[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [PATCH] message window -- related to (PR#902)

[Francois Taiani <francois.taiani@xxxxxxxx>]

Raimar Falke wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Aug 25, 2001 at 07:06:33PM -0700, Trent Piepho wrote:
> >
> > It seems like your patch won't help at all if you are playing against 
> > humans. [...] I think a real fix would be to not have the message 
> > window pop to the front every time a new message arrives.  [...]
> > You could stick a small button on the main window, "Event", or something 
> > short like that, that would bring the message window the foreground.  When 
> > a new event arrives, the button gets highlighted to tell you about it.
> > [...]
> 
> So what do you think about this Francois?
> 
>         Raimar

I think the event button suggestion is definitely a good one. The human
player case is true too, but compared to AI, they don't move as fast. So
if you succeed in clicking in the main window after the message has just
pop up, you can handle the crisis (with some delay, I agree). With AI,
it seems the client is soo busy digesting the whole packet spam, you
don't even get a chance to close those damned windows (at least on my
small slow obsolte computer ;-).

Even with a event button, I think "event" windows should pop up at the
place they were last closed by the user. This way the user can chose
where he wants to have its different windows. (In front of everything if
he is masochist, at well chosen places if he is smart). But that can be
handled seperately from the pop-up time.

I'll try to propose a first patch which conserves the positions (and
possibly sizes) of event windows which were chosen by the user. This
patch would be without the extra packet (which, I agree, is not be
needed with the more elegant event button solution). This should also
allow the user so make some windows smaller (the message window can't be
made shorter than the default height, which is quite annoying).

I have to get to know the Freeciv code better to propose an event button
patch, but I'll start working on that. That would definitely improve the
gui. Any hint are wellcomed :)

Francois