[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#4543) scaling overview map

["Jason Short" <jdorje@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ChrisK@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 07:44:35PM -0700, Erik Johansson wrote:
> 
>>>(1) At 1x1, the overview is _very_ small. 
>>
>>In other games this is done by letting the user choose the
>>scale/clipping, so I press 'm' (in total war) to change the zoom of the
>>overviewmap. letting this change dynamically in game is a VERY good thing. 

> This is an interesting suggestion. I would do it different, though. Keep the
> minimap in the topleft corner but let it steal a rectangle from the top left
> corner of the main map. It is important that this rectangle is *not* part of
> the main map any longer, so that units cannot appear/blink here. Like this:
> 
> .----+---------------------.
> |          |               |
> |  mini    |               |
> |  map     |               |
> |          |   main map    |
> |-----+----'               |
> |     |                    |
> | left|                    |
> | bar |                    |
> |     |                    |
> |     |                    |
> |     |                    |
> |     |                    |
> |     |                    |
> '-----'--------------------'
> 
> With greater maps, you save a lot of screen estate, which makes everything
> more playable.
> 
> But I fear, neither GTK nor the window manager support such window forms? I
> dislike the overlapping mini map you suggested, because this *will* conflict
> with the handling of the main map, units and so on. Fx units getting active
> are not visible, because they are below that window.

Have you tried the SDL client?  It has something similar to this; the 
mini-map and other widgets are imposed over the top of the mapview and 
generally partially transparent.

An idea for the GTK client is that clicking and holding on the minimap 
brings up a larger minimap with twice the dimensions - similar to what 
happens if you click-and-hold on the left bar.

jason