#[DONE] Rearrange Briefing Room LayoutE

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

novel plover
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The "current assignments" section of the briefing room (bottom right) whenever it has a scroll bar has a visual glitch where the text smears and I have to click on every single unit to get it to refresh so i can read it.

The real estate on this tab is also weirdly distributed I find. The things used most are the ones in the worst placement or poor area. The tutorial text that is at center could be shifted to the help database, or at least shifted to the right panel.

The scenario brief is probably the most important part of this screen and its crammed to the right. Dragging that pane to be wider doesn't help because the inner panel is static width. Placing it center would be nice.

The scenario list at bottom becomes a pain anytime you reach more than a dozen scenarios in a contract. there are two overlapping scroll bars and it can be frustrating fiddling to try to figure out which one I need to scroll this time.

Several possible solutions I can think of:
A) remove tutorial panel, shift scenario list into center space. shift deployment req and current assignments under contract details. this gives us general info on left, scenario in middle, and detailed info on right, has a natural flow.
B) remove tutorial, move briefing into its spot in center. scenario table into briefing spot on right, and deployments under contract info on left. puts primary info front and center with supporting data to either side.
C) (the most ambitious one) depending on your monitor size and resolution there is significant unused real estate on the AO panel. Shift deployment to AO panel, remove tutorial and replace with scenario list. Moves deployment info to be where it is most likely needed for reference ( I constantly have to swap back and forth to check since I deploy from the map), removes double scroll bare and provides more space for scenario list.

short finch
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I'll need a screenshot showing this issue

novel plover
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relatively minor example, it was nice and only messed up one line this time

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and here is the fix

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short finch
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Ok, so that's actually a Java issue and not something we can fix

novel plover
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ahh, that shouldnt suprise me

short finch
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You might remember, a ways back, where the personnel logs used to do a similar thing

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(in fact they still do, we just obfuscate the issue by having the logs be smaller and collapsed by default)

novel plover
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if they did i forgot, but my megamek client has done similar with the buttons at the bottom for as long as i can remember, i have to resize the window to fix

short finch
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Yeah, resizing forces it to redraw

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[JAVA BUG] Briefing room visual real estate and bug

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As this isn't something we can really fix, I'm going to go ahead and close this thread. All good with you @novel plover?

novel plover
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I certainly agree with dropping the bug, the rest of the post was about reorganizing the information in the briefing room. I still think that's pertinent? unless that's outside the scope of what you are doing?

short finch
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That might be out of scope, I really need some kind of visual aid as I’m not wholly sure I follow

novel plover
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let me see what i can scrape together if you dont mind my abhorent art skills

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Alternative suggestion A

Briefing_room_A.jpg
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Alternative suggestion B

Briefing_room_B.jpg
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Alternative suggestion C, with the deployment section missing as it has been moved to the area of operations screen

Briefing_room_C.jpg
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I realize now that A and B are not so different as I originally pictured

short finch
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Rearrange Briefing Room Layout

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This is a really intriguing idea

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I can’t say how easy it’ll be to do, these older tabs are a bit of a struggle bus to work with

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But I definitely like the idea

novel plover
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totally get if its out of scope or not worth the effort. it just has seemed to me for a while that the things that are important/used most, and the things that have the space are not in alignment.

I know there are other bumps I run into in the software, but I'm struggling to find them, I have gotten so used to my little accommodations and workarounds I don't notice them anymore lol

short finch
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I think it’s worth the effort, just going to depend on how much work it takes

novel plover
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Appreciate the consideration 🙂

graceful furnace
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I would be happy to tackle this one @short finch if you want, this seems just UI re-org so that fits me pretty well.

short finch
graceful furnace
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I'll finish my current bug and then work on this. @novel plover if you have more mockups, let me know. Once I have some screens I'll share here to discuss.

short finch
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We actually have someone who likes gui work!?

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Nobody pinch me, I want to stay asleep

graceful furnace
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I'm a front end dev most of my time, so I do a lot of GUI work 😄

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(although, I work with designers, they do most of the real work, I just implement it :D)

short finch
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Trust me, you're going to make friends around here

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We're all backend devs that get pressganged into frontend

graceful furnace
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Lol

short finch
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It's why, if you look at any of my gui work, it's... shoddy, to say the least.

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I had to teach myself Swing and AWT because there was nobody else to do what I needed done

graceful furnace
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Well, happy to pitch on those 🙂 I think I fit better on things that are not rules related, as I have pretty much all the books, but I haven't read a lot of the latest books. So GUI work or similar stuff works well for me on that regard.

novel plover
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oh man, careful what you say. cause I have a TON of opinions on the MHQ UI and menu layouts etc. 😛 i could quickly become your best friend and your worst nightmare 😛 if i dont limit myself 😛

graceful furnace
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Looking forward to those opinions 😄 But I'm much slower tha Illiani doing work, so you are going to have to have patience 😄

novel plover
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hey, if your volunteering, im happy just to have the opportunity for the discussion. pretty sure Illiani is in a class of her own 😉

we all volunteer what time and effort we can. My problem is lots of technical knowledge and training, but zero coding skills :/ (and admittedly too many projects and not enough time) I've tried to keep myself to bug reporting for the most part

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anyway, what im trying to say is, your time frame, whatever it is, is appreciated just for being offered

graceful furnace
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Appreciated! Thanks to you too for the bug reports and the UI ideas 🙂

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I'll see if I can have some mockup today or tomorrow

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Do you have a saved game you want to share with some missions that we can use to discuss?

novel plover
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let me see what i can put together... I can try to have something by the time you have the mock up ready

graceful furnace
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Thanks!

graceful furnace
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Ok, some ideas. Things are read left to right (contract, scenario, details). Scenarios can be filtered.

Then also 3 tabs (main tab for the overview), assigments, and a history tab.

Briefing1.png Briefing2.png Briefing3.png
novel plover
novel plover
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let me know how you want to do this. if we wanted to dedicate some sit down time to talk I'm free 530 to 7pm est today. tomorrow I will be free starting later, but for longer

graceful furnace
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let me download your campaign and I can send you a screenshot with your campaign on the mockup

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About talking, I think Friday would be best (I have the day off).

graceful furnace
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For that save, that's how it looks like.

image.png image.png image.png
short finch
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OH HELLS YES

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I don't know who 'Daniel' is, but I admire they have a whole planetary assault 😄

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Is something being cut off at the bottom, there? -gestures to white dot under the 5-

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graceful furnace
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mmm, weird, i left a ' somewhere

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i'm thinking the middle area of active scenarios, with so much space, even with a big list (it could have a scroll), maybe do something with the way you assign forces to scenarios

short finch
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Mind if I tease these changes on stream?

graceful furnace
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Not at all! 🙂

mild oasis
graceful furnace
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Interesting, thanks 🙂

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At some point we may need some type of new tab, like Force Overview or whatever, that shows the different systems the force has assets (so where you have your main base, where you have part of your force in a contract...). Most people will only have one system (their force is all in a single place), but as forces go bigger it would be useful to track all of that.

novel plover
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I do work friday, but can do Friday evening if that's good for you. my only other plans were to catch illiani's stream agian

I will give it a more thorough look Tonight, first glance though I think we are moving in the right direction, but can see some room for adjustments. most notably, if we spilt the history off, then we don't need the extra space for the active as well, half the screen for what even for a large org would be maybe 6 lines.

I'll take a look at the PR as well, would be good if we could make this layout "upgrade ready"

mild oasis
novel plover
graceful furnace
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I can share a branch with you one sec (still WIP, so things may be broken! :D)

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that's the draft

mild oasis
# graceful furnace that's the draft

are you able to add / remove labels ? There's an additional draft label, though, I still do what you did and title it [DRAFT] like you did [DO NOT REVIEW] because I've had people miss the label & that it's in draft state... Anyway, i added the draft label to your PR. If you're unable to remove it when it's ready for review, please @ me

graceful furnace
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i can add and remove labels

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my work uses Do not review all the time, so I did the same 😄

short finch
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Similar to Campaign Options IIC, but less... insane

novel plover
# short finch Could we make the TO&E into a sub-tabbed page. So you hit the Organization tab a...

I imagine depending on how psiko is implementing things TO&E orgs would be the object that you would use to send something to a different location (i.e. force x and all child forces assigned to contract 2, begin travel to contract 2 planet) in which case, you would effectively have the master TO&E, and then the local TO&E for each disparate location. If thats the case sub tabbing could be viable, but there might be a better alternatives.

short finch
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I have no idea. I am more than happy for Psi to do whatever Psi wants to do

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They’ve proven themselves more times than I care to remember

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(Not that I have any supreme authority over MekHQ changes, mind, but rather that I’ve learned that if you leave Psi alone amazing things happen)

novel plover
graceful furnace
short finch
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Would have mentioned earlier, but stream overran due to :reasons: so only now getting a moment to myself

graceful furnace
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I wish I could have joined but work is pretty intense :S

novel plover
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sadly i cant make any of the daytime ones either for the same reason

graceful furnace
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Glad to hear they were well received 🙂

novel plover
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glad they are excited 🙂

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just had my local graphic design teacher (fiancé) take a look. Think we have some good ideas to build on it further, depending on what is realistic with Java and its GUI limitations

graceful furnace
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Limitations is too generous for Swing :p

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Its more like what could a 5 year old do, and that’s swing :p

novel plover
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lol

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im working on writing up our thoughts, comments and questions now

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oh, alitar, what resolution screen do you have?

short finch
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Swing is better than AWT, but that really isn’t a high bar

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I would love if we could move to JavaFX but that’s really not on the books

graceful furnace
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I have several monitors, but all 4k.

novel plover
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interesting, because it seems like you have less screen real estate than my 1080p, i was expecting a smaller res

graceful furnace
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That’s the laptop, so 4k in a 15.6” screen, so windows is probably at 200% at least

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(I’ll check later the exact number)

graceful furnace
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But looking forward to see your ideas/suggestions, even if Swing can’t do some of them, they can inspire other alternatives

proud pawn
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In my humble opinion, I think the assignments should be connected to the "active" part of the mission, not separated into another tab. But I don't usually have large campaigns, so my list is not very busy.

I do like Illiani's idea of putting the ToE and the assignments together. That would make a lot of sense, both being the strategic part of asset management.

graceful furnace
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I think the ToE should show assigments and locations (once that's in), but not sure it should be the place to perform assignments. I think Briefing is more natural for that.

But I see the point of having assigments separated from the main tab. There's a lot of empty space in the middle that maybe could be resused.

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Going to wait to BczRetribution notes before doing more changes, I'm sure this page is going to see a few more versions 😄

graceful furnace
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I lied, small change to test filling the space of the middle column.

image.png
novel plover
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had some things compete for my time last night. will wrap them up when I get home from work tonight, asap

ornate kelp
short finch
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I concur, looks like the contractual terms are nested inside a roundedlineborder which is inside another

novel plover
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ok, comments with visuals found here. commenting is enabled

graceful furnace
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I'll look tonight, thank you!

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Red rectangle- What options does this filter drop down have? It seems like this panel is built to only show active, but then is also filtered for active?

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That is a filter, if you play with the branch you should see it filtering by different options.

novel plover
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im not sure how to dl the branch lol

graceful furnace
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oh, yeah, you would need to clone my fork, then setup the branch then run from the code

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I assumed you were a dev, my bad 🙁

novel plover
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nope lol, definately not equipped for that 😛

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np

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the main point/question for that one, is from what i could tell on the screen at least the filter seems redundant to the splitting of the scenarios between the 2 locations

proud pawn
# novel plover https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ip56qRmef2FAXCap-ua84DaVPXPLjnfsvq48VW59h-Q/...

Good analysis. I think the assignments going below contract information is a good fit. If no one makes edits to it, it's basically a static size, and the assignments fit right below, releasing space for the current scenario information. (as an aside, I would like to request this particular window to remain a static size, and if anything is added to the description via "edit mission", a scroll should be used. I edit the mission panel to add things like material and personnel losses, and that tends to push everything down. Just a thought.)
I also agree with the tabs and buttons. They are very inefficient in space use. I'm sure that some people have much more monitor real estate to use, but even so, it just wastes space. Case in point, having a tab on what is already a game tab just to show one thing sounds silly.
The asignments going to AO is also a good option, but then the entire tab would need revision. Maybe something for later, like it was stated.

short finch
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@graceful furnace you have a branch, right? I mean to say one you’ve pushed changes to the repo with?

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Any time someone Pushes to the repo an artifact is created, that artifact can be downloaded just like a Nightly

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Not super efficient, but I’ve used the artifacts in the past to get people to test things

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Would be an easy option here

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You can find the artifact in the Actions tab of the repo - same place you go for Nightlies

novel plover
short finch
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Gimme a sec

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Was about to start eating and my cat is determined to steal my chicken

novel plover
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I know that battle!

short finch
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This is their most recent artifact

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Downloads are at the bottom.

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Note

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This is the last time Alitar pushes to the repo, it is not necessarily their most recent update

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But lemme show you where to find it in future

novel plover
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and thanks :/ i really am programming incompetent, I just have been around enough programmers long enough to fake it pretty well. I can talk the talk, but my walk ...

short finch
graceful furnace
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I'm a little on the fence about putting things under contract information. If something is there and your screen is too small, you need to scroll down to find there is something else not related to the contract information. In the mission information, you are already in the context of the mission so scrolling to read is more natural.

But maybe if the top buttons take less space, that can help on both issues. It seems from your comments the main piece of content you want to read comfortably is actually the mission information.

short finch
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So what you're looking for is the name of the PR, in this example I'm using my most recent PR. And then you're looking for the version that has Gradle under the PR name. Open that, scroll to the bottom, voila a test artifact

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Don't use test artifacts for general gameplay

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You will suffer

graceful furnace
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yes please do not use this to play

novel plover
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assumed as much 🙂

short finch
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And again. The artifact is built from the last time Alitar pushed to the repo not necessarily the most recent changes they have made

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No push to repo

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No test artifact

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Each time they push to the repo a new test artifact will be made, the old ones will not be updated

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And now I return to my chicken dinner

graceful furnace
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This should be the last stuff up: #1505652920979423232 message

novel plover
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I just DLed it, i will play with it in just a moment

novel plover
graceful furnace
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I'll brainstorm something more radical than just move stuff around, maybe I could fake an accordion instead (a collapsable panel).

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So things like the contract information can collapse to free space

novel plover
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... im going to be a while longer before I can test, have to update my java, and I am not in an easy position to reboot right now :/

graceful furnace
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No worries, I read your comments and I think I get the idea of what you and Lisbon are pointing at. I don't know if just hacking the current UI will get us there to be honest.

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I will probably not be able to do much today, super busy.

proud pawn
graceful furnace
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So if you have more feedback after trying it, welcomed.

graceful furnace
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that way we free vertical space, and also horizontal space if you don't want to see all at once

novel plover
graceful furnace
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Btw, I won't be able to chat Friday evening sadly 🙁 Got family plans.

novel plover
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ok, that means I can make illianis stream then most likely 🙂 and we can continue the back and forth or set up another time if needed

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agian, appreciate all the help and support, happy to fit your schedule and needs

graceful furnace
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Thanks! I will prototype if I can some more radical changes, using your document as a guide. But please play with it and tell me if you find more issues!

novel plover
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jsut finished the 2nd restart for Java, trying to boot it up now

novel plover
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Ok, gotten to play with it a bit. First off, the variable width on the scenario description panel makes a huge difference by itself, the power to choose how much space that section gets is up to the user now which makes that much easier.

The addition of the 2nd resizing bar between the 1st and 2nd third does make resizing do some weird things, but does also give the user more personalization control. It may also in effect achieve the accordion trick you were thinking of, because we can use the arrows to just hide any section we don't want away. May just have to try and and let players tell us if the pros outweigh the cons or vice versa. BCZ the player thinks I can get used to the weird sizing issues, but the power to have full control over the space so I can shift and change it on the fly to fit my use moment to moment will be a very nice QoL.

I see what you are doing with the filters now. On the history tab I don't see much use for it as there isn't enough variety that the same problem isn't easily solved with just a column sort (only win, draw, or lose). On the Active list, it comes back to even for large campaigns there generally are not enough active scenarios at one time to need to be able to filter. My thought would still be to recombine the history tab back into the main tab. Keep the filter but change it to have the options {All, Active, Resolved} we could add {Unassigned} as well, as that is the one thing that can't be easily solved with a sort (50.12 already sorts priority items above the rest of the list). Edit: Another thought just occurred to me, we don't need that much space for that filter drop down, could we add a 2nd next to it? My first preference would be the 2nd filter allow a user to filter by sector since we can't easily sort that column with the grid info in it. (I am guessing being able to set up a start and end date filter would be much more of a pain in the a**)

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The new selected scenario readiness, with all the information already present in other formats on this screen and the buttons also all doing actions already accessible from this screen, not sure I see the benefit of this, but open to changing my opinion.

novel plover
# proud pawn In my humble opinion, I think the assignments should be connected to the "active...

Going back and reviewing the chat, I reread this comment and it made me think that maybe I'm overlooking some better options out of reflex to keep the same systems/structures and just move them around...

With the stratcon map now being a thing, listing the active scenarios in the table is redundant data to them being shown on the map. If selecting the scenario on the map provided the additional details, there wouldn't be a need for the table maybe?

ok, let me think through the cons:

  1. Loss of historical preservation? Without a table to store completed scenarios in.
  2. How would use cases of MHQ without stratcon be handled? Two different tabs depending on if stratcon is activated? May be a two specialized solution, loses benefit of commonality among users.

This is probably something to wait for Illiani to weight in on.

spare gorge
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The stratcon map is not used by everyone is also a consideration

novel plover
proud pawn
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Losing history is a big thing, I would say. Not all missions/scenarios are memorable, but some are, and having them be lost to the aether would be a negative.

novel plover
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Yea I don't like that either. That one might be fixable another way though, we may be able to engineer around that problem...

First idea that comes to mind is maybe an archives button so it pops up a new window to look back through the records, that way it isn't taking up main real estate. Probably some better ways if we keep playing with the idea.

proud pawn
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Since apparently there will be extra tabs, there could be an Archive/History tab, where all past missions and scenarios would available to peruse, leaving the active one (and all the buttons, sliders, drop-dows associated with it) alone in its own UI area.

graceful furnace
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Right now all the history is in an extra tab (or I am not understanding that part).

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But tabs are just an idea, I'm not married to tabs at all

graceful furnace
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Another example of freeing more space on the mission description.

image.png
graceful furnace
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Ok, I think this is where things are for today.

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graceful furnace
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I lied again, I'm going to bed now 😄

image.png
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i pushed the branch again so hopefully that generates a build an artifacts again

graceful furnace
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This is another exploration, trying to take more advantage that we already use FlatLaf for our themeing. So instead of so many custom rounded stuff and borders, just use more FlatLaf defaults for styling and information presentation.

I think something along these lines is interesting, but it has big issues:

  • This screen now looks different from the rest of the suite.
  • We can't do this in one go, it's too much work.
  • We risk me winning the lottery and disappearing from the project and then having half UI with current style, half UI in FlatLaf. One minimization to this risk is that I am just removing custom styles here and letting FlatLaf defaults take over, so it's something other people could easily do too.
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@short finch @timid raft I'm particularly interested in your take here.

timid raft
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First off, anything is an improvement at this point. My take on the screen looking different from the rest of the suite is pretty simple: it’s a starting point for future changes. So the visual mismatch doesn’t really bother me.

What does concern me is not being able to change everything in one go. Not because someone might leave the project, but because it turns into a long, drawn‑out process across multiple releases. That increases the chances of conflicts and other issues popping up. For the record, I’m fully comfortable with using FlatLaf as the main style.

In the last screenshot, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something in the middle feels off. The structure comes across as cluttered somehow. It might be the two large columns of text framing what’s basically empty space

This is the one that appeals to me the most - #1505652920979423232 message

proud pawn
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What feels off is the lack of a bounding box. Makes everything look like it occupies the same space, making it feel messy.

spare gorge
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I am still looking at the buttons on the bottom and I feel like they should be on the top, but I can't exactly place my finger on why.

graceful furnace
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I think the clutter is because no spacing between the columns, I want to try that before I try putting boxes again around. And also try with backgrounds colors to separate (like for example discord does between the chat list and the main type area, it's a very subtle background color change)

graceful furnace
graceful furnace
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I'll try to do another pass tonight with more changes

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What do people feel about the Selected scenario buttons? Realistically the only useful one is Deploy, the others are just links to other UI items, so they feel like something that could be removed.

short finch
short finch
novel plover
short finch
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Oh herpy mcderpderp

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I think those can get nixed, yeah

novel plover
graceful furnace
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Yeah, I think those are unneeded too. That means deploy could maybe be merged with the bottom section to simplify that area.

short finch
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I wouldn't be against just having the panel Retribution highlighted just be one big 'Deploy' button

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Big button == exciting button

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Actually, ignore me

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Ignore me entirely

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I mistook 'deploy' for 'start scenario'

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It's been a long day at the long days factory and my brain is a tad fried

novel plover
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maybe reorder them

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short finch
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That's the void where my free time lives 😛

graceful furnace
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yeah, i was thinking that button section could be reorganizede

graceful furnace
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Adding vertical separators, more spacing between each section, the headers of each section are slightly bigger and with more space around them, and I have consolidated the scenario buttons.

short finch
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I do still thing RoundedLineBoarder should be used, to keep the tab using the current ui style used elsewhere in MekHQ

graceful furnace
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This border, right?

596514600-1d28a1f3-543d-4a4d-b48c-b9a663105f5c.png
short finch
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Yeah

graceful furnace
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i hate that thing so much 😄

short finch
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😄

graceful furnace
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but I can put it back yeah 😄

short finch
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Any particular motivation behind the hate?

graceful furnace
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it's really busy, like it's way too blunt to achieve separation

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is like you need something subtle to separate things, and this this is screaming at me: LOOK IM SEPARATING THINGS!

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but that's me 😄

short finch
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😄

graceful furnace
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i can totally put it back

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i wanted to investigate more other separators with flatlaf

short finch
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Honestly, roundedline was the best I could do. I don't doubt you could do something better.

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My main thing is making sure that the gui remains using a consistent style, where possible. So we're not going back to the 'bad old days' where every piece of gui had a different look and feel based on the whims of the developer.

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Now, to be clear, totally open to that style changing

graceful furnace
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but i don't think i can do much better than the last screenshot

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you also want rounded buttons back?

short finch
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No, I like yours

graceful furnace
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(I am happy to work little by little on all the UI, but yeah, there's the risk of me winning the lottery)

short finch
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I'm not a huge fan of RoundedJButton, even if I was the one who made it

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It's too... round

graceful furnace
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😄

short finch
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I can't think of a better way to put it

graceful furnace
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sorry if I was too harsh about the rounded border box :S

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my bad

short finch
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No, no, you're good

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No apologies necessary

graceful furnace
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let me do the last screenshot, but with the roudned border back

short finch
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When it comes to gui work I'm like a monkey bashing stones together, sure I might make fire from time to time, but that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing

graceful furnace
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i mean, i'm not like very good, i do ui work, but i have designers who do the real work, i just put their designs in the screen 😄

short finch
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You'll have to excuse me it's 00:30-local and I've been working since about 07:30. But I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm open to overhauling the look and feel of MekHQ. I just want things to be consistent so we don't have conflicting styles.

graceful furnace
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no probs 🙂

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this is just explorations

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it's just doing all of this in one go is not realistic for me, so we would need to accept it's little by little

short finch
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Yeah, for sure

graceful furnace
#

or just not do any style changes, and just reorganize this area

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that's another possibility

short finch
#

I think, I have to accept that you know what you're doing and cede to your experience. In short, do what you think is best. I'll back you 🙂

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And if that means getting rid of rounded borders, go for it 🙂

graceful furnace
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lol

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you'll have a screenshot for you tomorrow with those back, but with the other changes

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and we can keep talking 🙂

short finch
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Hexagonal borders are the future 😄

graceful furnace
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i mean hexes are the superior shape 😄

short finch
#

The superior circle 😄

graceful furnace
#

lol

short finch
#

But yeah, I'm taking myself to bed. Catch you on the morrow

graceful furnace
graceful furnace
graceful furnace
#

Rounded containers 🙂

image.png
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still kept giving a little more spacing to a few things like the separators and the top

novel plover
#

y'all are up way too late for my blood

mild oasis
#

GUI / UI / UX changes.

I have a request about adding a dropdown to the header (where it has the different tabs listed, the selected value should nearly ALWAYS be visible to the user hence why my mind went there).

Is this thread just for "Briefing Room" or is this the approtiate place to ask about it?

Thanks!

novel plover
timid raft
novel plover
# graceful furnace Rounded containers 🙂

I'll have time tonight to play with your most recent version. not sure I have a strong weigh in either way on rounded corners or not, but I'll try to have some other thoughts shared when you get back

proud pawn
# graceful furnace Rounded containers 🙂

While I agree that the rounded containers steal a bit of space, for the vast majority of folks, it's just a fraction of pixels, and (subjectively, of course) gives a tidier presentation.
I also like these types of headers very much. The line intersecting the middle of the font is pleasing to me.
Also also, I agree with Illiani on the rounded buttons. These more muted corners are better for the overall feel of the UI. Less..."cartoonish", I would say.

short finch
#

Also, on the topic of buttons, any chance you could show your button look & feel magic? I wanna steals it

proud pawn
graceful furnace
# proud pawn I'm curious about your current plans for the assignments. Like I said before, a ...

I have no plans right now! I don't know how to fit those in the first tab so far, which already has a million things. They could maybe fit in the middle column (as we are never going to fill that table with scenarios so you can argue we have some space there), but then that column becomes a little of a random box of things. I feel assignments is something you don't change a lot so a secondary tab fits with that.

But I am super open to ideas if you have any because I have zero right now 😄

proud pawn
#

How about my previous idea of putting two tabs on the right side? One for the scenario briefing as is, the other for the assignments? Still in the briefing tab, but behind a click, fitting for something not always being changed. It would also keep other pertinent information visible, mainly, current scenarios and the mission briefing.

graceful furnace
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So having tabs on the right column?

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I can probably mock that up, I feel a little not sure about subtabs, but should be easy to do a test

proud pawn
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The ToE already has similar tabs like that.

graceful furnace
#

you think seeing the assigments while you see the contract and active scenarios is useful?

proud pawn
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Just not sure how they should look. Being on the same level as the Overview, etc...feel a bit off.

graceful furnace
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like in the end is a tab, we are talking just were to put the tab, so it depends i think on the context we want to have when we look at assignments

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the current solution gives you zero context

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your idea gives you the contract/scenarios as context

proud pawn
#

I usually have the current scenarios and the ToE in mind when messing around with the assignments. Granted, I tend to have smaller forces that end up being shuffled around a bit at times.

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But yes, where the assignments go depend on the context we want to give them.

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Lets see what others have to say. Different players play differently.

graceful furnace
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I will try to have a mock for your idea at some point this weekend, it should not take long but I have a ton of stuff going on 😄

graceful furnace
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NIce thing is we can move little by little out of custom controls and just let FlatLaf do the work for us.

graceful furnace
#

Merged the top level tabs to test:

  • Assignments goes to the right column.
  • History is just a filter in the middle, to give it more space, buttons are hidden when you select Resolved.
image.png image.png image.png
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Now I really need to stop playing with MekHQ and do other stuff 😄

neon light
#

Looking good!

novel plover
novel plover
# graceful furnace like in the end is a tab, we are talking just were to put the tab, so it depends...

I just had a wild idea, what if we made it a 4th vertically separated panel? With the arrows allowing us to collapse or expand those, players can pop it out when they need it and collapse it back when they don't. it become less of a space issue because players can choose to collapse something else as needed to make space. This has the added benefit of building upon the existing interface plans, rather than adding a new control layer/mechanism.

(the wild part is that the space I think is set to really manage 3 panels at max, but we are putting in 4, so technically designing it to be used with at least one panel almost always collapsed)

image.png
proud pawn
novel plover
proud pawn
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I think if at any time you need to explain the UI, then the UI is not well designed.

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Some leeway, with complex programs/games full of moving parts, but you get the idea.

novel plover
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I'm assuming it would default to starting with all (4) panels open, so you would know where it is and wouldn't have to go hunting for it. I guess the challenge is if people would realize they don't have to keep them all open all the time?

proud pawn
novel plover
#

and my second thought of where to put it (area of operations tab) causes problems if people don't use stratcon.

proud pawn
#

Yeah. The 4 panels would work very well on a ultra wide, but in a 16:9 would be a bit cramped.

proud pawn
novel plover
proud pawn
#

I also have this idea to create a "History" tab where past scenarios, but also past missions would be put for a commander to check and edit, add notes, delete if wanted, but it might be just a bit too extra.

novel plover
graceful furnace
graceful furnace
novel plover
novel plover
graceful furnace
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agreed, i think all that points that making a 4th column it's a hard problem to solve

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either we hide it and people won't find it, or we show it and all columns look too tigt

novel plover
graceful furnace
#

I was wondering, with the last screenshots, how are people feeling? Like is that an improvement compared to today?

I ask because we can keep tweaking this screen, or maybe this is already good enough, and instead of making small incremental gains here, it makes more sense to go to a different screen.

proud pawn
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It's a definite improvement over the original.

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The main issues (assignments, active scenarios) are, I think, solved.

novel plover
short finch
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Eh, I think it’s probably fine. I don’t think people read it anyway 😄

novel plover
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I read it... the first time

short finch
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I wouldn’t be averse to moving it to the glossary

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Adding glossary entries is super easy:

  • add an enum to GlossaryEntry.java
  • add the text to GlossaryEntry.resources
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Voila

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Uno glossaru enteru

graceful furnace
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I thought I had already moved it? But I’ll check later, I haven’t look at regular mekhq in a while 😄

novel plover
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oh you likely did and I missed it, thats my bad

graceful furnace
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Yeah, confirmed, it's the StratCon Scenarios link

image.png
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so I didn't lost it 😄

short finch
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Perfect

graceful furnace
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Do you want me to clean the draft PR Illiani to prep it for publishing?

short finch
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Sure thing 🙂

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The weekends are my 'casual dev' instead of 'manic dev' days, so I can easily slip in a review. Get it merged and all that jazz

graceful furnace
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I will try to aim for Sunday. Today I have dinner plans, so I will use Saturday for cleaning the branch, and then Sunday I can probably have it out for review.

short finch
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Sounds perfect

novel plover
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thank you so much for doing this!!

graceful furnace
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Thanks for all the feedback and ideas!

proud pawn
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And thank you for putting them to practice! Or they would always be just ideas.

short finch
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@graceful furnace is this good for review, or still in draft? 🙂

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I'm finding myself between jobs so was thinking I'd give it a lookover now

graceful furnace
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sorry still in draft, I am going to work on it now

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i had boardgames morning 😄

short finch
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no, no, you're all good. I'll just review tomorrow, instead

graceful furnace
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i'll ping you as soon as I think it's ready

graceful furnace
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@short finch I'm done testing, I have published the PR. I'll keep an eye for the automatic review comments and then yours.

graceful furnace
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i'll go through the comments today 🙂

novel plover
#

welp with this wrapping up, guess ill get back to automating the industrial tycoons handbook in excel

mild oasis
novel plover
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I had a whole rant about it the other day after i first looked through it, for different reasons though.

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once I get a working model, I will probably cross reference with cam ops to see if i can "cannonize" it a bit better

graceful furnace
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This is merged! Thanks for all the ideas and feedback.

short finch
#

[DONE] Rearrange Briefing Room LayoutE

short finch
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Right now it doesn't seem possible to view all scenarios in a given contract

graceful furnace
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both active and resolved?

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I could add that yeah, it's just another filter, super simple to add.

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I'll do that tonight

novel plover
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probably should be set as the default too

pseudo jewel
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yeah that was me asking, and indeed it would be nice as default

graceful furnace
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I'm curious, why is that more useful than Active ones as the default?

pseudo jewel
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i personally find a full overview more useful

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though that is probably taste

short finch
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It’s definitely going to fall under a “it’s always worked like that” category

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I do agree active should be the default imo

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But so long as people can go back to how things were (ie showing all) I think it’ll be fine

graceful furnace
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Yeah, my bad I removed that one 🙂 The PR will be out tonight (after work).

novel plover
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I think it's the same issue as why my idea for 4 panels but one collapsed was an issue. if you do active only as default users are going to be confused when things disappear. defaulting all let's them know everything they have and then let's the user choose what they want to see

pseudo jewel
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i started playing mekhq again for the first time in years, and i was indeed initially confused

novel plover
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in other words it's not default because it's most useful, its default because it's the starting point

novel plover
pseudo jewel
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yes

novel plover
#

since you were away for a while, I'd love to know your thoughts on the change to the briefing room (other than the above mentioned confusion)

pseudo jewel
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that is one of the reasons i downloaded the nightly, it is much better

graceful furnace
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Makes me happy to hear that 🙂

novel plover
#

anything in particular that stands out?

pseudo jewel
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well it is much less cluttered for one

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it makes much more sense having the overview on the left, scenario in the middle and scenario info on the rigth. A more natural flow.

novel plover
#

thasnks for sharing 🙂

short finch
#

Yeah, I was a MekHQ player (technically MegaMek) before I was a dev. As a player the new briefing room is a massive improvement

pseudo jewel
#

There seems to be a bug breaking the briefing room ui when certain forces are expanded (details pane)

I was writing a bug report on github but it says to ask on discord first.

I am unable to replicate it on the other scenario, but for the atmosphere interception one it happens if i expand "Hydra Wing", "Pirate OpFor" and one of the others. Those two have to be expanded for it to occour.

@graceful furnace

graceful furnace
#

Can you share a campaign save and muls with me?

pseudo jewel
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muls?

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those in the log folder?

novel plover
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if you click the report a bug button ion the top right near advance day, that should provide a zip with everything needed (most likely)

pseudo jewel
graceful furnace
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i'll look at this today, thank you for reporting

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(and do the All filter too and set is default)

graceful furnace
graceful furnace
mild oasis
graceful furnace
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ooooh, nice 🙂

pseudo jewel
graceful furnace
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🙁

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i'll try more

pseudo jewel
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I have another save where it happens to two battles

graceful furnace
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so weirrd

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can you share?

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is just that the layout does something weird, no?

pseudo jewel
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yeah the layout breaks and the forces disappear. For these two it happens as soon as i click on one, and when i expand the forces on the other

short finch
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Are they maybe occupying the same x/y position?

short finch
pseudo jewel
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no seems to only the the briefing window

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hmm it seems to be a resolution issue, if i make the window smaller it doesnt happen

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or maybe not, now it just stopped happening

graceful furnace
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the best bugs...

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so sometimes when you expand, the forces at the bottom disappear, right?

pseudo jewel
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nvm, it happened again when i go full screen

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yeah

graceful furnace
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oh, so going full screen on and off on the main app helps repro? let me try

pseudo jewel
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i cant find a good way to replicate it

graceful furnace
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if you are in windows, what's your monitor resolution and zoom level?

pseudo jewel
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1440p.
if you mean windows zoom level its at 100% (none)

neon light
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yeah screen resolution can matter

pseudo jewel
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it does seem to happen consistently if you make the window rather small

short finch
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If you haven’t already

neon light
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and OS zoom level

graceful furnace
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yeah, let me play with that, i only have 4k monitors soooo things are never small

pseudo jewel
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yeah i am not really sure how to replicate it, but changing the window size seems to be the easiest way to replicate it, but it is not consistent

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it did happen regardless of ui scale in mek hq

timid raft
#

This is a long shot but have you tried the visual artifacts fix we have.

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!visual-artifacts

strong patrolBOT
#

BattleTech Visual Distortion Field Calibration
Experiencing graphical glitches or distortions in the heat of your Mech battles? Your MechTech team has some tweaks to realign your HUD:

:hammer_and_wrench: Adjust Your System's Visual Settings:

First Step: Ensure you're using a quality text editor like Notepad++ to make these adjustments. This will help avoid formatting issues that can occur with more basic editors.

Edit the Megamek.l4j.ini and Mekhq.l4j.ini files in your game directory with the following flags, tailored to your system's memory:

For Standard Systems (8-16 Gig):

  • -Xmx2048m -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false
  • Or, use -Xmx2048m -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true for OpenGL support.

For Advanced Systems (16 Gig):

  • -Xmx4096m -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false
  • Or, -Xmx4096m -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true

For High-End Systems (32 Gig):

  • -Xmx8192m -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false
  • Or, -Xmx8192m -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true

UI Scaling Issues?
Some MechWarriors have achieved clarity with -Dsun.java2d.uiScale=1.

:notebook_with_decorative_cover: Instructions:

  1. Locate the .l4j.ini file for MegaMek or MekHQ in your installation folder.
  2. Open it with Notepad++ or another quality text editor.
  3. Add the appropriate flag(s) based on your system's memory.
  4. Save the changes and restart the game.

If distortions persist in your Mech's cockpit, report to your nearest MechTech for further diagnostics. Your contributions help keep the Inner Sphere's technology at the cutting edge!

pseudo jewel
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i can give that a try

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still happens with
-Xmx8192m -Dsun.java2d.d3d=false
-Dsun.java2d.uiScale=1

graceful furnace
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yeah, i can repro, i had to do it super tiny though

pseudo jewel
#

It did happen even maximized for me but it was rather hard to repro

short finch
#

I’m wondering if Swing thinks the panel isn’t on screen so it hides it??

graceful furnace
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no idea 😄 (yet)

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Somehow, swing thinks something has 0 space, so it just removes it

short finch
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No, that tracks

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I’ve encountered that before, I forget the solution

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Not much help I know xD

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I think (emphasis important) that you need to set a generous minimum size

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Also, make sure that whole thing is wrapped in a FastJScrollPane

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FastJScrollPane is our proprietary scroll pane, we should always be using that over JScrollPane

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‘Proprietary’ is generous, it’s just an extender

graceful furnace
timid raft
#

Awesome, Co-pilot feedback is in

graceful furnace
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yeah, good idea using super, i updated

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build is green, i merged

outer coral
#

One minor thing I noticed. The right hand side Deployment Coverage information is repeated in the left hand side panel. However, the information there is not updated when it changes, it only seems to change when the campaign is loaded.

Coverage.png
graceful furnace
#

do you think it should be in both places, or just in one of them? if just one, which one do you think it's more useful?

outer coral
# graceful furnace do you think it should be in both places, or just in one of them? if just one, w...

It should be in the right hand side panel, as that deals with Deployment Coverage. The left hand side is just a bonus. But I think if it's there it should be updated. If that is too much trouble, it's better to remove it.
If you don't meet the Deployment Coverage, you get a message when you advance to the next day. But that message can be disabled ofcourse. So it would be nice if you can see at a glance if you meet the Deployment Coverage when looking at this tab.

Since the Assignments tab is not shown by default, maybe the header could be made red if you fail to meet what is needed for the contract?

This would usually be if you switch the role of a unit, but it could also happen if units from your TOE are lost or when formations are no longer combat formations.

graceful furnace
#

sounds good, i'll keep it in both, make sure it updates

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Btw, I super appreciate all the reports an ideas on how to address them 🙂

graceful furnace
#

Fix is merged.

mild oasis
# novel plover welp with this wrapping up, guess ill get back to automating the industrial tyco...

Btw if you finish this or have anything to share I’d love a copy.

”canonize” it better

A copy of a strict following of the Industrial Tycoons handbook homebrew, and also a copy that’s CO-ified if you get anywhere with that project.

That’s specifically why I’ve avoided looking at the tycoons rules after skimming it - the rules were different enough from CO that I 1. Didn’t want to learn them and confuse them with actual rules and 2. Didn’t want to figure out how to mesh the rules together.

Oh and as a bonus you’ll want to take a look at A Time of War. It has some info that’s useful regarding land ownership.

novel plover
#

I wasn't interested in 100% of what that book did, so I'm currently working on a selective implementation as an Excel tool that will develop new production, handle maintnace rolls etc, and handle tracking of my factories and related finances etc. at least for the core use cases. there are a lot of fringe conditions that will be hard to capture all of them into the automation.

so right now I'm just trying to get something working. once I do I may then try to dig into the cannon material to see how I can adjust and adapt, but that's "phase 2" if you will, as I want to make sure I have a working product first before I try getting fancy.

happy to share it up once I have it. also happy to provide updated versions if or when I add any 'cannonization'. also happy to have discussions if you have any input once I get to that step.

novel plover
graceful furnace
#

I saw messages here and I was like "oh no, what broke???" 😄

short finch
#

So. There’s my complaint

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😄

graceful furnace
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Other screens will get love too! This weekend I should get good dev focused time 🙂

short finch
#

Take your time 🙂