[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [patch] Message windows (report, science ...)

[Karl-Ingo Friese <kif@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Vasco Alexandre Da Silva Costa wrote:

> About the current way of things: like people have said before you can
> simply minimize or hide the window if you don't like it.

Not in all events. Some popups can appear at a very wrong time,
for example diplomatic treaty or "herodes report about the most
happy nations". See my last email to that topic.

> In alternative why not make things like the "please choose
> the science to research next" request, and any other requests with
> popups a message in the message dialog and integrate the message dialog
> into the main window somehow? That would be a more generic solution IMHO.

IMHO this wouldnt necessary. If you are a researcher you still find the
time to open the report - maybe not at the begining of the turn but 30
seconds later. Yes, 30 seconds make a difference here. And if you are
in a combat situation, you probably wont look for the next 10 turns
because your attention is somewhere else.

> > It's definitely true that the user should have the choice to use this
> > solution, or to stick by the old gui. But before improving any further,
> > I wanted to have some feedback about the patch (which is BTW already
> > quite large, and that's a bad point. But well that's a only a
> > "proposal"). So far Karl-Ingo and Christian reacted quite positively,
> > but they were the only ones.

Well ... I wouldnt say a choice is necessary. The concept is just to
much better and helpful. However, this is my very personal opinion.
Maybe others will defend the "old system" ... lets wait a little how
discussion evolves.

> > Maybe there is simply no interest in such "click me buttons", and maybe
> > the problem of hide-everything splasching windows is not an issue for
> > most Freeciv users. If this is the case, I'm not really kind in

For all of the players I personaly know, it defenitely is an issue.
Freeciv can become a very hectic and stress game (which is good!).
But the popups at certain situations are nothing but a worse anoyance.
Just imagine: 10 seconds before turn end you see 6 ironclads appear
at close to your capital. You dont want the treaty dialog of your
team mate now. You do not want to be informed that your scientists
researched theology. You do not want to hear that the Irish are the
richest civilisation, no, you want to prepare your defenses. Move troops
from inland to coastline. Alert the diplomats for buybacks. Use your
own ironclads to block the attackers.

Well, just my few coppers,
Ingo


-- 

Karl-Ingo Friese
kif@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx