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Few interface suggestions


vorob

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So, guys on ttlg suggested to create a thread about some interface issues i have. First of all about you fm downloaded:

 

- Can you add description for fms and few screenshots? So could get acquainted with fm without visiting forum darkmod site?

- Can you add button "download all fms at once”? Cause its really boring to press on fm and then on "select for download" or you could make it possible to add fm to download list with simple double click or by pressing enter :)

- There is an issue when i download lot of fms, they doesn't fit into info screen:

http://dl.dropbox.co...20311/13435.png

 

On next issue i already received answer on ttlg, but still it worries me :)

- Why there is such gigantic gap between objectives?

http://dl.dropbox.co...11/45345345.png

Answer was The objectives are set up with 3 lines per objective even if they only use 1 or 2. The gui scripting would be much complicated if it closed the gaps; I'm not even sure if it can technically. The counter argument is that it is neater to have lists with equal spacing. AFAIK nobody has ever reported it as problem so far so this is why it is like that.

Well, that's interesting, but funny at the same time cause you guys made gigantic work on remaking doom 3 engine, and cant handle some text in menu? :) Maybe there is a way to make font smaller, cause sometime i think i'm on console where fonts are gigantic and you have to scroll even small amounts of text.

 

- Is there a way to make menu appear immediately, can’t say its good idea to have it become visible step by step, kinda boring, i always have to jerk my mouse so it become visible faster.

- And last thing, any way to adopt interface for widescreen monitors? For now is only stretches when i'm on 1920x1080, here, look:

16:9

http://dl.dropbox.co...11-36-40-59.png

4:3

http://dl.dropbox.co...11-37-19-21.png

 

P.S. Any possibility for having 2560x1440 resolution after 1920x1080 in 16:9 mode?) I've got dell u2711 and have to edit cfg file for this resolution...

 

Thank you for your time, and sorry for my weird english :)

Edited by vorob
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Well, that's interesting, but funny at the same time cause you guys made gigantic work on remaking doom 3 engine, and cant handle some text in menu? :)

 

You can't make variable sized text boxes in a gui without a lot of hassle. And I can't think of any reason why anyone would want to spend a lot of time and effort just to remove some extra spaces.

 

- Is there a way to make menu appear immediately, can’t say its good idea to have it become visible step by step, kinda boring, i always have to jerk my mouse so it become visible faster.

 

You've answered your own question. :)

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I agree about the delay before the menu appears. I didn't realize before what you meant. Yes, I never liked that but assumed it was necessary not a feature. Thinking about it now maybe it's just a long fade in time.

 

The objectives line spacing: One is limited by gui scripting which places each line of text in a pre-defined rectangle. The only way I can think of to do what you say is to have multiple overlapping rectangles each 3 lines high. But I do not know of any way to detect the text length so the script would not know which rectangle to use. Further complicated by new objectives inserting, etc. It's a nightmare. Plus nobody here is motivated to work on that because nobody else sees it as a problem. I can only suggest you study gui scripting and work out how to do it and set up a demo and then set up a poll in these forums to see if enough people will support your view. :)

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On next issue i already received answer on ttlg, but still it worries me :)

- Why there is such gigantic gap between objectives?

http://dl.dropbox.co...11/45345345.png

Answer was The objectives are set up with 3 lines per objective even if they only use 1 or 2. The gui scripting would be much complicated if it closed the gaps; I'm not even sure if it can technically. The counter argument is that it is neater to have lists with equal spacing. AFAIK nobody has ever reported it as problem so far so this is why it is like that.

 

I also find it doesn't look that good and the scrolling is awkward. However, I have no idea how to solve this issue.

 

As for the resolution, adding this one should be easy. But the stretching is deeply done inside the D3 engine - I guess it would be way too complicated to swap out every GUI with an unstretched version (and it means we need to have each GUI three times plus new images etc.)

 

Thank you for your time, and sorry for my weird english :)

 

Don't worry, my russian is worse :)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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I've only had one run-in with gui scripting (SATC briefing), but I wonder if, instead of separate blocks for each objective, can there be one large text block per objective screen, with the objectives pasted in one after another with one line separating each?

 

This would solve the spacing problem, and also allow for objectives longer than 3 lines.

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Thinking about it now maybe it's just a long fade in time.

 

Yup. It's just a fade in time thing. I don't know what the current settings are, but perhaps decreasing it by a third would be ok. Personally, I think it's a nice touch...and since you can mouse over the buttons anyway...it doesn't really bother me that they fade in. No need to be impatient. :)

 

- Can you add description for fms and few screenshots? So could get acquainted with fm without visiting forum darkmod site?

 

Conceptually, I am conflicted about this.

 

1. There are now two components within TDM to deal with missions.

a. FM Manager Menu

b. FM Downloader Menu

 

FM Manager Menu is similar to Darkloader or Garrettloader

It manages the installation and uninstallation of FM's and displays brief description / screenshot.

 

FM Downloader Menu is something we haven't had before.

Primary focus is to make the missions easily accessible and allow TDM players to be alerted to the arrival of new missions. Does a downloading utility, something we've never had the privilege of before, really need to be souped up and turned into a multimedia hub? Do we even have access in the SDK to allow us to do such a thing as have preview images that are linked from a folder on the server? We don't want to be downloading images to the computer just for a preview. Essentially, we're being asked to transform an ingame downloader menu into an ingame web page. Seems like a huge undertaking...if it's even possible at this stage.

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I'm in favor of adding SOMETHING to the mission downloader.

 

Right now I download a mission based solely on the title and the author names. If I don't recognize the author, I don't bother.

 

Or let the player sort missions by date released?

 

It'd be great if there were a rating system and a "most downloaded" / "popular" filter, or maybe a "for beginners" list or a "recommended" list?

 

I think some kind of content filter will eventually be necessary, if not right now, when you have a lot more missions in the database.

 

Imagine someone playing Dark Mod for the first time and they see a list of 100 FMs. Uhhh what do they do then? They're paralyzed by choice. (I'm already kinda paralyzed by choice as it is.)

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A tag system? But those tend to require a kind of search or akward guis (verb galaxy) that wouldn't look well at all.

 

I don't think a rating system, or anything that requires two way communication is a good idea. Then the mirrors would have to periodically synchronize metadata or something silly like that.

Edited by i30817
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Imagine someone playing Dark Mod for the first time and they see a list of 100 FMs. Uhhh what do they do then? They're paralyzed by choice. (I'm already kinda paralyzed by choice as it is.)

 

Of course, but we had to start somewhere...and since we only have around 30 missions at the moment the current implementation is more than adequate.

 

It's not really a known fact yet if any or all of these things can be done with the amount of Doom 3 SDK at our disposal. Greebo would have a much better idea than I would.

 

I imagine some of these requests will be looked into, but I think it's reasonable to say that we should draw a line somewhere. We have a limited number of coders, and while they can choose to spend their time coding whatever they wish...I would personally prefer if they weren't side tracked coding half a dozen FM Download Menu features. ;)

 

For now, we have a tidy...centralized...mission download menu. Does it do what it says on the box? Yup. That's more than we've had in the past...but keep the ideas coming and we'll see what realistically makes it into the menus over time. :)

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I don't think a rating system, or anything that requires two way communication is a good idea. Then the mirrors would have to periodically synchronize metadata or something silly like that.

 

Yes, and I think for the sake of ALL involved, keeping things simple is the best way to go. Garrettloader used to keep track of ratings...at least I thought it did...so for anyone that cares for that kind of thing, that might be the app for them. For anyone who just requires simple functionality...then the ingame menus are the way to go.

 

I don't know though, it's possible there could be a simple way to do those types of things...but until we know for sure, I wouldn't plan on seeing ratings or anything similar.

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Hmm, maybe just put in a link to FM-wiki and from that you can get to the FM-thread itself where a poll is stated. Of course the game would shut down while the page is accessed...

 

But for now I´m quite happy with the FM-management-improvements except one thing: I would like to store FM´s in 'played', 'stored to look at later' and 'new' to have more overview. Right now I still move folders inside the fms-folder to another one to get more overview.

 

OH, while I´m at it, a 'erase Savegames only'-feature for the Save/Load-screen would be nice too. :)

-> Crisis of Capitalism

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Essentially, we're being asked to transform an ingame downloader menu into an ingame web page. Seems like a huge undertaking...if it's even possible at this stage.

 

While I agree that this might be a bit overboard, the convern is valid that right now, you have no real information which mission to download. At least the description and the download size can easily be added (the XML file can just be extended with that info, if it doesn't already contain it), and that makes the decision to download easier.

 

I would really hate to shutdown TDM, visit thedarkmod.com, find the mission, read it, remember the title, then start TDM again, then click "download it". Just too much hassle, when you could just click the mission in TDM and then download it.

 

(No, downloading everything isn't really an option if you got a slow connection and/or a full HD and/or a bandwidth limit like Fidcal.)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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You could do just about anything. But the web is probably going to have to suffice. And probably should as it is set up for more flexibility where briefness or elaboration is likely.

 

If you were to implement this module every FM that wanted to be included would need (a) whole new layer(s) of systematized data attached at each depot... and as the FM catalog grows the underlying listing transfer would grow and...

 

TDM has much more pressing problems. Much more pressing than not being able to browse through a rich FM interface with properly spaced, multi-rez, interactive, feedback-driven, one-touch insta-matic FM management heaven.

 

Gameplay comes first. I would hope that would be the motto.

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If you were to implement this module every FM that wanted to be included would need (a) whole new layer(s) of systematized data attached at each depot... and as the FM catalog grows the underlying listing transfer would grow and...

 

Yes, precisely...that's one of my concerns, over complicating things. I think a mission description would be acceptable, if it's as simple as Tels described, but pulling screenshots off the web into an ingame downloader...it's opening the doors for way too much bloat.

 

Would a mission description be acceptable to everyone, if it's possible to do it in a clean way that doesn't over complicate the server side mission management process?

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A complex tag / search system / ordering text input system can be made easy to use and not too much trouble. If the number of missions ever reaches half the number of thief 2 missions, it is already hard to find series order, authors etc.

In my own software i had to use lucene to organize the search of Gutenberg books (i wanted more complex queries, but i don't mind a text interface like google has - ex: creator:"Leo Tolstoy").

 

As you wouldn't ever want the OR between the words, just AND, you could just dump it into a common database to search. There are lot's of gotchas (and you wouldn't be able to use lucene, more like sqllite).

If that is, you don't want to brute force it yourself, might be worthwhile for a maximum of 10000 missions expected over the next 20 years...

Edited by i30817
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bank, ship, pagans, builders, mansion, sewers, multimission/campaign, homage, mages, outdoors, undead, useonlyapredefinedlistoftags, makeauthorsormaintainersaddthetags, clickonatagtoseeallmatchingmissionsofthattype, althoughidontusethedownloadersoidontcarejustsayingitspossibleisall

 

Tags are successful in situations where there are a lot of entries and you can do a complex search by including tags for what you want or remember were in a mission and excluding what you don't want or weren't in a particular mission. But there are only about 30 missions so it shouldn't be a priority. I'm wondering now whether someone's T2FM database has tags, since there are 700+ missions. That's where tags become useful.

Edited by jaxa
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I'm not saying yes to visible tags. I'm saying yes to a search/filter field, that happen to also search over the body of hidden "tags" and visible information.

 

Examples where it can be useful : series (invisible i think), author (visible) and undead (invisible) and mansion (invisible) and others too.

 

You could just search the description, but there are things that maybe it's better not to be in the description right?

Edited by i30817
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I believe images are a natural step. I often find myself thinking, 'I would like to replay that T1/T2 mission from 2003/2005... how was it called again?'. Images help remember that. It doesn't have to be a gallery of them, but maybe a small thumbnail of an iconic scene like you see on the website. It doesn't matter much now, but in a few years, when we'll hopefully be able to select from over 150-200 FMs, it will be essential.

 

Of course, for the time, even a short description would suffice.

Edited by Melan

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I don't mind pictures in the downloader, but I can easily live without them. Short description of the fm would be more useful, I think.

 

A search function of some kind will be required in the future when we hopefully have many more missions.

 

I would love to see a ranking system:

When the player finishes a mission he is given an opportunity to rank the mission somehow.

Each mission would show the average ranking in the downloader.

This would make the best missions more easily available for the players and also would give the optimal image of TDM when newbies won't accidentally get a crappy mission to start with. Such system would be prone for abuse by idiots, unfortunately.

 

Also I am wondering how things will work with campaigns. My aim is to someday pack all Porter missions into a campaign, and the downloader is for individual missions. Will there be a campaign support for the downloader as well?

 

The Team has done brillant work so far, so I am confident they will make the correct decisions in the future as well.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I believe images are a natural step. I often find myself thinking, 'I would like to replay that T1/T2 mission from 2003/2005... how was it called again?'. Images help remember that. It doesn't have to be a gallery of them, but maybe a small thumbnail of an iconic scene like you see on the website. It doesn't matter much now, but in a few years, when we'll hopefully be able to select from over 150-200 FMs, it will be essential.

 

Of course, for the time, even a short description would suffice.

 

I´m with you Melan! Just a little Thumbnail with a memorable scene from the beginning of the mission. Well, we already have that option for the mission-info/install screen. Also, the readme/notes, could they be read out of the pk4´s BEFORE downloading the mission? That would be nice, the gui is already there...

-> Crisis of Capitalism

-> 9/11 Truth

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Yes, precisely...that's one of my concerns, over complicating things. I think a mission description would be acceptable, if it's as simple as Tels described, but pulling screenshots off the web into an ingame downloader...it's opening the doors for way too much bloat.

 

Would a mission description be acceptable to everyone, if it's possible to do it in a clean way that doesn't over complicate the server side mission management process?

 

Just a technical note: The FM list is an XML file, that is downloaded and parsed. The file already contains many fields per mission (where to donwload it, the name, author, release date etc.). I should be very easy to add more fields, like the description, keywords/tags etc.

 

The only "harder" problems are:

 

* entering the data into the FM database at thedarkmod.com - if we do this gradually, it is not much work, but imagine updating the keyword list for 100 FMs. OTOH, the data like author etc has to be already entered, so I don't think this will be a problem until we get 30 new missions per week or so :)

* displaying it in the GUI. This will obviously require a bit coding. We probably really want to stick to the simple cases - the GUI is pretty powerful, but some special things (like scrollable, resortable lists etc) can prove quite tricky and time demanding.

* the XML list is already 20 Kbyte, we will need to compress it in the near future to keep traffic down. Imagine what happens if we have 100 FMs and enter 2 sentences description and some keywords for each FM, too. That will make the file unwieldely big. Compression would be a cheap help, tho.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention, the XML file already contains the mission size in Mb. Displaying this in the GUI would therefore be easy(er than other things).

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 

"Remember: If the game lets you do it, it's not cheating." -- Xarax

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