[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Slashdot gripes

[Josh Cogliati <jjc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Sep 11, 2001 at 10:49:14AM +0200, Reinier Post wrote:
> Can you  - as opposed to the Slashdot posters -  be more specific?
> I can list a few usability problems of my own, but they are minor.
> Some quirks that can be blamed more on the documentation than
> on the interface itself.  E.g. the fact that the message window
> keeps popping up in front if you close it, but won't if you
> iconize or hide it.
My personal complaints:
1.  The method to set taxes, luxurys, and science is a pain.
Why can't someone write a slider that looks something like this:
---taxes--^---luxuries--^--------------science---------
where you move the sliders to change the relative amount.

2.  It is very unobvious as to how get scientists and tax collectors in
the city dialog.  I only figured this out because CivCTP has a tutorial that
shows this.  Clicking on images is not obvious.  Same for how to change
what tiles you are working.

3.  On that subject, there is no tutorial mode.  

4.  What the heck are shields and how do you get them?  From looking at the
source my conclusion in that it is production.  Why can't everything say
either production or shields.  Choose one and change all references to the 
other.

5.  Building can have directly contradictory effects to what they say they
do.  For example, building a marketplace in a small city can often lower 
gold production since it takes one gold to keep up the marketplace.  What 
would be nice would be some kind of "tell me what building a marketplace
would do to *this city*" dialog.

6.  Why are there no tooltips in the city dialog?  Or lacking that a 
graphic with an explanation of every thing in the city dialog.

7.  How do food, production, and trade turn into growth, gold, luxury and 
science?  I figured this out through picking a city and clicking on 
various tiles until I finally got it.  However this was after I had 
given up on freeciv several times before.

8.  No way to set a default worklist (if there is it is very unobvious).

9.  No way to append something to every city's worklist at once.

10. No way to get graphs of the progress of everything.  I think it
would be very useful to have the option to see how I am doing in
comparison to everyone else. The civserver graphs should be a feature
of freeciv.  There could be some kind of server option to allow all
graphs, or only graphs of players that you have embassies with.

I have been playing freeciv on and off for about three years so some of these
are my recollections of what I had trouble with at first.  I hope these 
suggestions are useful.

-- 
Josh Cogliati
jjc@xxxxxxxxx
This message created in Linux, the choice of a GNU generation.