Lobster]

If they are like you portray in the bottom picture they will be almost invisible if you zoom out from the huge view. Far too small. You could modify your icons to look like that by the way. The huge view is on the h_tiles_misc.png graphic.

[sPzAbt653]

I like your ideas on this. Would you mind working with me to come up with some looks like the ones you have posted above ? If so, please unzip and place these files individually in your Graphics Override folder, then see how they look in game. We can work on them further to get what you want.

Preliminary look:

[gbaby]

Maybe just add a thick light blue hex border? Or blue hex overlay like the destroyed bridge change for visibility?

[Meyer1]

ORIGINAL: gbaby

Maybe just add a thick light blue hex border? Or blue hex overlay like the destroyed bridge change for visibility?

I like that idea.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

If they are like you portray in the bottom picture they will be almost invisible if you zoom out from the huge view. Far too small. You could modify your icons to look like that by the way. The huge view is on the h_tiles_misc.png graphic.

If they end up too small to work on the huge and maybe the large 2d views so be it. Small 2d's a lost cause, but since at that zoom all the details on the counters I'm trying to preserve aren't shown anyway its a moot point. I've got a huge high res screen, and the screenshots I included were from my default map size.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: gbaby

Maybe just add a thick light blue hex border? Or blue hex overlay like the destroyed bridge change for visibility?

I'm not sure that'd work well. A full color overlay is only going to be useable for one purpose. Trying to combine broken bridge, sea port, and airport overlays is almost certainly not going to work. Maybe if you split the overlay into 3 wedges and did top left seaport, bottom left airport, right broken bridge. I think that'd end up looking too cluttered.

Any sort of ring'd end up fighting for screen space with the current unit/formation rings.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

I like your ideas on this. Would you mind working with me to come up with some looks like the ones you have posted above ? If so, please unzip and place these files individually in your Graphics Override folder, then see how they look in game. We can work on them further to get what you want.

Preliminary look:

I loaded them up and took a look, in terms of poking out around the edge of the units the large zoom version works better than the huge one I think. Partly it's the seaport icon running right up to the edge of the hex and actually showing wider than on huge. The other half is that on Huge the placenames are moved down farther and when not floating the airport ends up buried in the text.

I took screenshots to show how they're looking on my system.

[gbaby]

You could also not make the port circle solid blue. Just an anchor and maybe blue outline will leave the unit info not so blocked. It still would block on float, but not as much.

Most of the time we just hit float temporarily to get an idea of ports. Not been that much of a pain, but I've found any additional visibility helps a lot. Anything would be appreciated.

[sPzAbt653]

Based on what you see, what are your recommendations. There are three views: 2D Large [normal], Small [zoomed out] and Huge [zoomed in].

Lets work on one at a time. Is 2D Large ok, or does it need more adjustment? I am relying on your views there, because I have different settings and graphics here.

[sPzAbt653]

Really the Port markers should be water side specific, not always anchored to the upper left. We can't do that, but I have done a workaround in the past by using Map Optionals [see Sicily to Brenner Pass, which uses separate Supply Icons to signify hidden Allied Supply Points]. Something similar could be done with ports, but then if a scenario does use any of the Map Optionals, it won't work properly. [:(]

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Based on what you see, what are your recommendations. There are three views: 2D Large [normal], Small [zoomed out] and Huge [zoomed in].

Lets work on one at a time. Is 2D Large ok, or does it need more adjustment? I am relying on your views there, because I have different settings and graphics here.

Small can stay as is. Lobster's right that there's not really enough room to do anything at that size. Probably best to drop it entirely unless someone can up up with a workable option.

And since I mostly play on huge let's work on it ahead of normal.

For the sea port marker, 20% smaller and on shifted vertically to the top edge of the hex looks like it'd be more or less what I'm looking for.

For the airport, 20% smaller and shifted as far down and to the left as it can go would be reasonably close to what I'm looking for (below the strength/move numbers when floating sticking out below placenames when not).

I am assuming the icons can be moved up directly against the edges of the hexes, if there's a minimum margin that's protected they'd probably need to go smaller.

A concept image is attached.

[sPzAbt653]

Ok, try this on for Huge. These icons are floating in the file, with no hex borders, so I have no idea where they are ending up or how far I can go. [:)]

[gbaby]

ORIGINAL: DanNeely

I like it, shrink and shift, leave alone color wise. You can leave float on and it does not block the unit counter so much. I also play mostly in the "huge" view for movement, only zooming out to get a more strategic view. But unit counter view is most important in the Huge view.

So where are they? [:D]

[DanNeely]

I'm playing around with positioning now, having fun with weird clipping glitches.

For the seaport I think the size is good if the shadow effect around it can be removed? It's only really noticeable to me when triggering clipping glitches and pulling it off gives a bit more room to play with.

If you can take the shadow off, move it up 6 pixels and left 2. If you can't up 5 and left 1; and then shrink it by 2 pixels.

Still tinkering with the airport trying to get a feel for what I can and can't do without it getting clipped when I mouse over the hex to its lower left.

[sPzAbt653]

Shadow off, moved up 6 pixels and left 3. Shrunk by 75% from original [last one was 80%, can't do pixels easily].

[DanNeely]

The seaport looks good.

Airport needs a bit more work since it's still covering the leftmost digit of a 2 digit strength.

On account of the clipping (3rd image on the attachment) I'm not entirely sure how to fix it. The standard airport is affected too, but to a much smaller degree; so I'm not anticipating its fix being a high priority item unless it screws something else up at lot more visibly.

If it wasn't for the bug, I'd just push the airport 6 or 8 pixels farther left and call it a day. But that would take the clipping bug from bad to horrible.

[gbaby]

What if the runway was changed from a three way runway to a two way? Take the diagonal one out and it might not block so much (the one you have vertically flipped).

Also TOAW III runway was fine, thinner. But again, it is a matter of individual taste.

Looking better though.

[Lobster]

Just make the interior of the airfield transparent. Then it can float and won't be a big deal since most of what is under it will be visible. Same for the port icon. Just a circle and an anchor with the rest transparent.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

Just make the interior of the airfield transparent. Then it can float and won't be a big deal since most of what is under it will be visible. Same for the port icon. Just a circle and an anchor with the rest transparent.

to work like that it'd need to be narrowed massively, I wouldn't want to go much below the TOAW3 airfield; but even that's wide enough to obliterate (not just captcha-ify) whatever stat number it's on top of.