UI Improvement Ideas

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Sorduun
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2022 2:33 pm

Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by Sorduun »

rahamy wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 1:17 pm
redrum68 wrote: Mon Aug 22, 2022 11:00 am Yeah, the tab key at least shows it in the information bar but I think the improvement would be to show information directly on the unit counter similar to how games like war in the east do it. Otherwise the big issue is you can only look at one hex at a time and can't get any information at a glance across the map.
If you are a Napoleonic player, this feature is part of the next update cycle:


Strength_Values.png
Please please please do this for Panzer Campaigns! Too many counters with no idea of the strength in a hex or a counter without selecting it. It is amazing the difference this has made in my enjoyment of the Napoleonic games.

Thanks for everything you guys are doing for these games. I think I am up to about 2/3 of them all. So (nearly) perfect. :)
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Strela
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Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by Strela »

Sorduun wrote: Mon Oct 10, 2022 9:38 pm
rahamy wrote: Tue Aug 23, 2022 1:17 pm
redrum68 wrote: Mon Aug 22, 2022 11:00 am Yeah, the tab key at least shows it in the information bar but I think the improvement would be to show information directly on the unit counter similar to how games like war in the east do it. Otherwise the big issue is you can only look at one hex at a time and can't get any information at a glance across the map.
If you are a Napoleonic player, this feature is part of the next update cycle:


Strength_Values.png
Please please please do this for Panzer Campaigns! Too many counters with no idea of the strength in a hex or a counter without selecting it. It is amazing the difference this has made in my enjoyment of the Napoleonic games.

Thanks for everything you guys are doing for these games. I think I am up to about 2/3 of them all. So (nearly) perfect. :)
Information on the PzC (2D) counters won’t be in the 4.01 patches but is being considered for the future. There is the new roaming mode that will allow you to review hexes without clicking on them. That is coming with 4.01.

Finally, there is counters with strengths etc in 3D, but you probably know that already.

Net net, it will come to PzC (eventually).
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berto
Posts: 34
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Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by berto »

SPs on counters is nifty, but how do you spot unit stats for lower ranked counters in stacks? You still need the sidebar Unit List for that.
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rahamy
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Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by rahamy »

berto wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 8:52 am SPs on counters is nifty, but how do you spot unit stats for lower ranked counters in stacks? You still need the sidebar Unit List for that.
Just to clarify, the Tab function in the Nap games puts the total hex's strength in the value, not just the top unit.
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berto
Posts: 34
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2022 5:51 am

Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by berto »

Ah, good to know! Nice feature, that.
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redrum68
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Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2022 12:07 am

Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by redrum68 »

rahamy wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 11:36 am
berto wrote: Fri Oct 14, 2022 8:52 am SPs on counters is nifty, but how do you spot unit stats for lower ranked counters in stacks? You still need the sidebar Unit List for that.
Just to clarify, the Tab function in the Nap games puts the total hex's strength in the value, not just the top unit.
Yeah, I think that is probably the best thing to show as it gives you at a quick glance the total strength of all units in the hex. I definitely would strongly vote for that being in all games!
RickyB
Posts: 124
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2022 11:54 pm

Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by RickyB »

Note that with the Roaming mode in PzC, hitting tab while roaming will show all unit stats and the hex info including the full stacking point/strength of units in the hex that is currently roamed over. So that will provide the deetails/total streangth on a hex by hex basis, still not the same as showing it for all at once, but it does allow a fairly quick check hex by hex, along with seeing the fronts without the tab.
lookoverthere
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2022 12:04 pm

Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by lookoverthere »

redrum68 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:50 am When I select unit(s) I should always see where they can move to and when I mouse over a hex to move to it should show the path the unit(s) will take to that location.
I suspect that one way this could be done in the current engine is that when drag-moving units, the route they will take is indicated by numbers appearing in the hexes along their path. These numbers indicate the expected number of MP the unit will have when it enters that hex, colorized according to what color that MP value would be. The engine can already display text on the map, so it might be easier to do that than to come up with an entirely new display element.
redrum68 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:50 am 3. Road limits - While I like the concept of having road limits for unit movement, they end up just causing lots of painful micromanagement as you try to move large formations over large distances
It would be a lot easier to deal with road limits if holding down Alt when ordering multiple units to move at once would have them move to the destination one at a time instead of simultaneously.

Some other things that I think could be done to improve the user experience that I presume wouldn't require refactoring the engine's code (but hey, I have no idea what it looks like under the hood):
  • Allow resizing of dialogs.
  • Add columns to the scenario list in the scenario selection dialog, displaying and allowing sorting by name, turn count, and map size.
  • In scenarios where certain features are unused (such as deception units or strategies often are), have become irrelevant (such as scheduled reinforcements/releases when there are none left), or are currently unusuable (such as commands for which no valid unit is currently selected or network options in games vs. AI), their menu options and hotbar buttons should be grayed out and unclickable.
  • Organizational markings should be enabled by default. There can't be many players who prefer to not be able to tell which units belong together at a glance.
  • Ask Before Advancing should be enabled by default. Who's more likely to accidentally end a turn, a player who's experienced enough to have changed the settings to preference, or a player who's just getting familiar with the program and hasn't changed anything?
  • When Ask Before Advancing is enabled, the end turn dialog should notify the player of the number of unmoved units, unfired artillery, and available air attack missions.
  • Remove the "Unknown Assault Odds" dialog that pops up when fog of war is on. Make the "Show Odds" option on the Assault drop-down menu unclickable if FoW is on.
  • Add a hotkey to deselect any units that don't have enough MP to fire.
  • Add a hotbar button for firing range shading. Checking what's in range of your artillery is a far more common action than a lot of things that do have hotbar buttons.
  • Add a weak units highlight, which will highlight friendly units at 50% or less of their maximum strength.
  • Automatically highlight valid targets when holding down Ctrl. The game already does it when you're using the artillery dialog, but it should apply whenever you're in fire mode with any unit.
  • Show organizational colors on unit card on unit bar, for easily checking groupings of units that aren't on top of the stack.
  • On the part showing the current hex's stacking total when holding RMB, also show road limit and stacking limit.
  • Prevent jump map from blocking the rest of the interface and allow it to be pinned so that it stays open until explicitly closed.
  • A "snooze" command that will prevent the selected units with full MP from being selected by the Next Stack button for that turn.
  • The command report should be expanded to include anything you could want to know about the opponent's turn without actually watching it. Things like total losses suffered and inflicted during the enemy turn, units that were disrupted or broken, units that were displaced from their hexes, and enemy units that your units lost sight of.
  • Make adding a desktop shortcut optional in the installers.
  • Streamline the desktop shortcut icons by removing the border and title text.
  • To address Microsoft's annoying decision to not show subfolders in the Windows 10 Start menu, replace all the multiple shortcuts the programs add to the Start menu with each title having a single shortcut for a new launcher program. Each game's launcher would have buttons to launch the game itself, launch sub-programs such as editors and campaigns, display any documents and text files the game comes with, uninstall the game, open the game's directory in Windows Explorer, and open the WDS website. This would replace the menu program and modernize the way different programs are accessed while tidying up the games' presence in the Start menu.
  • Include the HPS-era graphics and pre-Gold JTS graphics as alternative graphic files for titles that had used them before.
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rahamy
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Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by rahamy »

lookoverthere wrote: Fri Oct 21, 2022 12:00 pm
  • Organizational markings should be enabled by default. There can't be many players who prefer to not be able to tell which units belong together at a glance.
Sorry, I wouldn't want to see that, I never use organizational markings. Rather I use Highlight Org as needed.
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WDS Operations Manager
Carlos
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Re: UI Improvement Ideas

Post by Carlos »

lookoverthere wrote: Fri Oct 21, 2022 12:00 pm [*]Show organizational colors on unit card on unit bar, for easily checking groupings of units that aren't on top of the stack.
[*]Prevent jump map from blocking the rest of the interface and allow it to be pinned so that it stays open until explicitly closed.
[*]The command report should be expanded to include anything you could want to know about the opponent's turn without actually watching it. Things like total losses suffered and inflicted during the enemy turn, units that were disrupted or broken, units that were displaced from their hexes, and enemy units that your units lost sight of.¨
These are my personal picks.
Automatically highlight valid targets when holding down Ctrl. The game already does it when you're using the artillery dialog, but it should apply whenever you're in fire mode with any unit.
This is actually implemented via a hotkey in Squad Battles and I agree, I use it all the time.
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