UI Feedback

Discussion and contribution to game graphics and user interface.
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Creator »

Not much to change as of yet then. I will wait for ven to post what he thinks of the buttons before doing another draft.

Were the metals buttons in draft 13 no good?
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Trilarion
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Trilarion »

I like the metal buttons in Draft8 more than in Draft13, because in 13 they look a bit too bright and fuzzy.

Also another thought: for internationalization reason, we have to draw the text on the buttons programmatically and in some cases the text might be much longer in other languages, so the width of each button is not known before drawing, unless we make them always a bit larger and in case some localized text is too large, make this text smaller.

An alternative would be, to never use buttons with text, but rather symbols/icons. Many other games use only symbols and text only as tooltip and even the original Imperialism had it in the unit actions. So this seems to be a far-reaching decision. Do we want buttons with text or icons? If not, we don't need to think about the design of the buttons. What do you think?
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Creator »

Yes I like the idea of symbols better then buttons. Appears to make more sense for language conversions too. It would make my job easier with symbols :mrgreen:
Veneteaou
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Veneteaou »

In terms of buttons, I like the 4th row buttons. Especially column 1. And I still don't really like the metal buttons, they clash with the soft brown and gold colors in the rest of the screen.
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Creator »

hmmm. If we are gonna use symbols then we will need to decide what are the symbols for

"start" and "back"

at least for this scenairo UI. We should choose symbols that are univeral for such buttons
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Post by Trilarion »

The standard size for icons would be 32x32 or maybe 32x24 if they should be more rectangular, which is think is better. Maybe one would need to experiment with an optimal size too. The small command actions icons are more like 16x16 or 20x20.

Just a preliminary list of what we would currently need:

small
- close dialog

normal/rectangular?
- start scenario
- connect to server
- disconnect from server
- start local server
- new scenario
- load scenario
- save scenario

....and more but these at least.

So if you want you could make templates for the different sizes (maybe a golden border effect like the second column in Draft12/13) and semi-tranparent interior? Not sure what is good here. And then you could try to create some of the icons listed above.
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Creator »

I will do up a template as you said with the same wood background used in the UI. so we know what it will basically look like.
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Trilarion
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Trilarion »

Veneteaou wrote:In terms of buttons, I like the 4th row buttons. Especially column 1. And I still don't really like the metal buttons, they clash with the soft brown and gold colors in the rest of the screen.
I am undecided. I liked the metal on wood idea, but somehow the metal is not that good in practice. 4th row I also like but with icons there is not much need for an interior of the button - it would be rather uniform or even transparent and the main thing would be the symbol. What do you think is better: buttons with text or symbols/icons? I also attached a piece of the original, where they also used lot of symbols.
Clipboard01.jpg
Clipboard01.jpg (55.75 KiB) Viewed 10519 times
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Creator »

well here is an idea for the buttons based off the orginal imperialism

Image
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Trilarion
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Re: UI Feedback

Post by Trilarion »

Wow activity is high today. :cool: Could you also prepare them with golden edge maybe?
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