Improved UI 2011 - Revision history

Talad: moved Improved UI to Improved UI 2011

2012-02-21T11:00:17Z

moved Improved UI to Improved UI 2011

← Older revision	Revision as of 11:00, 21 February 2012
(No difference)

Talad: /* Improvements needed */

2011-07-04T09:10:56Z

Improvements needed

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:10, 4 July 2011
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	* '''[DONE! Jun 21] Help system''': add capability to incorporate pictures/3d objects in the help widget, make it more configurable and context sentitive.(easy)		* '''[DONE! Jun 21] Help system''': add capability to incorporate pictures/3d objects in the help widget, make it more configurable and context sentitive.(easy)
			* '''Duplicate pawsWidget by copy constructor''': Currently, all paws widgets are load from xml files. Even if we want to duplicate a paws widget, xml parsing is also a must. That is inefficient. By adding copy construction methods to the base paws widget classes, we won’t need to parse xml any more.
	* '''Active magic window''': today whenever you cast a buff spell on yourself, or when someone casts a debuff spell on you, the magic window opens showing all the buffs and debuffs, that's very annoying and clutters the screen. We want to remove this window and just have a series of icons on the top right corner with all the active buff and debuffs. This is a kind of toolbar, but just with the icon. Mouseovering on the icons will tell you the type of spell and the duration.		* '''Active magic window''': today whenever you cast a buff spell on yourself, or when someone casts a debuff spell on you, the magic window opens showing all the buffs and debuffs, that's very annoying and clutters the screen. We want to remove this window and just have a series of icons on the top right corner with all the active buff and debuffs. This is a kind of toolbar, but just with the icon. Mouseovering on the icons will tell you the type of spell and the duration.
	* '''Crafting books''': Today the crafting techniques are special items which you can read like a book. Those allow you to complete crafting tasks, so for example to smelt and refine iron you need the "working with stock" crafting book. When you read this special book, the text displayed is the list of all possible combinations and transformations you can do with stocks. Even if it's simple to generate by the code, it's very hard to read and very hard to understand. We should show the books as ordered recipes and not only as a bunch of operations without any connection (needs to resolve a graph, also this needs to be cached somehow)(medium, graph algorithm knownledge is suggested)		* '''Crafting books''': Today the crafting techniques are special items which you can read like a book. Those allow you to complete crafting tasks, so for example to smelt and refine iron you need the "working with stock" crafting book. When you read this special book, the text displayed is the list of all possible combinations and transformations you can do with stocks. Even if it's simple to generate by the code, it's very hard to read and very hard to understand. We should show the books as ordered recipes and not only as a bunch of operations without any connection (needs to resolve a graph, also this needs to be cached somehow)(medium, graph algorithm knownledge is suggested)
	* '''Chat window''': today the chat window has 2 settings: basic and full. The basic is used for new players to avoid showing elements like alliance or guild, since they will not use it for some time. The issue is that the chat window cannot change at runtime, and so when we want to switch between the basic and the full, we need to ask a restart of the client. The idea is to make the tabs configurable at runtime, so we can drive with an in game event the addition and removal of certain tabs. For example adding the guilds tab only when a player belongs to a guild. The list of tabs visible should be configurable in the options menu.		* '''Chat window''': today the chat window has 2 settings: basic and full. The basic is used for new players to avoid showing elements like alliance or guild, since they will not use it for some time. The issue is that the chat window cannot change at runtime, and so when we want to switch between the basic and the full, we need to ask a restart of the client. The idea is to make the tabs configurable at runtime, so we can drive with an in game event the addition and removal of certain tabs. For example adding the guilds tab only when a player belongs to a guild. The list of tabs visible should be configurable in the options menu.
	* '''Images in books''': Add the ability to include images in books, for example, an image of a creature could be included in the bestiary books.		* '''Images in books''': Add the ability to include images in books, for example, an image of a creature could be included in the bestiary books.
	* '''Duplicate pawsWidget by copy constructor''': Currently, all paws widgets are load from xml files. Even if we want to duplicate a paws widget, xml parsing is also a must. That is inefficient. By adding copy construction methods to the base paws widget classes, we won’t need to parse xml any more.
	* '''Rendering widget by RTT''': It may be a little expensive to render windows by using RTT. But Planeshift will also benefit if we use it at the right place such rendering the paws sketch window. The first step for this idea is to enable drawing windows by RTT. The second step is to make the way of rendering windows configurable.		* '''Rendering widget by RTT''': It may be a little expensive to render windows by using RTT. But Planeshift will also benefit if we use it at the right place such rendering the paws sketch window. The first step for this idea is to enable drawing windows by RTT. The second step is to make the way of rendering windows configurable.
	* Hot bar for spells and items, with support for multiple rows, which can be resized and hidden.		* Hot bar for spells and items, with support for multiple rows, which can be resized and hidden.

Talad: /* Improvements needed */

2011-07-04T09:10:14Z

Improvements needed

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:10, 4 July 2011
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	== Improvements needed ==		== Improvements needed ==

	* '''Help system''': add capability to incorporate pictures/3d objects in the help widget, make it more configurable and context sentitive.(easy)		* '''[DONE! Jun 21] Help system''': add capability to incorporate pictures/3d objects in the help widget, make it more configurable and context sentitive.(easy)
	* '''Active magic window''': today whenever you cast a buff spell on yourself, or when someone casts a debuff spell on you, the magic window opens showing all the buffs and debuffs, that's very annoying and clutters the screen. We want to remove this window and just have a series of icons on the top right corner with all the active buff and debuffs. This is a kind of toolbar, but just with the icon. Mouseovering on the icons will tell you the type of spell and the duration.		* '''Active magic window''': today whenever you cast a buff spell on yourself, or when someone casts a debuff spell on you, the magic window opens showing all the buffs and debuffs, that's very annoying and clutters the screen. We want to remove this window and just have a series of icons on the top right corner with all the active buff and debuffs. This is a kind of toolbar, but just with the icon. Mouseovering on the icons will tell you the type of spell and the duration.
	* '''Crafting books''': Today the crafting techniques are special items which you can read like a book. Those allow you to complete crafting tasks, so for example to smelt and refine iron you need the "working with stock" crafting book. When you read this special book, the text displayed is the list of all possible combinations and transformations you can do with stocks. Even if it's simple to generate by the code, it's very hard to read and very hard to understand. We should show the books as ordered recipes and not only as a bunch of operations without any connection (needs to resolve a graph, also this needs to be cached somehow)(medium, graph algorithm knownledge is suggested)		* '''Crafting books''': Today the crafting techniques are special items which you can read like a book. Those allow you to complete crafting tasks, so for example to smelt and refine iron you need the "working with stock" crafting book. When you read this special book, the text displayed is the list of all possible combinations and transformations you can do with stocks. Even if it's simple to generate by the code, it's very hard to read and very hard to understand. We should show the books as ordered recipes and not only as a bunch of operations without any connection (needs to resolve a graph, also this needs to be cached somehow)(medium, graph algorithm knownledge is suggested)

Talad: /* Additional ideas */

2011-06-20T11:34:10Z

Additional ideas

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:34, 20 June 2011
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	== Additional ideas ==		== Additional ideas ==
			* [[Improve NPC Dialogues]]
	* allow changing of skin from in game		* allow changing of skin from in game
	* allow changing of language from in game		* allow changing of language from in game

Zhanzhizheng: /* Implementation Detail */

2011-05-20T05:39:53Z

Implementation Detail

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:39, 20 May 2011
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	#::</Contents>		#::</Contents>
	#::Note: The pictures “src “ attribute may contains more than one picture source location which means the view widget could display more than one picture in one row with the same scale and align.		#::Note: The pictures “src “ attribute may contains more than one picture source location which means the view widget could display more than one picture in one row with the same scale and align.
	#:*The content in <topic> node is sent to the view as plain string. Then we could still use setText method to set the content that will be displayed. In setText, the most important thing is to call the OrganizeContent to manage all the text content and pictures. We don’t override the OrganizeText method because OrganizeContent still needs it to format text contents. The following flow chart shows what will be done in OrganizeContent method.		#:*The content in <topic> node is sent to the view as plain string. Then we could still use setText method to set the content that will be displayed. In setText, the most important thing is to call the OrganizeContent to manage all the text content and pictures. We don’t override the OrganizeText method because OrganizeContent still needs it to format text contents. The following flow chart shows what will be done in OrganizeContent method.[[File:H1.jpg]]
	[[File:H1.jpg]]
	#::Note: “#pic#1,2,3” means those lines in the “lines” array are pictures. The digitals are indices pointing to the corresponding picture information in the “pics” array. These information is used in Draw method to draw pictures correctly.		#::Note: “#pic#1,2,3” means those lines in the “lines” array are pictures. The digitals are indices pointing to the corresponding picture information in the “pics” array. These information is used in Draw method to draw pictures correctly.
	#:*After the content is organized, we could then draw all the text and pictures in Draw method. A little changes will be introduced into Draw function in order to draw text content as well as pictures. The following flow chart shows what will Draw do:		#:*After the content is organized, we could then draw all the text and pictures in Draw method. A little changes will be introduced into Draw function in order to draw text content as well as pictures. The following flow chart shows what will Draw do:[[File:H2.jpg]]
	#:*After this pawsDocumentView is implemented, a corresponding pawsDocumentViewFactory will be implemented using the macro “CREATE_PAWS_FACTORY” which will enable automatically create this widget by pawsmanager. The GUI definition file for the help system should be modified to load pawsDocumentView instead of pawsMultiLineTextBox. In pawsHelp, almost nothing will be changed and it will work fine if everything has been considered correctly :P.		#:*After this pawsDocumentView is implemented, a corresponding pawsDocumentViewFactory will be implemented using the macro “CREATE_PAWS_FACTORY” which will enable automatically create this widget by pawsmanager. The GUI definition file for the help system should be modified to load pawsDocumentView instead of pawsMultiLineTextBox. In pawsHelp, almost nothing will be changed and it will work fine if everything has been considered correctly :P.

Zhanzhizheng: /* Implementation Detail */

2011-05-20T05:33:46Z

Implementation Detail

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:33, 20 May 2011
Line 123:		Line 123:
	#::Note: The pictures “src “ attribute may contains more than one picture source location which means the view widget could display more than one picture in one row with the same scale and align.		#::Note: The pictures “src “ attribute may contains more than one picture source location which means the view widget could display more than one picture in one row with the same scale and align.
	#:*The content in <topic> node is sent to the view as plain string. Then we could still use setText method to set the content that will be displayed. In setText, the most important thing is to call the OrganizeContent to manage all the text content and pictures. We don’t override the OrganizeText method because OrganizeContent still needs it to format text contents. The following flow chart shows what will be done in OrganizeContent method.		#:*The content in <topic> node is sent to the view as plain string. Then we could still use setText method to set the content that will be displayed. In setText, the most important thing is to call the OrganizeContent to manage all the text content and pictures. We don’t override the OrganizeText method because OrganizeContent still needs it to format text contents. The following flow chart shows what will be done in OrganizeContent method.
			[[File:H1.jpg]]
	#::Note: “#pic#1,2,3” means those lines in the “lines” array are pictures. The digitals are indices pointing to the corresponding picture information in the “pics” array. These information is used in Draw method to draw pictures correctly.		#::Note: “#pic#1,2,3” means those lines in the “lines” array are pictures. The digitals are indices pointing to the corresponding picture information in the “pics” array. These information is used in Draw method to draw pictures correctly.
	#:*After the content is organized, we could then draw all the text and pictures in Draw method. A little changes will be introduced into Draw function in order to draw text content as well as pictures. The following flow chart shows what will Draw do:		#:*After the content is organized, we could then draw all the text and pictures in Draw method. A little changes will be introduced into Draw function in order to draw text content as well as pictures. The following flow chart shows what will Draw do:
	#:*After this pawsDocumentView is implemented, a corresponding pawsDocumentViewFactory will be implemented using the macro “CREATE_PAWS_FACTORY” which will enable automatically create this widget by pawsmanager. The GUI definition file for the help system should be modified to load pawsDocumentView instead of pawsMultiLineTextBox. In pawsHelp, almost nothing will be changed and it will work fine if everything has been considered correctly :P.		#:*After this pawsDocumentView is implemented, a corresponding pawsDocumentViewFactory will be implemented using the macro “CREATE_PAWS_FACTORY” which will enable automatically create this widget by pawsmanager. The GUI definition file for the help system should be modified to load pawsDocumentView instead of pawsMultiLineTextBox. In pawsHelp, almost nothing will be changed and it will work fine if everything has been considered correctly :P.

	== Additional ideas ==		== Additional ideas ==
	* allow changing of skin from in game		* allow changing of skin from in game

Zhanzhizheng at 05:30, 20 May 2011

2011-05-20T05:30:13Z

@@ Line 91: / Line 91: @@
 #::* Considering the problem of network transfer, xml structured message may not a good choice. A more efficient but also structured message could be easily designed to achieve the same goal.
 == Additional ideas ==
 * allow changing of skin from in game

Zhanzhizheng: /* Design */

2011-05-03T01:30:09Z

Design

@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 == Design ==
-In Planeshift, we have a class named pawsImageDrawable which is an implementation of the iPawsImage interface. By using the interface's Draw method, we could draw an image onto a frame with assigned size and position.
+# Improve the Help system.
+#: Right now, Help system is based pawshelp class to load help information from XML document files. The help information is then organized to show in the helptree widget which is a pawsSimpleTrees class. There is a helptext widget at the right side of the help window. The helptext widget is a pawsMultiLineTextBox class to show help content in a multiple lined style. When a node of the helptree is clicked, the helptext widget will display the node's corresponding help content.
-Based on these two points above, a pawsDocumentViewBox could be implemented to display content with texts as well as pictures. Rough ideas are as following:
+#: In Planeshift, we have a class named pawsImageDrawable which is an implementation of the iPawsImage interface. By using the interface's Draw method, we could draw an image onto a frame with assigned size and position.
+#: Based on these two points above, a pawsDocumentViewBox could be implemented to display content with texts as well as pictures. Rough ideas are as following:
-* Improve the Help system.
+#::* Design a kind of XML definition which could incorporate text content and pictures. For example:
+#::: <HelpDoc>
-* Improve the chat window.
+#:::: <Title ...>
+#::::: <Text>....</Text>
-* Images in books
+#::::: <Picture file=”example.png” … />
+#::::: <Text>...text content continue...</Text>
-* Color selector
+#::::  ......
+#:::: </Title>
-* Duplicate pawsWidget by copy constructor
+#:::</HelpDoc>
+#::* In pawsDocumentViewBox, for those <Text> nodes, it can generally deal with them as pawsMultiLineTextBox does except for each <Text> node's first line and last line because it needs to determine these lines start X position and Y position inside a frame based on pictures' sizes before and after a <Text> node.
-* Rendering widget by RTT
+#::* This pawsDocumentViewBox could be implemented as a derived class of the pawsMultiLineTextBox. In this way, we could rarely modify the original code to realize displaying pictures in Help system.
+#::* In order to incorporate 3D object into help system, I have a very basic idea: using RTT technique.
-* Improve crafting book
+# Improve the chat window.
 == Additional ideas ==

Zhanzhizheng: /* Design a kind of XML definition which could incorporate text content and pictures. For example: */

2011-05-03T00:50:28Z

Design a kind of XML definition which could incorporate text content and pictures. For example:

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:50, 3 May 2011
Line 35:		Line 35:
	Based on these two points above, a pawsDocumentViewBox could be implemented to display content with texts as well as pictures. Rough ideas are as following:		Based on these two points above, a pawsDocumentViewBox could be implemented to display content with texts as well as pictures. Rough ideas are as following:

	~~=== Design a kind of XML definition which could incorporate text content and pictures. For example: ===~~		* Improve the Help system.
	~~<HelpDoc>~~
	~~<Title ...>~~
	~~<Text>....</Text>~~
	~~<Picture file=”example.png” … />~~
	~~<Text>...text content continue...</Text>~~
	~~….....~~
	~~</Title>~~
	~~</HelpDoc>~~
	In pawsDocumentViewBox, for those <Text> nodes, it can generally deal with them as pawsMultiLineTextBox does except for each <Text> node's first line and last line because it needs to determine these lines start X position and Y position inside a frame based on pictures' sizes before and after a <Text> node.
	~~This pawsDocumentViewBox could be implemented as a derived class of~~ the ~~pawsMultiLineTextBox. In this way, we could rarely modify the original code to realize displaying pictures in~~ Help system.
	~~In order to incorporate 3D object into help system, I have a very basic idea: using RTT technique~~.

			* Improve the chat window.

			* Images in books

	~~2. Improve the chat window.~~		* Color selector

	~~3. Images in books~~		* Duplicate pawsWidget by copy constructor

	~~4. Color selector~~		* Rendering widget by RTT

	~~5. Duplicate pawsWidget by copy constructor~~		* Improve crafting book

	~~6. Rendering widget by RTT~~

	7. Improve crafting book

	== Additional ideas ==		== Additional ideas ==

Zhanzhizheng: /* Design */

2011-05-03T00:48:17Z

Design

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:48, 3 May 2011
Line 30:		Line 30:
	1. Improve the Help system.		1. Improve the Help system.
	Right now, Help system is based pawshelp class to load help information from XML document files. The help information is then organized to show in the helptree widget which is a pawsSimpleTrees class. There is a helptext widget at the right side of the help window. The helptext widget is a pawsMultiLineTextBox class to show help content in a multiple lined style. When a node of the helptree is clicked, the helptext widget will display the node's corresponding help content.		Right now, Help system is based pawshelp class to load help information from XML document files. The help information is then organized to show in the helptree widget which is a pawsSimpleTrees class. There is a helptext widget at the right side of the help window. The helptext widget is a pawsMultiLineTextBox class to show help content in a multiple lined style. When a node of the helptree is clicked, the helptext widget will display the node's corresponding help content.

	In Planeshift, we have a class named pawsImageDrawable which is an implementation of the iPawsImage interface. By using the interface's Draw method, we could draw an image onto a frame with assigned size and position.		In Planeshift, we have a class named pawsImageDrawable which is an implementation of the iPawsImage interface. By using the interface's Draw method, we could draw an image onto a frame with assigned size and position.

	Based on these two points above, a pawsDocumentViewBox could be implemented to display content with texts as well as pictures. Rough ideas are as following:		Based on these two points above, a pawsDocumentViewBox could be implemented to display content with texts as well as pictures. Rough ideas are as following:
	Design a kind of XML definition which could incorporate text content and pictures. For example:
			=== Design a kind of XML definition which could incorporate text content and pictures. For example: ===
	<HelpDoc>		<HelpDoc>
	<Title ...>		<Title ...>