MWIF Game Interface Design

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I forgot to mention, ...

For cost and turns I used the rather simple device of Costs (with the plural) denoting a 2 cycle unit and the actual BPs required shown as 2+4, for instance.

The sinlge cycle convoy has the word Cost (no plural) and just a single cost number (1/4).

The turns changes depending on whether the unit is being built new or repaired.

[trees]

this is a game interface question I noticed in the air tutorial thread...in the screen shot showing airplanes on the map there are Russian and German land units on the map. Only the Germans have the small green supply status indicators. Is this because the screen shot used is from old, old beta code and the indicator is simply not working for the Russian units? Or will supply status only be shown for your own units?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: trees

this is a game interface question I noticed in the air tutorial thread...in the screen shot showing airplanes on the map there are Russian and German land units on the map. Only the Germans have the small green supply status indicators. Is this because the screen shot used is from old, old beta code and the indicator is simply not working for the Russian units? Or will supply status only be shown for your own units?

Supply status should be shown for all units all the time. The bright green indicators for the German units means they can move. Supply status is the third button in on the top (reading left to right). HQ units have it as a dark green indicating they are secondary supply sources.

In-supply units have no supply indicator. The default is to show nothing, which means the unit is in a normal state. That is why the USSR units are showing no status indicators (one of my design goals is to minimize clutter).

I haven't gotten the code for updating the status indicators functioning correctly yet. To my mind, the definitions of the status inidcators needs one more pass before I will bless it and implement the final version.

[trees]

ahh, I hadn't looked back to find out which indicator was which.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: trees

this is a game interface question I noticed in the air tutorial thread...in the screen shot showing airplanes on the map there are Russian and German land units on the map. Only the Germans have the small green supply status indicators. Is this because the screen shot used is from old, old beta code and the indicator is simply not working for the Russian units? Or will supply status only be shown for your own units?

Supply status should be shown for all units all the time. The bright green indicators for the German units means they can move. Supply status is the third button in on the top (reading left to right). HQ units have it as a dark green indicating they are secondary supply sources.

In-supply units have no supply indicator. The default is to show nothing, which means the unit is in a normal state. That is why the USSR units are showing no status indicators (one of my design goals is to minimize clutter).

I haven't gotten the code for updating the status indicators functioning correctly yet. To my mind, the definitions of the status inidcators needs one more pass before I will bless it and implement the final version.

I would very much like to see a legend showing indicator status in a tutorial.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: trees
this is a game interface question I noticed in the air tutorial thread...in the screen shot showing airplanes on the map there are Russian and German land units on the map. Only the Germans have the small green supply status indicators. Is this because the screen shot used is from old, old beta code and the indicator is simply not working for the Russian units? Or will supply status only be shown for your own units?

Supply status should be shown for all units all the time. The bright green indicators for the German units means they can move. Supply status is the third button in on the top (reading left to right). HQ units have it as a dark green indicating they are secondary supply sources.

In-supply units have no supply indicator. The default is to show nothing, which means the unit is in a normal state. That is why the USSR units are showing no status indicators (one of my design goals is to minimize clutter).

I haven't gotten the code for updating the status indicators functioning correctly yet. To my mind, the definitions of the status inidcators needs one more pass before I will bless it and implement the final version.

I would very much like to see a legend showing indicator status in a tutorial.

Yes. I might do this piecemeal though since the status indicators relate to different parts of the sequence of play.

The first place will be in tutorial #9 (8 pages plus overview text):
---------
[9,8]
[This tutorial defines how units trace supply to primary and secondary supply sources.
Overland and overseas supply lines are shown. The tutorial also describes alternate
sources of supply and the effects of being out of supply.]

[primary supply sources]

[secondary supply sources with paths to primary]

[units tracing over land to secondary sources]

[units supply path over land being blocked by enemy units]

[overseas supply paths]

[tracing supply over both land and sea]

[effects of being out of supply]

[alternative supply sources]
---------

[lomyrin]

How will the game hexes display on a widescreen monitor? 
 
Will the hexes be elongated horizontally or will there just be room for extra hex rows where the hexes are not distorted?
 
Lars
 

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: lomyrin

How will the game hexes display on a widescreen monitor? 

Will the hexes be elongated horizontally or will there just be room for extra hex rows where the hexes are not distorted?

Lars

IMO it depends entirely on which screen resolution you choose. Not on the game.
If you choose 1280 x 1024 on a wide screen, the hexes will be elongated in width, as will be anything displayed on the screen.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: lomyrin
How will the game hexes display on a widescreen monitor? 

Will the hexes be elongated horizontally or will there just be room for extra hex rows where the hexes are not distorted?

Lars

IMO it depends entirely on which screen resolution you choose. Not on the game.
If you choose 1280 x 1024 on a wide screen, the hexes will be elongated in width, as will be anything displayed on the screen.

I routinely run the program on 2 monitors side by side, which is a logical 2560 by 1024. I get more visible hexes with no distortion.

[Davidt]

Hi Steve,

I can't seem to find anything about whether or not the current multipliers are shown. The reason im asking is, sometimes it wont be worth occupying that 1 hex in russia or attacking that div, because of the 0.25 multiplier increase. (Yeah i know its gamey, but WIF is a game)

There could be a status window, to be called on at will, telling current multipliers for all major countries, including whether or not the country is getting special multipliers such as:

1. Enemy units in the home country
2. attacks made on units in homecountry
3. For russia, keeping Leningrad, minsk and odessa (?) etc during 42
4. Current US gearing and when the gearnig will rise

Best Regards,
David

edit: Spelling

[oscar72se]

Hi!
I don't know if you guys already thought of this, but would it be possible to add a "hover effect" to the interface so that when the user points at a stack, a small window with compressed info about the current stack pops up? In terms of compressed info one could display total attack factors, number of ARM points etc.

[lomyrin]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: lomyrin
How will the game hexes display on a widescreen monitor? 

Will the hexes be elongated horizontally or will there just be room for extra hex rows where the hexes are not distorted?

Lars

IMO it depends entirely on which screen resolution you choose. Not on the game.
If you choose 1280 x 1024 on a wide screen, the hexes will be elongated in width, as will be anything displayed on the screen.

I routinely run the program on 2 monitors side by side, which is a logical 2560 by 1024. I get more visible hexes with no distortion.

With the newer larger screen monitors seemingly being more and more in the 16:10 widescreen format at 1680 by 1050 resolution instead of the 4:3 format with 1280 by 1024, is it unavoidable to suffer elongation of the hexes or will the program be able to be selected for format and display correctly? It seems that future game programs will need such a feature.

Lars

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

Here is the way I believe this will work and if I am wrong, Steve will correct me.

The game will display appropriately in whatever resolution windows is running in. The hexes will be of the correct shape and all will be well... UNLESS...

You are running a Windows resolution that is of a different height to width ratio than your display and it is working in full screen mode. In this case, everything (except some DirectX situations) will be distorted. Word, Outlook, Excel, your desktop picture and anything else will be distorted. Not just MWiF.

DirectX programs will be distorted or not based on the resolution you have picked inside that program. Again, if the resolution is of the same height to width ratio as your display, there will be no distortion, but if you force it to use a resolution with a different ratio, it will be.

For example, my laptop will run in the following modes:

[font="Courier New"]
Resolution....Ratio.....Distortion?
800x600.......1.333.....Distortion
1024x768......1.333.....Distortion
1280x768......1.666.....Distortion - Hardly noticable
1280x800......1.600.....No Distortion
1280x1024.....1.250.....Distortion - Worst
1680x1050.....1.600.....No Distotion
[/font]

In short, if the rest of your windows applications look fine, so will MWiF

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

Here is the way I believe this will work and if I am wrong, Steve will correct me.

The game will display appropriately in whatever resolution windows is running in. The hexes will be of the correct shape and all will be well... UNLESS...

You are running a Windows resolution that is of a different height to width ratio than your display and it is working in full screen mode. In this case, everything (except some DirectX situations) will be distorted. Word, Outlook, Excel, your desktop picture and anything else will be distorted. Not just MWiF.

DirectX programs will be distorted or not based on the resolution you have picked inside that program. Again, if the resolution is of the same height to width ratio as your display, there will be no distortion, but if you force it to use a resolution with a different ratio, it will be.

For example, my laptop will run in the following modes:

[font="Courier New"]
Resolution....Ratio.....Distortion?
800x600.......1.333.....Distortion
1024x768......1.333.....Distortion
1280x768......1.666.....Distortion - Hardly noticable
1280x800......1.600.....No Distortion
1280x1024.....1.250.....Distortion - Worst
1680x1050.....1.600.....No Distotion
[/font]

In short, if the rest of your windows applications look fine, so will MWiF

Uh... No.

Windows resolution does not cause distortion unless the application uses algorithms that fit images to the screen without maintaining aspect ratio. This means that distortion is usually only seen in a few graphic apps that do not preserve aspect ratio - otherwise images are displayed with black bars at the top/bottom or sides.

MWiF appears to count pixels to generate its images. It does not multiply the desktop dimensions to generate pixel counts.

In short, it doesn't matter what resolution you use as long as you have enough desktop resolution to show everything you need to see. There won't be any distortion.

[lomyrin]

I performed the actual test of setting up a widescreen 16:10 monitor at 1680 x 1050 resolution with the CWiF program. It displayed just fine across the entire wide screen with no distortion, all hexes were of the correct shape.
 
Lars

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

ORIGINAL: amwild

Uh... No.

Windows resolution does not cause distortion unless the application uses algorithms that fit images to the screen without maintaining aspect ratio. This means that distortion is usually only seen in a few graphic apps that do not preserve aspect ratio - otherwise images are displayed with black bars at the top/bottom or sides.

MWiF appears to count pixels to generate its images. It does not multiply the desktop dimensions to generate pixel counts.

In short, it doesn't matter what resolution you use as long as you have enough desktop resolution to show everything you need to see. There won't be any distortion.

Uh...Yes

If I tell Windows to display a 1.333 ratio resolution, it displays it on my 1.600 ratio laptop screen in such a way that the entire screen is used and things are streched out horizontally. Everything looks wider than it should.

Dell Insprion 9100

[lomyrin]

Keep in mind that the pixel density for 1280 in a 4:3 (12:9) display corresponds very well with 1680 in a 16:10 display. 1680 divided by 16 times 12 is 1260.  This gives a distortion horizontally of about 1.5% which is not discernible. Correspondingly in the vertical 1024 vesrus 1050 is only about 2% distortion and also not descernible. This lets you see more of the map in the horizontal direction or to place the Global and Units windows at the right side without reducing the main map a lot.
 
Lars

[SamuraiProgrmmr]

I am not worried about the distortion.  I know I can change windows settings to fix the problem.  I was just trying (poorly) to explain that any problems with the hexes being the wrong shape could be fixed by changing the windows settings.
 

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: SamuraiProgrammer

ORIGINAL: amwild

Uh... No.

Windows resolution does not cause distortion unless the application uses algorithms that fit images to the screen without maintaining aspect ratio. This means that distortion is usually only seen in a few graphic apps that do not preserve aspect ratio - otherwise images are displayed with black bars at the top/bottom or sides.

MWiF appears to count pixels to generate its images. It does not multiply the desktop dimensions to generate pixel counts.

In short, it doesn't matter what resolution you use as long as you have enough desktop resolution to show everything you need to see. There won't be any distortion.

Uh...Yes

If I tell Windows to display a 1.333 ratio resolution, it displays it on my 1.600 ratio laptop screen in such a way that the entire screen is used and things are streched out horizontally. Everything looks wider than it should.

Dell Insprion 9100

That would be your video driver, then, distorting the desktop to fit it to your non-standard display. Use a screen resolution that matches your display resolution, and the distortion should dissappear. What do you expect from Dell, anyway...

[oscar72se]

ORIGINAL: oscar72se

Hi!
I don't know if you guys already thought of this, but would it be possible to add a "hover effect" to the interface so that when the user points at a stack, a small window with compressed info about the current stack pops up? In terms of compressed info one could display total attack factors, number of ARM points etc.

So I guess, no?