[tetrinext] Re: TINT UI and Theme Standard draft -- part 1:interface

[Brian Russo <brusso@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 24, 2000 at 12:35:04AM -0800, Alexander Hvostov wrote:
> Ladies and Gents,
> 
> A few suggestions:
> 
> - Keybindings. A la Quake, would allow someone to customize which key
> moves the tetris block how, and the like.
good idea.
> 
> - Auto-hide menus and taskbar, which show up only when the mouse pointer
> (if there is one) moves over them.
that's just going to slow down things more on lower end systems, again if you 
do this, make it optional.
> 
> - Menu accelerator keys, so you can press, say, Alt-F (a la Windows) to
> access the "File" menu. (though such a menu rarely exists in a game...)
i guess.. but who uses menus that often.. might be nice for people who don't 
have mice.. (such people run X windows?)
> 
> - Auto-hide console, which, during the game, ordinarily is hidden, but
> pops up whenever someone says something. (shamelessly stolen from Unreal
> Tournament, slightly modified. nah nah!)
i dont really see why it needs to auto-hide.. the one in UT doesn't actually 
auto-hide anyway..it's always there really.. it's semi-transparent.. although 
you can change the behaviour IIRC. 
> - Audio taunt and pictures of players to be transmitted across the
> network. See Unreal Tournament for examples. (yes, there's a demo...)
um please not, i hate auto taunts there's an article on quakeworld or 
something.. somewhere.. why auto-taunts destory multiplayer gaming.. if you're 
going to do this, at least provide the courtesy of allowing players to disable 
auto-taunts while allowing other messages to come through..it's really just a 
lot of spam.., start adding audio and pictures.. this is just the kind of crap 
we don't need choking the protocol and the package itself..
> 
> - Moving the console/panes/menu/taskbar around by sliding them across the
> screen, a pixel or two at a time. Makes for a smooth, animated movement,
> which looks really cool! Jared says this isn't hard in SDL...
> 
> - Sounds, of course. Should almost certainly be themable. I'd bring up
> esd, but it seems that's what SDL uses anyway, which is most definitely a
> good thing...
using esd.. bad idea.. being as SDL is a multimedia library.. i'm sure it has 
its own sound call's, if you start adding unix-specific stuff like esd.. why 
even bother using sdl. i thought the whole point of this was portability? :P
> 
> - Background music. Yes! Okay, this probably is impossible unless someone
> knows someone who likes making music for a free game, but...
fine, as long as it's non-crappy. but most normal people err (like myself) 
listen to mp3's or something anyway.. if you want some dinky little midi going 
*shrug*

> 
> - The taskbar should not be called the taskbar, to avoid confusion with
> the one that switches between programs. Calling it the 'toolbar' seems
> less confusing.
> 
> - And remember, this has to be lightweight enough to run on MS-DOS on a
> 286 with 2 MB of RAM and a CGA!...uh...nevermind.
heh
my first 286 had EGA! nah nah nah...
> 
> - 3D accelerated (probably via OpenGL) tetris blocks. Only do this if
> you're insane. ;)
> 
> I'd say that's it for now.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Alex.
> 
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