[Freeciv] A GUI style for Freeciv

[Raimar Falke <i-freeciv-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello

A lot of games and also some applications have a certain GUI
style. Such a style consists of the colors, fonts and textures used
and even just the layout of controls (for example winamp/xmms). Such
GUI styles are the basics of recognition of the game as a
brand. Freeciv has no such style yet. We have the tileset which
provide a great recognition value (just look at
http://www.opiswelt.de/freerails/freerails0_0_7_qt.png). I want that
Freeciv has also its own GUI style.

In addition to the recognition a style must also have other
properties. Important ones are homogeneous (the style must be
consistent) and clarity (you have to easily grab on what you can click
and what is just decoration).

So I would like to ask you two questions:

1) What are the games that you would recognize if you are only shown a
small part (50x50) of a screen shot? Because of what property of the
screen shot?

For me Battle Isle 3 is for example such a game. If you see the
buttons, the font or the background you can say that this is BI3.

2) What do you think the Freeciv style should look like? Why?

I will try to show the choices in more detail for the border and
background images of windows/boxes.

Border:
 - archaic, baroque: http://arkhart.nekeme.net/Tmp/screens/2003/shot6.jpg
 - futuristic (only a few colors, no 3D effect):
 http://www.thereisnospork.com/projects/homeworld/images/test03.png
 http://www.ospace.net/screenshots/scrn00.png
 http://www.andromeda9.com/scr_shots/shot04.html
 http://www.shrapnelgames.com/malfador/images/drones.jpg
 http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Attachment/41235/28985/freeciv_image.png
 - neutral (some 3D effects with a structured border):
 http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/screenshots/creategod.jpg
 http://www.civ3.com/images/screenshots/ranking_screen.jpg
 - simple (some 3D effects with one color of different shades):
 http://regcom.sourceforge.net/images/sc0004.png

Background:
 - single color
 - repeating (neutral) background (marble, wood, ...)
 - structured background: to some lesser extend
 
http://www.bluebyte.net/battleisle-e/products/history/screens/shots/bi3/bi3_003.jpg

Most of this can be accomplished by GTK skins. AFAIK nobody so far
however created such a style. There is a new client underway which is
similar to the SDL client in the way that it doesn't use a widget
set. For this new client a GUI style is a must.

        Raimar

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 "On the eigth day, God started debugging"