Simple improvements to the character creation screen

[Roja]

Ok, to make it fit a little nicer....

 

The box around Appearance has a lot of border space that can be taken in(top/bottom)-although it would be good if ONLY the text in it(Head/Skin/etc) could be upped a size, it's just a tad small-this shouldn't affect the size of the box though-looks like there's plenty of room between the >>'s

 

Make the Show Password text a bit smaller and move it up a bit-making it closer to the Confirm PW box than the 2 buttons at the bottom.

 

The error text if necesssary can go in the 3D view at the bottom.

[Entropy]

So how functional is that? Is everything working well? It would be nice to test it and possibly include it in this client update. We also need to test it on the 1024x600 screens that many netbooks have (in windowed mode) and see if everything fits.

[Wind_of_Change]

I hope to find time to complete it this week.

Right now I'm trying to get it fit nicely on 640x480 and on higher resolutions by making some sizes variable. Other than that just some minor things.

The only thing I'm unsure how to solve is how to get the windows into the right order.

Since this is not a minor change, should I mark everything I change with a #define?

[Roja]

A define is good, just in case

[Wind_of_Change]

Posted the additions as a patch at Berlios. You need to define "NEW_NEW_CHAR_WINDOW" to use it.

Please test everything as much as possible and give me some feedback.

One issue I still have is that the help texts are shown behind the controls. Maybe someone knows how to fix that. Furthermore, the help texts on the bottom are to wide on low resolutions. Maybe one could split them into 2 lines in that case? Maybe add a button to collapse and expand the right bar?

Some pictures for illustration:

[bluap]

Posted the additions as a patch at Berlios. You need to define "NEW_NEW_CHAR_WINDOW" to use it...

I've given it a really quick test and it's looking good. The problem with the help text under the window is because you are calling the show_help() function within the mouse over callback. All the drawing for the window (such as help, images, lines etc) needs to be done in the display handler not the mouse over. Have you tried entering the main game window with this patch enabled? I ask because the client crashes for me, in draw_exp_display() hud.c. Finally, I wonder if using a black background for the control window might look better than the current brown?

[Wind_of_Change]

Thanks for the tip on the help texts!

I have tried entering the main window in earlier versions but now something seems to broken-.- I'll have a look on it.

The "control window" is the right one?

[Wind_of_Change]

Uploaded a new patch. It should fix the problems with the main window.

Now the help texts are displayed in front of everything else!

Edited December 15, 2010 by Wind_of_Change

[Roja]

Can the text be made on 2+ lines instead of having it go on top of the right menu bar? That'd probably look better.

[Wind_of_Change]

That would be possible.

BTW: It would look IMO better if we make the window transparent (not totally) instead, at least at not too low resolutions. Additionally, one could make the window shrink or expand when moving away or to the right border respectively. Then at low resolution the text would partially be hidden if the window is at full size but completely legible if the window is shrunk.

[Roja]

I'm not sure I follow you on all that...

I could see shrinking the text/button sizes at lower resolutions to fit more into that right menu. Something like, at 640 res font size is 10, at 800 it's 12,

[Wind_of_Change]

Two pictures for illustration:

The window does hide some text, but you can make it move to the right. For example by moving your mouse out of the window or clicking a button or something like that. Just a thought...

[Roja]

I think it's best to keep the menu always in view, because there's always somebody who doesn't "get it"

 

It'd be better if we can stack the text in multiple lines if needed

[Wind_of_Change]

Back to the text at the bottom: I tried to make it two lines. Right now it might look like (ignore the colors)

      |Click done again to create a character |
      |with that name and appearance.         |

Notice that the text in the second line is not centered.

What color (RGB) would you actually like for the background? Should it have some alpha? What about the "To zoom in/out..." text at the bottom?

[Roja]

Ok you know what..does it fit with the text on 1 line and all at 800x600? If so then I think we can just leave it, because I noticed there are other interface bugs in 640x480 so if it's messed up to begin with...probably not many people will use this mode anyway.

[Wind_of_Change]

It nearly fits on 800x600 or 800x480. Some characters are hidden, but it should still be understandable, e.g. "en ready, click "Done" to create your character and enter the gam" or "ck done again to create a character with that name and appearanc". However, the stings might be longer in other languages.

Still looking for a nice color for the background...

[Roja]

Ok how about just shorten it to: Click Done to create your character and enter the game

 

Just use black for the background.

[Wind_of_Change]

Then obviously everything fits. It is one of the advice messages bluap created and it's basically the only one which would make sense after the change to the new character creation screen.

For the other string (which is displayed when pressing the done button for the first time) there is however a Spanish translation which is even longer.

For all resolutions but 640x480 and 800x480 one might put the error strings back into a box as they were before.

[bluap]

This is looking really good. I did notice that the button highlighting for "player name", "password" etc is not present and that tab does not move you from one field to another. Those are nice features from the current interface. The text at the bottom on the screen could be split into multiple lines and displayed one above the other. The camera text on the bottom hud is more of a problem...

 

One option might be to again split the interface into two parts: Start with the character customisation controls. At the bottom, we could have the original person icon and some text explaining to continue to the login details part. The login details part would replace the character customisation controls but have the eye icon and some text to allow the user to go back. Split into to parts, the controls would not have to extend down below the bottom hud bar thus leaving room for all the camera control text. Just a few thoughts....

[Roja]

I was actually thinking of something similar to that bluap, although instead of using the unintuitive icons we just create buttons like first start with the character appearance, then you click the Done button and it takes you to the choose name/pw menu with another Done button and a Back button.

[Wind_of_Change]

That seems to be a very easy solution. I think that this can be done with very little modification to the old code.

But before I start just some questions for clarification: Should a title like "Choose your name and password" be displayed on the top? How many Buttons with what captions are actually needed? It would be easiest to have the error messages back in the box. Is that desirable? The window should be behind the icons bar so that the text in that bar is visible?

[Roja]

"Should a title like "Choose your name and password" be displayed on the top?"

 

Yes

 

 

"It would be easiest to have the error messages back in the box. Is that desirable? The window should be behind the icons bar so that the text in that bar is visible? "

 

Both of these are fine.

 

The buttons should just be as they were at the bottom, "Done" and "Back"

[Wind_of_Change]

Uploaded a new patch.

It was not that easy to use the original code so I started from the old patch. This is why the error strings are not displayed in a box but at the bottom.

Right now there is a "Done" button for the appearance window and a "Done" and a "Back" button for the account window. The first "Done" button moves you to the account window, with the second "Done" button you can create your character and the "Back" button moves you back to the login window. I think that there should also be a button to get from the account window back to the appearance window, but then there would be two "Back" buttons in that window. Maybe put an icon somewhere for the back to login screen button?

[Roja]

Well the Done/Back buttons would have different functions on the different menus...like first you're in the colors choosing screen, the Done button there takes you to the Name/PW menu, the Back button there takes you to the login, then when you're at the UN/PW part the Done button takes you into the game and the back button, back to the appearance selection.

 

Alternatively we can use different words to clarify, or make the buttons more like links to go on/back to the next part?

 

Like: Choose your Name/Password (have this highlighted in a different color and light up+underline with mouse over)?

and: Go back to Log in Screen

etc..

[Wind_of_Change]

Well the Done/Back buttons would have different functions on the different menus...like first you're in the colors choosing screen, the Done button there takes you to the Name/PW menu, the Back button there takes you to the login, then when you're at the UN/PW part the Done button takes you into the game and the back button, back to the appearance selection.

This seems more natural then it is right now. Maybe that's already intuitive enough.

 

Some other question: Should those buttons be displayed at the same position for appearance and UN/PW? Right now they aren't. If so, should they be placed at the bottom or a bit beneath the other controls?