[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [FS] Screen design

[Marek "Baczek" Baczyński <imbaczek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 04-01-08 you wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 03:26:21PM -0800, Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa 
> wrote:
>> I still think you need some sort of chat area, for player to player
>> messages at least. Copy Quake 3 Arena for this. It works in an
>> unobstrusive way.

> There is also the problem of input. Where does the player types his
> player-to-player messages and server-commands? Morgan reserved real
> space for this. How does Quake solve this?

You have a console which you drop down with a keypress. It is
essentially the same thing as Freeciv's chat dialog. You even type in
commands the same way. Screenshot of Quake I attached, hopefully RT
won't touch it (removed PR# from subject.)

Quake also has a messagemode similar to what is in Starcraft/Warcraft
after you press Enter.

Can't believe you've never seen Quake, BTW.

>> My proposal is: Quake 3 Arena like player to player messages on the top
>> left or right of the screen, superimposed over the map.

>> Messages dialog (i.e. improvement or unit built, etc) is replaced by
>> a column of icons ala Civ CTP, growing from the bottom to the top.

> This is not enough. You have to give a text ("City London may soon
> grow to size 3.") somewhere. There are just too many messages. Either
> icons are only for important stuff and you have a normal list
> somewhere. Or you make the text a tooltip of the icon.

Or a single icon (a letter for example), which would show a message
box when pressed. This would be much better than windows popping up in
unexpected circumstances, what is annoying and distractful (*hint*
GTK2 and others probably).

-- 
{ Marek Baczyński :: UIN 57114871 :: GG 161671 :: JID imbaczek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  }
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