Re: [Wesnoth-dev] Top panel

[John McNabb]

On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Richard Kettering wrote:
> The only thing that *needs* changing, IMO, was one of the things Darth 
> Fool suggested doing - moving the terrain/defense info below the 
> map/time of day images.
> 
> That is the only change I would make, but it is a change I would 
> strongly suggest.
> It seems to me that most users (including myself), fail to notice the 
> presence of this very helpful piece of information because it is 
> located in such distant proximity with the other information about the 
> unit.
> 
> It is "unit" information because it tells how the selected (or moused 
> over) unit performs on the given terrain.

I, obviously, agree with this.
 
I plan in the near future to dump a bunch of different themes into CVS for
people to stare at and decide what they like (not including the fix to fit
7 digits of xp info, which should go in regardless) .  This will include
the slight variation on default with just the map/TOD combo shifted up,
while the defense(status-postion) is moved down.  I think for the purposes
of changing the default mode, I wouldn't shift around the top-most status
windows, except maybe making Sanna's suggested change of moving the turn.  
In any case, before making any of these changes to default, I want to have
some variations for people to try.  I'd also like to really understand why
in the DFool theme, the TOD loses its tool-tip for the first turn.  I need
to back out the changes one by one and see where it happens.

There are a couple of theme related coding changes that I am investigating 
now as well.  In no particular order they are:

First is the ability to change themes within the game.  This is looking a
lot uglier than I first thought.  It is easy to add functionality to
change the preference (~ 5 lines of code)but the change doesn't propogate
into the current game unless you save/reload.  Fixing this is beginning to
look like a major code change, beyond what I had anticipated.  Still, I
would like to make it easier for people to play with/test different
themes.

Second, there are a few different items mashed togeather in the 
status-postion that it would be nice to split up into its component parts.  
clearly, for backward compatibility, status-position should be left alone.
I don't think this is a major change to the code.

third, adding in a button with no image, fixed to the rect= variable
associated with it.  This would allow one to have the status windows
become buttons. (for example, the unit # status, when clicked, could
bring up the units window)

fourth, add in some more options for text fonts like specifying colors, 
or tying colors to say the unit health-bar color.

fifth? add in the ability to add tool-tips in the theme itself.   

All told that list begins to look pretty big, so I don't know how much I 
will get done how soon.  Of course, other people are more then welcome to 
beat me to making the above changes.

-- 
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        "In theory, theory and practice are the same, 
                but in practice they're different."
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John W. C. McNabb
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