I look at the Inventory screen, and while it works just fine for the typical 80-character-by-24-character default display, there’s large amounts of wasted space when you enlarge it. Everything is printed in only two columns, with a rather limited width, so a large amount of the horizontal space you get goes to waste.
My first proposal was to create a sort of grid view, wherein there’s only one column, but items in the same category would populate to the right before going any further down. However, as “wielded weapon(s)” only had one item in it, there was a lot of wasted space there, and trying to reformat how an item is displayed ended up creating a huge mess (in both code and the game screen).
What I’m proposing NOW is to give each category its own column (with wielded and worn occupying the same vertical space). Each column would be of a fixed width (perhaps 35 characters wide, I’m making up numbers) so the original sizing would more closely match the current state of the interface (and/or the category filtering presented in the AIM), however a larger game window would allow for the user to view more of their (potentially expansive) inventory without sifting through pages due to the inefficient use of screen space. Nothing else (such as item printout) would change.
In multidrop mode, the column that usually appears for the stuff you’re dropping would become it’s own column on the far left, which is always visible.
For example:
┌───────────── Wielded ─────────────┬────────────── Tools ──────────────┬────────────── Food ───────────────┬────────────── Books ──────────────┐
│ m ++ burnt out Louisville Slaught │ a matchbook (20) │ n \. vacuum-packed veggie chunk ( │ k To Serve Man │
│ │ │ │ │
├────────────── Worn ───────────────┤ │ │ │
│ d ++ pair of socks │ │ │ │
│ f || pair of winter boots │ │ │ │
│ a \. boxer shorts │ │ │ │
│ b ++ jeans │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
etc etc
doesn’t imply only one “column per column”, but each “actual column” being subdivided into multiple categories when needed.
Otherwise it would be unworkable with multiple categories of items at once - for example, 5 categories on a display with 80 characters of width.
Though left/right ordering would be better swapped. Wielded/worn on the right, multidrop listing also on the right, further than wielded/worn.
That way it would be more predictable and consistent. You’d always get the regular inventory on the left (this is what you generally want to access). Having “special inventories” on the left would mean that it would change too much depending on context (multidrop vs single item selection) or even worse - have multidrop listing between two inventories.
To be honest its not that Good.
I can see this being very clustered.
putting more columns wont make it better. You would just be looking where is what most of the time.
What is the use of the Lines/Borders? Its in a column already, no need for extra cosmetics.
overall i cant see this in smaller terminals, at all.
Maybe instead of implementing a major change, you could improve the current style, still its really not that bad afterall.
Its a roguelike, less is more.
The only problem i see with the current inventory style in cdda is that when using larger terminal size there is a lot of unused pixel space. its okey in smaller terminal i guess.
3 columns only, left weapons and tools, right food and aid… sorted by usage i guess. Worn is to the right.
Everything is in one page, no scrolling.
this is still pretty bad since i can imagine this in smaller terminal sizes. Maybe if it reverts back to 1&1 columns if there is no space?
Again this would have problems of wasted space if there is less items in inventory. only good for more items.
Also the movement would need an improvement… since right arrow key and all…
I think both our current inventory and your three-column-style IS clustered. I find table-like presentation is much more intuitive.
Lines and borders are for better visuals, the same reason we added separators in item info screen.
Smaller terminals: Worn/wielded column plus three columns visible, other columns are available by scrolling right or left.
Larger terminals: Worn/wielded column plus five or more columns (the more is the width, the more columns are visible).
Nevertheless, I think we just need to try and test this new UI before incorporating.
I find table-like presentation is much more intuitive.
...
Lines and borders are for better visuals, the same reason we added separators in item info screen.
yeah thats my point, i dont think that would give any eye aid, it will give a even more clustered feeling (in inventory).
separators are a diff thing. they are not a box.
Smaller terminals: Worn/wielded column plus three columns visible, other columns are available by scrolling right or left.
Larger terminals: Worn/wielded column plus five or more columns (the more is the width, the more columns are visible).
the right left thing is odd but i think its the way to go… reminds me of android lol. better than scrolling down.
uhmm yeah where you gonna put the drop list, i think everything beyond 3 columns is overuse and just bad taste of fragmentation. you currently have 2.
( Both of those images have broken bars on the top right - they are intended to look like this: )
Do you two have any opinions of the multicolumn approach as I’d presented, would you prefer the grid instead, or do you think I should just drop this altogether?
No need to add second column for 80x24. My proposition is to show an extra column for each 30 symbols (in too of 80, what is min width), so 80x24 will stay unchanged, 110x24 will get one extra column, 140x24 - 2 columns, etc.
I’m not sure in number 30, it’s better to test it and see what number works better.
BTW, it’s probably language depended, 30 symbols may be not enough for German but too much for Chinese.
