Re: [Rails-devel] Another train-buying related bug

[Erik V. <eri...@hc...>]

So, a few suggestions for improvement in the Report Window.

1) It always opens to the top of the file. You have to scroll to the bottom
to begin.
 
Done. Next version will scroll down on reload.
 
2) There is no indication of when your own last action occurred.  You have
to scroll up, reading the text, to find an indication of what is "new."  In
PBEM, you get this information in packets of text as each company operates,
and it isn't mashed together with everything else that happened the entire
game.
 
Of course, but Rails is not specifically tailored for PBEM yet. The Report
window is a complete report (I plan to add Save and Print buttons to it)
that by nature contains everything.
 
3) Judicious use of bold and spacing would make it much easier to read.
Right now, each OR is one long string of text with only line breaks. It's
hard to see at a glance where a set of actions begins and ends.  We could
also use highlighting for particularly important actions - train purchases
in red, private purchases in yellow, etc.
 
What do you call a "set of actions"? A player turn?
 
4) In every PBEM I've ever played, we rely heavily on the spreadsheet to
give us at-a-glance information, which is nowhere near as accessible in the
text, whether that text is in the various emails or in the Rails Report
Window.
 
And? I what ways is such a spreadsheet different from what you see in the
Rails screens?
BTW as regards contents, the Rails UI is strongly inspired by Lemmi's
moderator.
 
5) In every PBEM I have ever played, there is a "replay" mode (Vassal and
CyberBoard both have this) where you can watch what happened since your last
turn.  This gives you visual indications of which tiles have been laid, what
movements occurred on the stock market, etc.
 
You have Undo/Redo to play with if you want. A feature to slowly replay from
the start or some other point would not be unthinkable.
 
To be honest, the combination of 4 and 5 means that I virtually never read
the text summaries that are sent in PBEM games.  They are only used (by me)
for debugging when there are problems.  I can almost always assess the
situation at a glance by watching the replay and glancing at the
spreadsheet.
 
Well, you sure have raised some food for thought.
 
p.s. it is very well documented that tables and graphics are easier to
assess "at a glance" than text.  In almost every case in Rails, perhaps with
the exception of stock round purchases, tables and graphics win out in the
usability question over text logs by a mile and a half.

Sure, but the UI is mainly intended to show the current status, whereas the
Report has the history. That's the way it is for now... 
 
Erik.