New vehicle interaction menu

[Medicine]

Adding my support for this; illi-kun, all your UI work is excellent.

[kevin.granade]

Nothing in particular to add, it seems like a much better configuration to display everything.
Thanks for all the work on polishing these UI issues. I really appreciate it.

[Weyrling]

Looks like an excellent change for readability but I do prefer vertical blueprints, it’d be nice to have an option for orientation along with the new information sorting, but I can see how that might be awkward to fit into this design.

[illi-kun]

Wow, guys, thanks for your support, it’s really important for me!

Weyrling, I’m thinking about that, because actually I love vertical blueprints too, but I just don’t like a current display. Again, I’m doing an optional stuff with this horizontal blueprint, so maybe it’s possible to add third state for the option: “tracking”, and display the vehicle as it’s actually directed in the game.

Also, I have some request to all of you. All time I’ve played in Cata I think about these “K dynamics” & “K mass”. Names of these properties don’t make any sense for me, but these comments help me:

[code]// Combined coefficient of aerodynamic and wheel friction resistance of vehicle, 0-1.0.
// 1.0 means it’s ideal form and have no resistance at all. 0 – it won’t move
float k_dynamics ();

// Coefficient of mass, 0-1.0.
// 1.0 means mass won’t slow vehicle at all, 0 - it won’t move
float k_mass ();[/code]

So my questions are:

• Is it only my trouble with understanding of these numbers?
• If not, can anyone, probably Rivet (as well-known grammar-nazi in good meaning of these words), or someone else, suggest some really good (and still short enough) names for these vars?

[kevin.granade]

I think k_mass is ok, because it’s the input into the well-known “acceleration = power / mass” equation.

k_dynamic is quite a problem though, IMO a better option would be to break it into rolling_resistance and wind_resistance and just not try and give one value. That’s also important because they have different effects at different speeds, rolling resistance generally dominates at low speed, but wind resistance dominates at higher speeds.

[Pthalocy]

I never understood either K value, did not know how to read them, and thus completely ignored them. Words like ‘rolling resistance’, ‘drag’, or hey, even ‘inertia’ means a hell of a lot more to me.

This thread just explained a lot to me.

[Weyrling]

[quote=“Pthalocy, post:26, topic:4035”]I never understood either K value, did not know how to read them, and thus completely ignored them. Words like ‘rolling resistance’, ‘drag’, or hey, even ‘inertia’ means a hell of a lot more to me.

This thread just explained a lot to me.[/quote]
Yea, me too, This stuff is good to know when you’re thinking about competing with the RMCC.

[illi-kun]

That’s almost done, I have to fix a couple of issues before landing (PR #4679).

[Wuzzy]

The layout seems indeed nice on the first look. And it seems to work pretty well if you play with a rather “short” language like English. But this layout completely falls apart if you use any language which is only slightly wordier than English.

You will bump into problems as soon as you are going to translate it.
Like in the first interface, the space is intensely packed, even in English the whole text just barely fits in. But English already is a very “short” language, compared to others. Just try to translate this interface to any other language. You are likely to run out of space.
German, for example, is just slightly wordier than English and I already had trouble translating the vehicle menu.
The two bad parts are:

[ul][]The menu items at the botttom. I haven’t managed it to fit everything into a single line
[]The car stats rectangle. It was hard, but not impossible for German. I wonder if it would work for other languages
[*]Since the part rectangle has been shrunk, too, there is likely to be another problem. But I don’t consider it a real problem if words are cut off there, the other strings (menu items and stats) are the most important ones.[/ul]

I like the idea of adding this as an option. But the option would be pointless if it allows the user to select an interface which is just broken because not all words fit in. The the option should be smart enough to see when an interface X wouldn’t work for language Y. There also should be an “automatic” option which automatically selects the best interface depending on the current language. Ideally, this setting always selects an interface where every word fits in. This setting should be the default. Of course, if one insists on using a broken interface, one shall feel free to do so.

PS: Related issue: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/issues/4655

[Binky]

The layout seems indeed nice on the first look. And it seems to work pretty well if you play with a rather “short” language like English. But this layout completely falls apart if you use any language which is only slightly wordier than English.

Although I don’t want to sound at all awkward towards our non-English-speaking brethren, I’d hate for this to be an issue that stopped it going ahead. As you’ve said, possibly a toggle (automatic) for those non-English speakers would be good. German is one of the wordiest languages (although I am sure there are some which are more!) so I guess this isn’t a big problem for most languages. Interesting to keep an eye on this though for future translations.

[illi-kun]

Wuzzy, it’s really hard to pack everything in default 12x12 window even for English. I really hope that yobbobanana’s changes of windows will be applicable to this window as well, so any language will be fine with a little bit wider window. I don’t like your general idea (at least as I understood it): I don’t want to block any new thing just because it creates some difficulties for translators. I think it’s better to add a feature with potential shortening of a few words than throw it away completely.

[AtomicDryad]

Like it alot, though where is the install picker?
One thing that bugs the hell out of me with the current dialog is the way it cheerfully shrinks to 75% screen size and leaves a mere 12 lines to scroll through.

[illi-kun]

Here is the snapshot of current state of the window:

upd: currently, some random sizes of each window are applied, don’t take it into account.

[Wuzzy]

I do not see any screenshot, illi-kun.

And I did not suggest to throw anything away or to “block” it. Quite the opposite. Read again.

But not keeping translators in mind when designing an interface is not very helpful either. Just because German is wordier than English is no reason to ignore it. What was the point of the multi-language support again? Ah, right! Support for multiple languages. And when the interface does not work for any language which is wordier than English, then the interface is simply not capable for multi-language support. You interface would clearly work for English but likely not for other languages.
As for the menu, I have two ideas:

[ul][]Just use a second line of text. When in doubt, a line could be sacrified from the extra space for those unused additional properties. I am not sure if this would still be enough for even wordier languages. Well, when it becomes an issue I’m sure some translator will complain again.
[]Put the menu items vertically inside the large empty rectangle. This space is now only used when installing parts but is otherwise empty. Why not use this empty space (while it’s empty, of course) for the menu items instead? When the space is used for the list of possible parts, you do not need to see the menu items either.[/ul]

Personally, I like the second idea much more. Comments?

As for the other two problems: I do not consider them too bad. The worst problem to me is clearly the menu bar since if you exceed the length, the user can’t see the full menu anymore.

[Pthalocy]

French can also get pretty damn wordy, and I have a tendency to change my videogames to German for the sake of practice.

I don’t think language compatability will hold up progress for vehicle display, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind when working on display features. Some toggle options so we can find a display that’s best for our language of preference ought to be alright

If the vehicle display menu isn’t making full use of the game’s window size (I have mine set much larger than default), rewriting it to do so would make a world of difference. I’m having a hard time discerning if that was in fact an issue mentioned earlier…

still happy for progress here either way

[illi-kun]

I’ve reloaded the snapshot, so it should be available now.

I think about this empty space a lot, and I don’t like the idea for adding different types of the content in the same place. Currently, vector “installed parts”->“parts for installation”->“vehicle properties” looks fine for me. I prefer to do a good menu for the single language instead of doing a bad one for many languages. That’s my point. Of course, the best solution is a good menu for many languages and I’ll think about that more

This window will be expandable regarding the viewport’s size, so I don’t see the reason why you can’t just add a simple note to your localization, something like “for comfortable playing, change the width of the viewport from 12 to XX at least”.

BTW, can you show the snapshot of current vehicle interaction menu translated to German, just for my curiosity. Thank you.

[Wuzzy]

I wasn’t aware the vehicle menu is expandable now because the screenshot was broken. Anyways it would still be nice if everything fits into the standard console size.

I don’t understand why you reject my suggestions. After all, we just talk about an … empty unused space. In my eyes empty space is just wasted space

Here is the requested screenshot (0.9): http://i.imgur.com/ym1NpNU.png
Please note: some strings were marked as “fuzzy” which result in them appearing untranslated.

PS: I can’t just add a simple note to the localization. It doesn’t work this way. You would have ask others to add such a feature.

PPS: The viewport’s minimum size not 12×12, it’s 80×24. Where did you get those numbers?

[illi-kun]

So, this menu is done and landed in the master branch.

I don’t understand why you reject my suggestions.

That's simple: I'm not happy with your solutions.

The viewport’s minimum size not 12×12, it’s 80×24. Where did you get those numbers?

I'm talking about SDL version (see tab "graphics" in options).

Thanks for the snapshot, and I agree: that’s the issue for localized version… I’ll keep thinking about that, and maybe I’ll use some of your solutions or find one by myself, but not sure when it’s will be done exactly.