[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#7127) [FS] Screen design

["Morgan Jones" <morgan.jones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7127 >

> You know that you now only define a layout but also a style/look?
> This is very good. While it looks a bit out-dated it is consistent
> and with a high recognition value.

Yeah I suppose I am.  A fair amount is based on how I've set up my MUI
client to look since I'm cutting and pasting a lot from that to save
drawing everything from scratch.
 
> While I'm sure that it was coincidence I want to point out another
> think I like: the use of different colors. Main.png looks very blue
> and CityPopup.png looks green. While there are no controls in
> Main.png which are actually blue I think blue should be choosen
> here. So every tab gets a color.

I'll have a look at ways I can promote this then.  While most
everything so far is in shades of grey there's nothing stopping this
from changing.  Grey was just a useful colour to work with.

I was imagining that the background areas would be replaced by some
sort of tiled texture.

Maybe I'll try a few out and see how it turns out. 
 
> I think we should add the quick-revolution which the GTK client
> has. You choose the target government say "switch me to this
> government". Since this requires space for the list of governments I
> would move the list of buildings to another tab.

That's a good idea.  Gets rid of the need for popups, and also the
Revolution button - I'm not that happy about how that looks.
 
> What is the '999' supposed to be in "Tax: 999"?

Oh I was thinking that the total wealth/gold that your entire civ
produced each turn could be displayed here.  So you get a direct
indication of how setting your tax rate affects your income.  Same for
Science and Luxury.  Perhaps 'Tax' is a bad choice of term, is
'Income' better?
 
> I really want to change production of a city without popup (old gtk
> client and your screenshot) or scrolling (new gtk client). What is
> acceptable is doing clicks. So after I click "Change" the screen is
> more or less replaces with a worklist editor screen. Everything
> which the city can produce is visible without scrolling. It looks
> like the current GTK worklist.

In that case it's probably best to lose the 'Change' button altogether
so if the player wants to change production they just switch to the
'Worklist' page of the City Popup screen and do it there.

In which case the city report's 'Change' button should be renamed
'Worklist' too. 
 
> I think the trade routes and the city improvements need less
> space. Cut the city icons for the trade routes and limit the city
> improvements list to 4-5 items.

What do you think needs this space instead?  The supported/present
units?

I must admit I'm a bit loath to lose the city graphics for the trade
routes.  This is a feature I've always wanted in the game as I think
that if you have a trade route with a city you would know what that
city looked like and what size it was.  A useful bit of intelligence.

I thought that this, as well as moving them to the main page, would
encourage newcomers to the game to use trade routes more often.

But I'll try out some options.  Maybe they'll need to move back to
their own page.   

> The city list on the left side is very nice. Add some sorting icons
> (by name, by founding year, by size (but no more)) on top or
> bottom. Don't add the info of the founding year or size to the list.

Not sure there'll enough room for both founding year and size (at
least in 640x480) but size is a good idea and I'll definately put that
in.  Also the list would normally be alphabetized which I didn't show.

Why not add size to the list itself?

     -Morgan