GM Roster Utility

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CW

#30
I really like the style of the rounded tabs and of the icons you used. My frames looks too boxy. I've been focused on the mechanics of the tabs. But as Steve Jobs showed us, style should not be ignored. Maybe we need a third person who can focus on the style and the art; and maybe code a way to easily stamp icons out of .png images. I definitely think you are on the right track. My only concern with the tabs as you have them displayed is with how well the text can be read when part of the tab is hidden like that. On the other hand, what you have is instantly obvious to the GM as to which tabs are active and which are not. (See how I thought to handle that below, where I comment on colors.)

I also envisioned a 'life bar" displayed on the roster page, next to each unit, maybe in green. Then you can tell at a glance the health state of each unit.

Something like:

                 Carrier:   60%   [//][//][//]
             Destroyer: 100%  [//][//][//][//][//]
                  Cruiser:   30%  [//][/]
       Mine Sweeper: 100%  [//][//][//][//][//]
              Battleship:    0%

Question, should we try for a compact roster or enjoy the luxury of spacing? Too compact and things can look cluttered. Too much space and it gets unwieldy for large rosters (of say, 30, 40 units or more in, say, a civil-war miniatures game.) How much spacing should we allow?

Also, when a tab is selected, the color of that team should be drawn around whatever frame the roster is in. I have set the tabs up to use two shades for each color. A bright shade when a tab is active, and a dark shade when a tab is passive. I want it to be instantly recognizable to the GM as to which team tab is being displayed on which roster. So maybe an elegant line of the tab's active color can be drawn around the frame.

Why don't I see about getting you a copy of the frame code as it stands now. (Well, after I tie up a few loose ends.) You can see how it currently functions and get a feel for it.
Tomorrow I'll be occupied with a social group I'm in, so look for my mockup on Monday or so. Then we can see about fusing our visions into an overall whole.

-CW

Oh, I had children once; but I had to get rid of them. The cat was allergic.

fuzzy70

#31
My dinner has nearly done cooking so after consumption I will be right back on it  =D

As it stands I can fit 16 units per half screen without things getting cluttered or 2 small to see or select, and was toying with the idea of dropping the last line (so 14 total) to allow buttons, for example a "Players" button & a "Vehicles" as more often than not the vehicles belong or are used by that party.

With regards to the life bars I have 3 ideas which I will implement all 3 on the next edit (1 example on each of the 3 chars I have shown). First is like it is at the moment, Second is a coloured bar behind the health text similar to how a progress bar looks & the colouring would be say green for 75%-100%, yellow 40%-74% & red 0%-39%. The third would be like the second but the colour would change the icon, not sure if the icon itself or the icons background until I try both to see what they look like.

The tabs have not been fine tuned as yet to check for possible hidden text but it is on my to-do list  =D

Adding a coloured frame is no problem to do either.

The way it is laid out is that everything falls on a 16 pixel boundary & are multiples of 16. That makes the math & layout a lot easier to manage and/or update.

Once I implement the changes we will have something more solid to work on & figure out what works & what doesn't.

If you could give me more info on what you would like displayed on the details screen that would be appreciated & I will see what I can come up with.

Keep the suggestions & even criticism coming (don't worry I don't bite  :D).

Lee

EDIT: Just a thought, To me to much eye-candy in a program like this is a very bad idea as it distracts from the functionality if the person can't see the whole picture at a glance. Not saying we are going down that route but thought I should mention it just in case either of us starts down that route & gets tempted by the "Dark Side"  :D
"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"
- "These go to eleven."

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

CW

#32
Here is the framework code so you can see the action of the tabs as I have them written.  I've tidied up the code and tied up the loose ends which were bothering me.

Don't worry about the programing methods I've used. I am more than willing to revise or scrap and start over. We can discuss the best approach to use in due time. I just want to give you a better feel for the mechanics I've envisioned. This is a huge diamond in the rough. (Or a huge rough in the rough..)

For now, the framework routine adds tabs to either side of the screen, can identify which tab is clicked on, and will remove the small tabs when the max number is reached. (I've limited the maximum number of tabs to four, for the small tablet screen.) Nothing else happens with color changes, highlighted frames or anything else as of yet. I can also easily add the ability to delete tabs, or cause tabs to swap screen sides, should alliances in a game change. From the tabbed framework, all of the roster functionality depends, so we need to get it right.

I haven't tested it yet, but the tabs and other formatting should scale with a font change, if we go to a smaller font than what I'm using now.

I was impressed by your last post, particularly when you were talking about the pixel boundaries. It does not shame me to admit that you are obviously the more experienced programer, so I am willing to let you lead the way in coding, doing what I can, and seeing how it is done. I suspect I will learn a lot.  :good:

As for your life-bar ideas, I like both the one about the unit text riding on the life bar, (I'm envisioning something like how the download status button fills with color on my toolbar as the download advances) and I like the idea about the color of the bar changing from green to yellow to red as death draws near. We will have to pick a font with care.
Tomorrow, woops!, I mean Monday, I will begin work on my mockup ideas, with particular focus on what I imagined for the unit stat sheets.

The input routine works, but I'm not very happy with it. It leans on Inkey$ (blech!) and is slow as death. I plan to strip that out and replace it with a much superior mod that uses K=Key(), just as soon as I can hammer a better process out. The important thing for now is that this routine will not overrun the field, and it is designed so that I can later go back and add in a flashing cursor (which is already written.) The replacement module will be easily expanded to allow input of multiple lines of text.

I likely won't be back on until late tomorrow night or Monday morning. And don't worry about odd hours. I keep them myself. I go to bed late, my cat gets me up early, and I sometimes nap during the day.

-CW

PS. When we begin to focus on polishing the art, I definitely want to go with the rounded tabs, and maybe give the frames surrounding the rosters a bit of a 3D feel. That would be nice!

fuzzy70

Had a little set back with my desktop PC in that the gfx card fan is on the way out & when it overheats the pc resets & have to wait for it to cool down lol.

At the moment am bringing my laptop up to spec with regards to software & updates so normal service shall be resumed shortly, basically something I should have done ages ago but never really got round to it. I will order another fan for my desktop or a new gfx card depending on what works out financially better for me but it's not a major rush as my laptop is pretty much a similar spec to the desktop.

Lee
"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"
- "These go to eleven."

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

CW

Sounds good. Get that little lap top cared for!

Right now I'm all excited for the project; but this is going to take some time, so don't put yourself under any pressure on my account.
Let's take it at an easy pace. That being said, I'm about half way through my mockup and I should be ready to post tomorrow afternoon.

Cheers!
-CW

fuzzy70

Updates are still on the go & then a massive defrag lol.

I downloaded your attachment & still get zip errors with 7zip but all extracts fine. One thing though is it doesn't compile under v11 beta but no problems with v10, but that's not a problem & can be sorted later.

Going to have a quick sort out of the code as there are variables assigned as floats when they should be integers & do a general tidy up. I'm not saying there is anything bad in your code as  everyone has their own coding style & after a quick sort out it will allow me to follow it better.

It's mainly little things like indentation & such, something I don't pay to much attention to  myself until I have a bulk of code or functions etc that are complete lol.

Lee

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2

"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"
- "These go to eleven."

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

CW

#36
Once I get a look at your coding style I'll adapt to things like proper indentation and such. Most of my framework code was written before we decided to collaborate, which is why the comments are sparse. (Mostly notes to myself.) I'm finding during my mockup that the use of two shades of color, one active and one passive, isn't working out as I had hoped. The colored line around the frame is good, but the tabs just lay there, and (even when the color shade changes) it is not at all obvious as to which tabs are active and which are passive. So that is a problem. I like how you display your tabs, my only concern being with the ability of the GM to identifying at a glance, each tab when their text is hidden under other tabs. But maybe the team-color would serve for that. Hmm..

I liked the look of your round tabs so much that I stole the idea for my mockup. It looks great.

I tried a smaller font and (after a minor bug squash) the program scaled to a different font size very well. (You will see how the slightly smaller font looks in my mockups.)
A slightly smaller font size allowed for five tabs on the small screen, a much smaller font allowed for six tabs but started getting hard to read.
If we do some form of tab stacking, we may be able to get twice as many tabs. But then, how many rosters will a GM ever need?

I actually slept in today. (I needed it too.) It's time to get in the tub, get myself together, and head to the library to work on my mockups.

Talk to you soon, Lee!
-CW

-The only warning most of us get is, "Mind that bus, what bus? SPLAT!" -Rimmer of the Red Dwarf

CW

#37
Hi Lee. Here are the mock ups as I imagine the project, with special attention paid to the second-tier unit pages.

Oh! Rather than buttons displayed at the bottom of the tablet, how about pop-up menus on a right click? I tried adding scroll buttons to the mockup roster, and it just looked clunky. I think we should avoid buttons where we can.

Without farther ado, here are my mockup sheets reflecting how I'm imagining the project. I can't wait to see yours. But no hurry. I may take another crack at writing a better input routine and that can keep me busy for days. = )



The first is a roster snapshot from an imaginary American civil war miniature game, supporting troop factions from the North and the South. This would work just as well with a Napoleonic scenario. This sort of layout would also work extremely well with lists of npc monsters, traps, and other creatures. Notice that I am using a slightly smaller font for the tabs, which allows five of them. If we go even smaller, we can get six full tabs on the low-rez screen, except the small fonts become hard to read. Woops! I just noticed that the pop-up frame should be green, to match the tab. Pretend it is.

The second is a roster snapshot from a space-battle type of game where each unit has several destructible components (shields, armor, hull, weapons banks, crew quarters and such.) This type of roster would work very well with WarHammer 40k, with WoddenShips and Iron Men miniatures, with Car Wars, with StarFleet Battles scenarios, or even with a building being explored which has destructible components such as doors, walls, windows and floors.

If we can implement the ability to add weapons, gear and other components to the second-page stat list, this sort of layout is ideal for customizing units and supporting rosters of adventurers in a solo game. (In a multi-player game, each player would want his or her own character sheet, either on paper or on their own tablet running our utility.)


-CW
PS: How is that little laptop doing?

fuzzy70

Very nice CW :).

Your mockups give me a better idea of the info that needs to be displayed so that gives me more to work on & I will probably use the info you have presented on yours on mine so we have a common output so to speak.

I have to admit the coloured tabs do not work for me, can't quite put my finger on it but the text is hard to read the way they are, might be an idea to use a font with a black outline so as to separate the text from the tab background colour. Also that text is not kerned which might also be a problem visibility wise.

Other than that it's coming on very well :)

Last update (he says hopefully lol) is downloading as I type this, 1.5gb of Adobe updates seemed to take for ever & no idea if it was my internet or the Adobe servers, I blame the Adobe servers as all other updates downloaded at a quick pace (even microsoft ones but they took longer to install lol). I then have the joys of a good defrag as know from experience all that installing/downloading/updating does no favours, although I will run just a quick defrag & save the fully optimised one to run when I go to bed.

Lee

"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"
- "These go to eleven."

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

CW

#39
I'm not wedded to colored tabs. It is just another visual cue for the GM. Maybe we can do the sort of black and elegant tabs you have with a color pin-stripe on them so the active frame matches the tab? What is kerning? Is that another term for proportional fonts? I have the feeling that I will learn a lot from you. (I like it!)

I'm heading out to get some sun and chum.  8)
Talk to you later!

-CW

fuzzy70

Sort of, kerning basically just the spacing in-between chars, more noticeable on an 'i" being the thinnest character ("W" being the widest character normally.

Lee
"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"
- "These go to eleven."

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

fuzzy70

Latest draft attached, still needs a fair bit of tweaking though.

Lee
"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"
- "These go to eleven."

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

CW

It looks really good!  =D
Do you do your own graphics? The horse is spectacular, and the icons from your first example were very well done too.
I think we are on the right track for miniature units. What shall we do for an RPG character roster sheet?
-CW

fuzzy70

#43
The icons are a download from opengameart.org, got a set of about 1000 rpg icons (although where some of them would fit in an RPG I have no idea lol), the rest is all done by me in Fireworks.

Tell me what you want on the character roster (or draw a rough) & I will see what might need adding, also will style it the same as what I have done so far obviously to keep consistency :)

Lee

Edit: An RPG one should be the same (minus the ID part) I think as the GM only has to call up the details of the character in an event like combat & such. The left hand side could be for players & the right for NPC's, say 1st tab for the players, 2nd tab for vehicles, 3rd Buildings etc.
"Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?"
- "These go to eleven."

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

CW

#44
I'm going to have to think on that. It's been years since I've actually played a live RPG game. I may have some ancient character sheets here, from my D&D days, but there have been so many RPG's since then. It's hard to say what design a character sheet should take today. Hmm..

We have a local Game Store with a room for gamers. Why don't I pay them a visit tomorrow, do some poking around on the net, and see what I can come up with. I'm sure we can hit upon a nice RPG format which would fit will on our unit sheets and will work for most games as a quick reference. See if you can noodle one up on your end and I'll do the same.

Question: how difficult do you think it would be to associate loaded gear with a character, and save the entire configuration? I'm a bit intimidated at the potential complexity, but if you feel comfortable that we can do it, it would make for a much more useful character sheet than a mere 'creature' sheet with static attributes.

-CW