Designers wanted

[Zireael]

black being by far the most used color.

This is one more reason for the UI panels background not to be black, they shouldn't be hard to pick out from the game map.

[t4nk]

This is one more reason for the UI panels background not to be black, they shouldn't be hard to pick out from the game map.

OTOH, it can be argued that the ui shouldn't be brighter than the rest of the game, so that it woudn't attract too much attention to itself (for the example of really bright ui see NPPQT - I find it completely unplayable). And, come to think of it, there are also tiles (several sets), which all use different color schemes...

[takkaria]

So, I remembered that there is EVT_BUTTON, which isn't used in current Angband, and is pretty much equivalent to EVT_KBRD. So it seems the easiest way to make tabs clickable is to make them act like keyboard (and not mouse) events. For example, clicking on tab "Equipment" is the same as pressing the '/' key, etc. I think that's how EVT_BUTTON is supposed to be used? Anyway, tabs do look like buttons to me...

edit: Haha, wow, that was easy. Now item menu tabs are clickable.

Yeah that makes sense! Nice work I'd probably just make it EVT_KBRD instead though? EVT_BUTTON doesn't really carry any extra info like you say so it might as well just be a keyboard event.

[t4nk]

OK, next question! Angband has a sidebar, and this sidebar can be now resized. The sidebar displays various things:

1. Race - e.g., "Human"
2. Title - e.g., "Commando"
3. Class
4. Level
5. Experience
6. Gold
7. Equipment chars
8. Strength
9. Intellect
10. Wisdom
11. Dexterity
12. Constitution
13. (empty line)
14. Armor class
15. Hit points
16. Spell points
17. (empty line)
18. Monster hit points
19. (empty line)
20. Speed
21. Depth (dungeon level)

If the sidebar is made smaller (vertically) it displays less and less stuff. Each sidebar element has associated "priority", which indicates whether the element should be displayed, or skipped if there is not enough space for everything. For example, if sidebar has only one line, it will display only constitution, since it has the highest priority (I don't know why ).
So, can anyone sort this list by priority? For example, if the sidebar has only one line, it should probably display player's hp, if it has three lines, then it should be player's hp, sp, and monster's hp. Or something like that.
Here's an example of reduced sidebar:

https://postimg.org/image/ckw3nv65t/

Angband thinks that displaying stats is pretty important and they have very high priority. Are the really so important?
Or maybe you have some other ideas about sidebar?

[t4nk]

Yeah that makes sense! Nice work I'd probably just make it EVT_KBRD instead though? EVT_BUTTON doesn't really carry any extra info like you say so it might as well just be a keyboard event.

Right, I just call Term_keypress() if they're clicked, and that makes EVT_KBRD events.

[takkaria]

Angband thinks that displaying stats is pretty important and they have very high priority. Are the really so important?
Or maybe you have some other ideas about sidebar?

Some thoughts:

* the monster line could be improved, e.g. there could be a graphical bar displayed rather than asterisks, and the status (e.g. sleeping, confused etc.) could be written instead of just encoded in the colour of the HP bar. It would be cool to keep track of multiple monsters perhaps too, with the currently targeted one first and then maybe other nearby monsters afterward. XP to next level could probably be encoded as a graphical bar as well, since the exact number is not usually the useful thing to know.

e.g. https://imgur.com/a/uybvO

Now I think about it I guess the bars could be achieved entirely using background colour changes and don't require any special graphics code at all. However I was imagining something with a bit more resolution.

* race/class/title could all be safely dropped entirely since they never ever change. Though I do like having some light blue text in that position, I think I just like the light blue colour...

* it would be good if depth sat at the bottom of the sidebar too, maybe along with the 'level feeling' that's currently in the status bar.

[t4nk]

Some thoughts on spells... I think it would make sense to move away from book-centric casting, so 'm' just brings up a list of all available spells. They could be given fixed letters, removing the need to inscribe spellbooks at all. The problem is that there are too many spells to fit on the screen at once. This is one of those annoying cases where UI design and game design are really the same thing, so it's hard to imagine this working well without a reduction in the number of spells (which Nick might have on the cards?)

Come to think of it, it could be multi column?

https://postimg.org/image/xpph7f0vn

Now the command system is fully functional, there's no reason that keymaps couldn't be specified as {QUAFF,"Cure Light Wounds"} for example, instead of q4. Would require a bit of extra logic but not tonnes.

Someone will have to do it eventually Magic books are only a part of the problem, there are potions, scrolls, wands...
Looking at cmd-obj.c this doesn't seem particularly difficult to do... Basically, store struct keypress, cmd_code, tval and sval (or sidx for spells), then, when the user presses the corresponding key, scan the equip/inven/quiver/floor, and, if an object with that tval/sval is found, just do cmdq_push()/cmdq_set_arg_item()?

[t4nk]

Well, I don't know... some spells have pretty long names. And if we use 80x24 term with two columns, thats only 48 spells displayed...

https://postimg.org/image/rf9hivgzx/

[Zireael]

Takkaria, I like your ideas re: monster line.

[t4nk]

So, I came to conclusion that multi column layout for spells is just not practical currently. There are just too many spells.
Instead of that, I've given all spell books fixed letters. Magic for Beginners is always 'a', Resistances of Scarabsomething is 'e', etc. Inscriptions still work... Needless to say, it's a hack which duplicates much of the functionality of textui_get_item(). That's because of Angband's inventory shuffling. Oh well.
I don't see what two panel or tabbed layouts do that the current system ("select book, then spell") doesn't.

[ekolis]

I'm not a designer, but I haven't played "traditional" roguelikes in a while, so one thing that struck me about the menus (and the message bar up top) is that they're rather hard to read with that monospace font, especially with all that padding between the letters! Never noticed that before but since it's been so long...

I don't know what sort of display library you're using, but if possible, maybe it would make sense to use a proportionally spaced font for the menus, messages, stat displays, etc and leave the monospace for the map, which needs to be on a grid and doesn't have any words to read anyway? Might look silly to use different fonts on the same screen, but it would at least make things more readable...

[t4nk]

I don't know what sort of display library you're using, but if possible, maybe it would make sense to use a proportionally spaced font for the menus, messages, stat displays, etc and leave the monospace for the map, which needs to be on a grid and doesn't have any words to read anyway? Might look silly to use different fonts on the same screen, but it would at least make things more readable...

That would be too much work for too little gain. Currently, the ui doesn't support that in any way (and that has nothing to do with display library - it's the layer above the library that assumes a grid).
I personally don't consider monospace fonts to be inherently less readable than the proportional ones. Perhaps you just don't like Angband's stock font? It's possible to use a different (monospace) font.

https://postimg.org/image/3z3wnru1h/

[t4nk]

So I (partially) restored spell description toggle thing (the '?' command in spell menu), but it doesn't look quite right; IMO, the separate term for descriptions looks better... opinions?

http://postimg.org/image/lms8g5169/

[t4nk]

Next question. The char screen (invoked by the 'C' command) has a lot of space on the right side:

https://postimg.org/image/cyenekenh/

That's because the birth menu uses that to display stat costs:

https://postimg.org/image/lh3nzutv7/

And I don't like how this screen looks anyway. It a bit of a mess... If anyone has any suggestions, now is the time, while I'm at it! (refactoring ui2-player.c)

[Tibarius]

status?

I see this thread today the first time and would have some suggestions.

So i ask, is the re-factoring done already?