Improving ToEE's User Interface

Discussion in 'Community Projects' started by Gaear, Oct 27, 2011.

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  1. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Behold, the new dialog interface in all its glory. :)

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Alchemist

    Alchemist Member

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    Finally. :clap:
     
  3. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Moving right along (and hopefully wrapping up soon), a few more missing interfaces in tech display format ...

    DIALOG | The long-awaited dialog interface shown above.

    DIALOG.jpg

    DIALOG HISTORY | What you see when you click that little head to review your conversation with Elmo. This has two modes, interestingly: one is stand alone, if you are not currently in dialog, and the other takes over the normal dialog interface if you are. Weird.

    DIALOGHISTORY.jpg

    OPTIONS | The options menu where you set technical preferences and what not.

    OPTIONS.jpg

    This pretty much leaves just the three most dreaded UIs left to do - character creation (with all its goofy submenus), which will be similar to but not exactly like the character inventory UI, because Troika decided not to do them the same way, the party alignment UI, which will involve some PITA transparency to get the text to fit in the buttons, and the hated party pool UI, which I'm afraid will never look quite right. We'll see.

    [edit]

    Forgot one -

    TEXT DIALOG | "Text dialog ..." I don't know what this is or where it appears, if at all. [ed. - actually it is the UI you use to name your Ironman game, possibly among other things.]

    TEXTDIALOG.jpg
     
  4. Salk

    Salk Established Member

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    Wonderful!

    Good luck with the character creation UI!
     
  5. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Okay, rounding things out here, hopefully ...

    ALIGNMENT | The first screen you see when you click new game. This was tricky because the larger font didn't fit in the buttons for CN and LN, so we had to widen the boxes, but the buttons themselves are different from the boxes and we can't alter their sizes, so we had to use transparency to fade the edges out. You can't see it here but the effect will be clear in-game. (That's why the boxes are now blue btw - the match the 'normal' button condition/color.)

    ALIGNMENT.jpg

    PC CREATION | I hate the blue boxes on the bottom left but there's little we can do with them, as (unlike the regular character sheet) we can't control the position of the text. So the boxes have to stay relative to the text as it appears. (Bad Troika. :angry:) Anyway, I tried to make that area a little less hackneyed looking by aligning the edges of all the boxes and whatnot. Not sure yet about the color either - that is standard ToEE box blue but it's kind of meh. Might be best just to let this one be though. At least you never see it again after you create your character.

    [ed.] switched to grey.

    CREATION.jpg

    PARTY POOL | See below for issues.

    POOL.jpg

    MORE META_MAGIC | Perhaps appropriate to bring this thing to an end, here is a UI that I don't think I've ever seen before. It apparently has something to do with metamagic, based on its name. I was going to skip it, but if I did, suddenly it would pop up and people would scream that we suck.

    META.jpg

    ~

    This is the end, aside from minor tweaking of other graphics. :)

    Lingering issues to follow below. :(
     
  6. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Lingering Issues, part 1

    Okay, here's the postmortem rundown on the UI overhaul, big picture style, interface by interface.

    ALERT | Seems fine. The box scrolls, so no space issues.

    01_alert_alert_background.jpg

    LOOTING | Works fine. May need to be repositioned relative to the main window.

    02_char_ui_char_looting_ui_looting_background.jpg

    METAMAGIC | Works fine after expanding the lower box vertically. I could do without the enhancement name boxes but I don't know how to get rid of those.

    03_char_ui_char_spells_ui_Metamagic_Background.jpg

    DIALOG MINI | Works great thanks to random1.

    04_dialog_dialog_backdrop_mini.jpg

    DIALOG | Works just fine.

    05_dialog_dialog_backdrop.jpg
     
  7. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Lingering Issues, part 2

    FORMATION | Fine, though the permanently empty box on the bottom is dumb.

    06_formation_background.jpg

    GENERIC DIALOG | Little messages seem to work fine in little box.

    07_generic_generic_dialogue.jpg

    GENERIC TEXT DIALOG | I still don't know where this is used, if anywhere.

    08_generic_generic_text_dialog.jpg

    GENERIC DIALOG NO CHECKBOX | Works great thanks to AjiTae. There's another instance where it's called and controlled by a different .mes file, which I need to find and adjust.

    09_generic_genericdialogoe_nocheckbox.jpg

    HELP MENU | Seems to work fine throughout.

    10_help_ui_helpmenu_background.jpg
     
  8. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Lingering Issues, part 3

    CRAFT ARMS | Seems to work fine, surprisingly. The item name can conceivably get too long for the box on the left, but players can customize it anyway.

    11_item_creation_ui_craftarms.jpg

    ITEM CREATION | Problematic. The left column is too narrow, and while it will carriage return the line, the next line is just printed over it. Not enough room to consistently display item descriptions without spillover. Sadly there is no .mes control file to be found for plotting element positions. The whole interface could stand to be half again as wide.

    12_item_creation_ui_item_creation.jpg

    LOAD GAME | Works just fine.

    13_loadgame_background.jpg

    OPTIONS | Works fine in all three tabs.

    14_options_ui_options_background.jpg

    PARTY POOL | Looks good except the character boxes can only accommodate three lines, not four. Would be ideal if each character could be reduced to three lines, with the middle being 'Sex-Race-Class.' No control files to be found that would affect this.

    15_party_pool_background.jpg
     
  9. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Lingering Issues, part 4

    PARTY ALIGNMENT | Works after some tinkering. Had to expand the boxes horizontally so the alignment text could all fit in them, then make the edges of the buttons transparent since we can't seem to resize them. Now they sort of appear to fade out instead of ending abruptly.

    16_pc_creation_party_alignment.jpg

    META BACKDROP | I still don't know where this is used, if anywhere.

    17_pc_creation_meta_backdrop.jpg

    RANDOM ENCOUNTER | Works fine. (Frigging stirges.)

    18_random_encounter_ui_random_encounter_main_window.jpg

    ROLL HISTORY | Could possibly stand to be wider but works well enough.

    19_scrollbox_rollhistory_background.jpg

    SKILL MASTERY | I still don't know where this is used, if anywhere.

    20_skill_mastery_ui_skill_mastery_main_window.jpg
     
  10. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Lingering Issues, part 5

    TEXT DIALOG | Pretty simple.

    21textdialog_ui_background.jpg

    TOWNMAP | Works fine except for one niggly little thing: hovering over a map name produces a black field behind the text. Can't figure out how to undo that. Clashes with the stone texture. We could just make that box black but that would look less cool.

    22_townmap_ui_map_interface.jpg

    TRACK | Works fine except for the misplacement of the target portrait. This predates the UI overhaul though - I think it came with high def/widescreen modes.

    23_track_ui_track_ui_main_window.jpg

    CAMP | Works fine.

    24_utility_bar_ui_camp_bg.jpg

    WORLDMAP | Works fine.

    25_worldmap_ui_worldmap-main.jpg

    Up next: the character, levelup, and logbook series of interfaces.
     
  11. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Lingering Issues, part 6

    And now, the extensive character creation UI.

    STATS | Looks okay. I still hate the universal stats box, but there's very little that's customizable in this UI via .mes files. The only thing we can touch is the info box, AFAIK.

    26_pc_creation_background_stats.jpg

    RACE | Looks good.

    27_pc_creation_background_race.jpg

    GENDER | Fine.

    28_pc_creation_background_gender.jpg

    HEIGHT | Fine.

    29_pc_creation_background_height.jpg

    HAIR | Fine, although Troika seemed a little challenged with centering things at times.

    30_pc_creation_background_hair.jpg
     
  12. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Lingering Issues, part 7

    Character creation continued.

    CLASS | Good.

    31_pc_creation_background_class.jpg

    ALIGNMENT | Not good, because LN and CN are too large for their boxes. Sadly we can't change the width of these boxes, because the boxes are used throughout this UI and there is at least one instance where they are pressed together( Class, above), so widening would cause overlap..

    32_pc_creation_background_alignment.jpg

    DEITY | Looks okay after some transparency trickery.

    33_pc_creation_background_deity.jpg

    FEATURES | Okay.

    34_pc_creation_background_features.jpg

    FEATS | Okay.

    35_pc_creation_background_feats.jpg
     
  13. Gaear

    Gaear Bastard Maestro Administrator

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    Lingering Issues, part 8

    Character creation continued.

    SKILLS | Okay.

    36_pc_creation_background_skills.jpg

    SPELLS | Okay. I'd rather the drop-in box lines weren't there at all, but I can't get rid of them.

    37_pc_creation_background_spells.jpg

    PORTRAIT | Fine.

    38_pc_creation_background_portrait.jpg

    VOICE/NAME | Fine.

    39_pc_creation_background_voicename.jpg

    That's all for character creation. Begin the levelup interface ...

    CLASS | Looks fine.

    40_char_ui_levelup_background_class.jpg
     
  14. sirchet

    sirchet Force for Goodness Moderator Supporter

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    I think the over all improvement out weighs the minor intrusion of the lines on the lower part of the word.

    Nice work.
     
  15. AjiTae

    AjiTae God

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