RE: [Rails-devel] M&H

[Brett L. <wak...@ea...>]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Erik Vos <eri...@hc...>
>Sent: Jan 26, 2006 1:01 PM
>To: rai...@li...
>Subject: RE: [Rails-devel] M&H
>
>> >> I think we should do this same sort of thing for the other 
>> >> special abilities, especially the C&StL.  Right now, after a 
>> >> company purchases the C&StL, the UI inexplicably maintains 
>> >> the "Lay Tile" buttons after the lays it's normal tile, and 
>> >> doesn't give any sort of notification that we're allowing for 
>> >> the C&StL tile lay before moving on to laying tokens.
>> >
>> >Yes, I agree, but I have not yet found a good way to do that.
>> >
>> >Perhaps we should add a message line over the full width of the
>> >SR and OR windows in which we can show a one-line message about 
>> >what the player having the turn is supposed to do. Here we could 
>> >also add a reminder about special properties that can be exercised.
>> >
>> 
>> That would be helpful. 
>> 
>> Currently, I think we do just fine with the turn order flow. 
>> There's some minor UI cleanups I want to do, but overall I 
>> think we're doing well enough.  The only exception being that 
>> when we deviate, we need to tell the user why we're altering 
>> the normal turn order.  So, maybe a good thing to add is 
>> changing the text over the UpgradesPanel to indicate we're 
>> allowing for the C&Stl Optional Tile Lay. 
>
>That's also an option.
>In fact, I do not much like the visual appearance of the text 
>and buttons currently in the upgrades panel. I have thought of
>moving (or perhaps duplicating) these buttons to the OR buttons panel.
>It's a bit unfriendly that, if you don't want to lay a tile or
>a token, you have to click in a place far away from the other buttons.


I think the upgradesPanel is a necessary evil for tile upgrades, but not necessary for much else.   I prefer the panel over the 1830pc mechanic of clicking through the options.

We can definitely move the Token placement buttons to the OR Button Panel.

Once we do that, anytime we're not in the "lay tile" phase, we can set the upgradesPanel visibility to false, and just keep it out of the way.

>> I think that, ideally, we should just provide a button for 
>> jumping outside the normal turn order, to activate the 
>> special ability, and then return back to the normal turn 
>> order at the same point we left.
>
>Yes, that would perhaps also have been easier to implement.
>
>> Perhaps rather than a new message line, we should just set 
>> the Title on the JFrame to indicate the current stage of the 
>> turn.  That would be a bit less intrusive.  What do you think?
>
>Yes. And any special messages in the status bar?
>


Sure, or we can use the LogWindow for it.


----Brett