New client menu mock-up

[Nintenduh]

 

It's kinda crude. I made this using the buddy list window. The size would be just about right i guess.

[Chosen]

Quite like that idea, Nintenduh

[Scorpius]

 

well thats an idea how it may could work. even tho i suggest using icons instead of text in the buttons to save

space so even low resolution users can use this (i couldnt find good icons and couldnt me arsed to make some myself) in combination with a button that would pop up and options tab like in chosens suggestion you could have a quick bar for setting your summons "aggresive" or "defensive" (added whitelisting cuz of boredome.. thought about beeing able to whitelist specific guilds and/or player to your summons) and also

having a pop up option tab for planning, for example before you go into pk or the map you want to go into.

 

the pic is rather rubbish but you get the idea

 

 

#EDIT: nvm.. i love Nintenduhs idea lol.. forget about mine

Edited August 12, 2007 by Scorpius

[ferngale]

Building on Nintenduhs idea since we don't all summon and there is already a quickbar for spells (Unless that is removed to free up space for something else? umm... not too certain about what that might be or if I would want to retrain my fingers from Alt 1 for restore):

 

No clue if this is doable...but another tab on the Options page to select different catagories that would show up in this Quick Menu idea. For instance: An alchemy quick menu, where IF you have the ingreds in your inventory AND have read any necessary books you could click on the product you wanted<insert alchemy product here> and the proper proportion of ingreds would apear in the mix portion of your manu window. Same for the other "manu window" skills, but you'd have to select which two skills on the Options page. Often times I've said to myself "oki Ferny, after having made 225k+ FE since the counters started, wouldn't it be nice if my computer KNEW that I wanted to make more when I have the right ingredients in inv?" And yes I know the Options page is already getting crowded. Sub menus possibly?

 

The Commands list is a great idea and should come first.

 

And yes, I would really like to be able to swap cloaks/tools/weapons "on the fly", but this is really secondary, IMHO.

 

<edited for spelling and clarity I hope>

Edited August 13, 2007 by ferngale

[Nintenduh]

I was kinda thinking of just having the Q Spell tab for adding spells to the quick bar without having to cast the spell before adding it.

 

Maybe having a "cast" and "add to bar" buttons?

Edited August 13, 2007 by Nintenduh

[LordGordon]

Well, right now we have a magic button which we use only for casting spells, at least the first time, then if they're any good they get added to the quick bar. We also have the manufacture window which gets used for everything from manu, to alc to summoning and then some. Manufacturing, alchemy, crafting, potions and engineering all really fall under the category of making things but summoning could be classified as something altogether different. Why not simply have a new button at the bottom for summoning. Clicking that displays a window that shows only items used for summoning; bones, furs, LEs etc and just like we have the sit and walk buttons on the main bar we could have an agressive and defensive button in the new window, this way, summoning is relatively unchanged, it just means instead of using the manu window you use the summon window. By making a windows specifically for summoning it might even encourage more people to try it out.

 

Thats just my 2 cents, its simple and won't clutter up the game screen because size wise it shouldn't be any bigger than the magic window.

 

We could also add a switch to the quick bar so you can add summon to it and just switch between the magic quick bar and the summons quick bar, I think that would be kinda neat

[Torg]

Why not simply have a new button at the bottom for summoning.

Because this thread isn't about summoning.

 

This idea is for a menu system that can be used for anything and everything in EL. It is generic. However, an *example* was given of using it for summoning. It was only an example. The menu system should be extensible to allow loads of different commands, through either a series of sub-menus or tabs or something. Entropy wants people to draw some examples of a menu that can be expanded.

[Rockfall]

well I thought a good idea would be to have 'tabs' running up the left hand side of the screen, not necessarily as a new toolbar, but more like icons...

Then when you highlight (or click) them a small menu scrolls out. The menu won't be big at all, and follows the 'see-thru' aspect.

the closest thing I can relate this idea to is the start menu in windows.... but instead of the menu opening vertical, it opens horizontal and takes up much less space!

 

I'm pretty useless graphical wise for things like this, I probably would be able to mock up a very crude version of this idea, but for looks it would look like a kids messed it up hehe.

[Roja]

why not put it underneath the quickbar/above the clock? There is room for some icons and stuff there.

A while ago we were planning to have a sort of skill menu in that spot, to do things such as control summoned creatures, etc..

We also talked about possibly making it "context sensitive" so that if you changed what you were doing it would automatically change. of course if you can manually switch it somehow that'd work too.

[ttlanhil]

why not put it underneath the quickbar/above the clock? There is room for some icons and stuff there.

Well, not necessarily. There's code in place to hide the statbars if the resolution is too low, 800x600 is no longer large enough for both clocks and statbars to be shown.

The ideal system is probably a tree... But it doesn't have to be graphical. Press the hotkey to get the menu, then the keys to travel down the tree. There are similar things in other games, including for types or emotes, etc... It takes a while to be able to use it quickly, but the keyboard use will be faster than mouse and you can still allow mouse anyway.

[Roja]

Also depends on how much stuff is to go there.

[scarr]

why dont just evryone play in full screen? much easier:)

[Entropy]

why dont just evryone play in full screen? much easier:)

 

Because, sometimes, you want to do other things as well, such as IM, browsing, and so on.

 

@ttlanhil

The idea is to replace #commands with a graphical interface. Well, not really replace, just offer an alternative.

If you need to type like 4 keys to get to the menu you want, then move to the mouse to set the focus in some window, it's just easier to type the whole command by keyboard.

[The_Piper]

One idea, why not this:

 

Another icon which pops up a small window with a menu, a button and a check box.

 

The window holds more than one menu, just click on the button to switch to the next menu.

 

Then click on the option/command/spell/whatever you want to choose.

 

That could be very fast, one click on the icon, one click on the option and you get the effect you want.

 

The check box? Thats to point out with which menu you want to start. Want to go summoning, choose the summoning menu to be the first to pop up in the window.

 

Want to go PKing, choose the pking menu to pop up in the window. And so on.

 

So it would be only 2 clicks, one on the icon and one on the command/option then in the menu to choose an effect in game.

 

Piper

[ttlanhil]

@ttlanhil

The idea is to replace #commands with a graphical interface. Well, not really replace, just offer an alternative.

If you need to type like 4 keys to get to the menu you want, then move to the mouse to set the focus in some window, it's just easier to type the whole command by keyboard.

Sure, if that had been what I said. Mouse or keyboard, in what I'm talking about, are optional.

You can do it all with keyboard, starting with a hotkey (and then just normal keys, for speed), or mouse (assuming you have a button to pop up the menu). You can also mix between keyboard and mouse, but most of the time that probably won't be as fast (although sometimes it can be really fast, but you need practice for that).

I'll give an example.

You press the hotkey for the menu, say alt+a.

You then have a window show up that has a half dozen options, like "guild commands", "channel commands", "emotes", etc.

You type the key or click on guild commands, and the menu changes to things like "members list", "guild message", "set tag", etc.

You type/click, and it either sends the message (like #list_guild) or puts in the command (like for #set_short_name). It could also pop up a window with a textbox for input, but I don't think that's appropriate, especially if you have to mouse-over it to type (plus the main input widget has better editing than normal textboxen)

 

Now, certainly, for the less verbose commands, typing straight in will be faster.

There's no way around that; even if your menu has them all on one page; or you click for category and then all in that category on one page, the time to look through the list for what you want will take longer than typing... Assuming you know the command to type.

If you don't, then the menu will be faster, because the other alternative is to look it up in ctrl+h (heh, like everyone can read) or ask on a channel/help_me

[csiga]

Have somebody ever see the quickmenu in Alias Wavefront Maya? Its awesome. While pressing the spacebar, the menu shows half transparent around the mouse pointer and you will choose what command want to run. I think a similar solution it would be nice, because not requires space from the ui, and usable everywhere and didn't depend on real usable screen resolutions. Later i will post a little picture example, what i think.

 

P.S: of course it can be other quick key than spacebar, maybe configurable in the options, or by pressing both mouse buttons etc.

Edited August 17, 2007 by csiga

[Entropy]

Thenhowarewegoingtochatifthespeacekeyopensupthemenu?

[scarr]

why dont just evryone play in full screen? much easier:)

 

Because, sometimes, you want to do other things as well, such as IM, browsing, and so on.

 

 

 

u can stil minimize full screen, i dont know why people play small screen, its like they are in a rush or something :/

its the same like siting in class wearing a coat

[csiga]

Thenhowarewegoingtochatifthespeacekeyopensupthemenu?

 

That's why I hinted other key (maybe ctrl or both mouse keys)

I will try to make a more detailed example.

Edited August 17, 2007 by csiga

[Khalai]

u can stil minimize full screen, i dont know why people play small screen, its like they are in a rush or something :/

its the same like siting in class wearing a coat

 

Ever heard about notebooks with 15" or smaller TFT? My maximal resolution is 1024x768, not much bigger when playing fullscreen really. And it's not an old heep, it's Thinkpad R60.

[nicky]

A key to create a semi-transparent popup menu that hovers around the mouse X-Y at the time the key is pressed is a great idea.

 

I also wonder if the menu could be created based on an XML file that dictates the hierarchy and grouping of the commands so that new commands can be added easily, such as other commands that are not currently part of the conversation that players may like to add.

[Entropy]

That's why I hinted other key (maybe ctrl or both mouse keys)

I will try to make a more detailed example.

 

Most of the keys are already used. And I would really like to have some icon for it.

[Rehdon]

Hi Ent,

my graphic skills are poor so I'll try to explain by words.

 

I would like to have a client menu that serves two purposes:

1. Make it faster/easier to issue various commands, and not have to remember them all.

 

As the commands are many, and bound to increase in number I think, the most effective way to get this would be by means of a popup menu as per Nintenduh's suggestion (see his mockup). How to recall the menu? 1. icon in the toolbar 2. shortcut key. One more icon in the toolbar shouldn't take too much space.

 

2. Add some new functionality to the game. For example, it would be nice to have a Summoned Behaviour menu, where you tell your summoned creatures how to act (if you want them to attack or not, for example).

 

I'd do that in a different way: add an icon for summoning in the toolbar that makes another row of icons pop up just above it, after you' ve chosen the desired one the second row of icons disappears. Simple and again it only needs one more icon in the toolbar. In case you want/need to save space you could collect the first seven icons under an "action" icon recalling them in the second row of icons (I'm under the impression that they're not used as much as the other ones because of context menus).

 

Hope it helps.

 

Rehdon

[Rehdon]

As the commands are many, and bound to increase in number I think, the most effective way to get this would be by means of a popup menu as per Nintenduh's suggestion (see his mockup).

 

As a side note, IMHO a text-only menu is not the best choice for the quickspell bar, so you might leave it as is (but a chance to re-arrange spells would be most welcome!) or use the "second icon row" method for it as well.

 

Rehdon

[Usl]

Ok, here are my toughts... I apologize in advance for the long post.

 

1. Current GUI

The current GUI of the EL client includes three main areas:

• the main area (where the 3D view is)
  
• the vertical strip (with a window on the inventory, the spells quickbar and a few information items, e.g. stats, compass, clock)
  
• the horizontal strip (with most command icons, and some extra information items like mana and food level)
  

Overall, the GUI is simple, streamlined, and non-obtrusive, all of which are good qualities which we should strive to preserve. Given that the proposed menus would contain mostly commands, the most logical place for them would be the horizontal strip, and we will focus on that.

Currently, the icon strip there contains two different sets of icons: those which cause an immediate action, and those which are actually switches which let you configure what you see in the main area (contents and open windows):

It would be good if these two groups, with different functions, could be separated visually as well. A simple possibility would be to insert some separating space between the two groups, maybe with a "rugged" appearance to show it is not just part of the background. Or, they could be distinguished by their shape, e.g. square buttons for actions, round buttons for switches (I would love that one, but would require a little more work to Roja probably).

Finally, there is a minor issue with two buttons which control the contents of the main area (call that "screen mode"). First, they are different from the other ones in the set, in that all the others just open/close windows, so again they could be visually distinguished. Second, the operational state machine is a little more complicated than is needed, in that we use two buttons whereas the underlying model is simply a three-state switch (you can see either the 3D view, or the console, or the map). The minor problem with the current system is that it is modal: for example, if you want to go to the 3D view, you have to press F1 if you are in console mode, but TAB if you are in map mode, whereas ideally one would want to have a single way to go there.

Again, this is a pretty minor issue; if it is decided to work on that direction, we could use a single three-state icon to switch between the possibilities.

 

 

 

2. Menu activation

As said above, the most logical place to obtain menu activation (which would be a way to issue #commands, which are mostly actions) is through the main icons. An activation cue could be provided, e.g. by a small upward-pointing arrow, and the menu could be activated by clicking on the arrow, or by right-clicking on the icon, or maybe through a user-configurable keyboard shortcut. An example of how the graphics could appear is below:

The trigger icon could of course have a different shape, or be integrated in the main icon; I would still keep a distinctive colour, so that the user can easily tell which icons have an associated menu and which do not.

Once the menu is brought up, the trigger icon could appear depressed, or highlighted. Clicking either inside it (activating one of its commands) or outside of it (dismissing the menu) should make the menu disappear, and the trigger icon would return to its normal state.

 

 

3. Menu rendering

As for rendering the menu, we have to find a compromise between clarity (it sould be self-explanatory), compactness (it should be non-obtrusive), and generality (we want all kind of commands there). In my opinion, these requirements can be satisfied by providing two styles of rendering, user-selectable. Let us call them "n00b" mode and "pr0" mode, only among us.

 

In n00b mode, the menu is rendered as a list of icons and associated text, stacked vertically. The background is transparent or translucent, in keeping with the general look of the GUI, and also to avoid obstructing the view. There is a close button, as an additional way of dismissing the menu, and a scrollbar for long menus. Items are sorted by frequency of use, or possibly by major homogenous area (similar to the way commands are grouped in the help text). An example, with fake icons and text, is provided below:

Notice that althogh the image does not show it, such menu should appear immediately above its activation icon, and not be draggable.

 

In pr0 mode, the menu is rendered as a pack of icons; the text is provided through tooltips, in the same way as we currently have for "main" icons. If the menu is activated through a keyboard shortcut, it could appear immediately under the cursor, so that commands can be issued very rapidly (i.e., during fight).

 

Another possibility would be to have these icons laid out as an additional horizontal strip, above the main one, but in my opinion that would be inferior in terms of visual polish and clutter too much that area of the screen, by providing insufficient distinction between main icons and menu.

 

 

4. Commands structure

Commands could be assigned to menus based on their relation to main icons. For example, commands related to people (guild, buddy, #ignore, ...) could go in the menu associated to the current "buddies" icon. Commands related to moderators (#help_me, #abuse, ...) could go to the menu on the "help" icon. Commands related to your attitude (attack on sight, avoid monsters, ...) could go under the "attack" icon. The example about summoning, to establish the attitude of summoned creatures, could go under the "magic" icon (after all, there is some black wizardry involved in bringing dead stuff back to life), and so on.

 

The suggestion of having an XML file to describe this structure is excellent, although it will involve adding a layer of indirection (e.g., the XML file will relate menu entries, icons, texts and placement to symbolic command name, e.g. "ATTITUDE_OFFENSIVE", and then these names shold be translated to actual commands, with the proper syntax). However, having them in an external file would make it easy to update the command structure through the automatic updates system, without needing a new client. This would be particularly useful when new # commands are implemented through a server update.

 

 

If you have read so far, you are a patient guy and have all my admiration ; I hope some of these suggestions make sense...

Edited August 18, 2007 by Usl