Re: [Bug-gnubg] GNUbg resign offer (was: Bugs in the Windows version of GNU)

[Billie Patterson]

I'm really not familiar enough with gnubg yet to respond to
this intelligently, but I won't let that keep me from
offering some ideas :-).

Are there places/occasions in gnubg where he waits on user
response (other than just waiting on the user to signal
that he's through moving his checkers)?

If so, you might consider hiding a response window in the
screen to the left of the board.  Don't instantiate it
until it's needed, but then hide/show it as appropriate.

If the user needs to respond to something, then display an
appropriate icon on the response window (I think a white
flag IS pretty well universal for surrender), and require
the user to click on some button on the window to get out
of it.  The icons/messages could be tailored to the
occasions on which the window is used.  And you'd have
plenty of room to display the number of points resigned and
any other info you might want to communicate.

If accepting a resignation is the only instance in which
gnubg waits on the user, that may be overkill.  In that
case, a simple button might be better, but it needs to be
more visible than the message at the bottom of the page.

Regarding buttons in general.  I don't know what kind of
style conventions you're using, but use of two buttons for
a response to one communique from gnubg (e.g., "thumbs up"
or "thumbs down" in response to his resignation offer)
isn't a widely used Windows convention.  Generally, a
toolbar button initiates an action on behalf of the user,
and isn't used to respond to a program.  Usually, a
response window is used for that, locking the user into
answering the query before he can go on.

Just my $.02, of course.  But thanks for including me in
the distribution.

Billie
 
--- Joern Thyssen <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 07:09:43PM +0100, Holger wrote
> > On Sat, 25 Jan 2003 17:04:16 -0800, "Ned Cross"
> <address@hidden>
> > wrote:
> > >I bet if you look at the bottom part of the board
> window (which in your
> > >screen-shot is off the bottom of your desktop) you
> will see a message saying
> > >that GNU offers to resign. All you need to do is click
> on the "thumbs-up"
> > >Icon, accepting GNU's resignation and he game will end
> normally.
> > 
> > By now I've had enough resign offers from GNUbg :-) to
> know why the
> > programme isn't responding then. But the first times it
> took a while
> > to figure it out. The message in the status bar isn't
> really obtrusive
> > enough. For simple information purposes the status bar
> is fine. But
> > such an important user interaction should be more
> obvious. A
> > presentation like when GNUbg doubles (and
> (double-)clicking on it to
> > accept) would be intuitive.
> 
> I've been looking at it, and I have some very simple code
> that just
> shows the cube upon resignations. When clicked you accept
> the resignation.
> 
> However, I would like to improve it.  Any ideas? I
> personally think
> showing the cube can be confusing, so I would rather show
> something
> different, e.g., a white flag (is that a universal
> symbol?) :-)
> 
> Preferably something where it's possible to show the
> number of points
> resigned as well: my idea is a white flag with the number
> of points
> written next to it, but other suggestions are welcome!
> 
> Jørn


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