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Author Topic: Standardized Menus  (Read 1860 times)

Neskiairti

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Standardized Menus
« on: July 20, 2008, 03:55:29 am »

I'm sure some one has mentioned this before.. but really, it would help a hell of alot when starting out.

One of the biggest turnoffs that I have seen for alot of people I've showed the game, how every menu has its own set of commands to scroll select and do whatever. Make a Stand-ard. :P

choose one of them, and reorganize and configure menus so they work all the same.. it wouldnt be so hard to find a standard that could work on all.. such as right/left to move between different levels of menu, up down to choose items within, enter to toggle, -/+ to decrese and increase amounts, pgup/pgdown to rapidly scroll through menus

I'm thinking specifically of menus like the stockpile configure menu and what not. -shudder-
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Reasonableman

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #1 on: July 20, 2008, 04:08:37 am »

It's all part of the presentation arc. Remember, so far as I know the current goal is to finish the game (it's in alpha still, remember?) as opposed to attracting new players. Still, this'd be rather nifty, once Toady gets to that point.

EDIT: Dammit, I used the word 'remember' twice in that little paragraph, and I can't think of decent replacement word. Frick.
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Neskiairti

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #2 on: July 20, 2008, 04:43:47 am »

well.. maybe so, but it's also something to keep in mind.. write something well the first time, you dont have to go back to it.. and we all know its pretty obvious.. Toady is a fucking awesome programmer.. but less awesome on the interface and graphics end :P

I'm sure there will be new menus.. and if he writes them all with a standard now.. it will be much simpler to go back and modify the wrong ones later, than find a common theme betwen them all then.
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Align

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #3 on: July 20, 2008, 04:54:24 am »

Presentation arc will be coming up next after the army arc I believe. But we're only 1/3rd way through it, so you'll be waiting for a while.
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Draco18s

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2008, 10:03:24 am »

Presentation arc will be coming up next after the army arc I believe. But we're only 1/3rd way through it, so you'll be waiting for a while.

I keep seeing this from people and have not yet seen Toady say anything to that effect.
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Align

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2008, 11:58:48 am »

I asked the same thing, but right now I can't remember how it was justified...
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Duke 2.0

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2008, 11:59:39 am »

Presentation arc will be coming up next after the army arc I believe. But we're only 1/3rd way through it, so you'll be waiting for a while.

I keep seeing this from people and have not yet seen Toady say anything to that effect.

 Toady stated that when money starts to become an issue, he will work on the presentation ark to allow more donators.

 He also stated he will not tie himself down to any one particular arc.

 Thus we will get the PresentationArmyCaravan arc next.
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Idiom

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #7 on: July 20, 2008, 12:02:39 pm »

Gah, then I'll have to re-learn the menus. But yes, this is needed.
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Draco18s

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #8 on: July 20, 2008, 02:42:50 pm »

Toady stated that when money starts to become an issue, he will work on the presentation ark to allow more donators.

 He also stated he will not tie himself down to any one particular arc.

 Thus we will get the PresentationArmyCaravan arc next.

If A, then B
Given C
Assume F is BDE
Therefore F?

I don't follow.
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Untelligent

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2008, 05:07:15 pm »

As for the menus issue, I like the current system better than what was suggested in the first post. Yes, it is a little confusing at first, but it's far from "every menu has its own set of commands to scroll select and do whatever."
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Neskiairti

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #10 on: July 20, 2008, 05:15:15 pm »

right right.. since your used to it.. but like I said, just about everyone who has started playing DF after I showed it to them, got really frustrated with the menus constantly being a different key scheme..

and no, its not every menu.. but just about every other menu.. which is far too many..

I am sure toady plans to change the menus in the future.. so your going to have to suffer either way :P if you have a better standardized scheme go for it.. dont just complain about changing it.
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Dame de la Licorne

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #11 on: July 20, 2008, 05:15:56 pm »

Toady stated that when money starts to become an issue, he will work on the presentation ark to allow more donators.

 He also stated he will not tie himself down to any one particular arc.

 Thus we will get the PresentationArmyCaravan arc next.

So are you saying that money is becoming an issue for Toady?  Because it doesn't seem to be and therefore the presentation arc is currently not a priority, if my understanding is correct.
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shevek

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #12 on: July 20, 2008, 05:53:14 pm »

Arcs aside, I think menu standardization would be awesome. They should really all have the same scheme, and you should be able to page up and down in all of them.
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Reasonableman

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #13 on: July 20, 2008, 06:11:03 pm »

This isn't really on topic, but it just suddenly occurred to me and I didn't want to make a new thread.

Why does DF only use about half of the total screen area? It's nice for windowed mode; you can have other stuff going on, like the wiki or a music player. But in fullscreen, we have to paste two nice big black bars at the top and bottom of the screen just to get the tileset to look right. Why doesn't the game take advantage of this, expanding the field of view? I'd rather like to be able to see more stuff at once. It's kinda hard to keep anything onscreen, specially when you're using the menu and the map.
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Neskiairti

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Re: Standardized Menus
« Reply #14 on: July 20, 2008, 06:21:05 pm »

because it was never built to display more than X characters by X characters :P that would take a rewrite of a major sort most likely..
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