rails-devel

Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4

[kos p. <kos...@gm...>]

java -jar Engine_18XX.jar works, but loading a map 1830 gives an Oops mucked
up the xml path.


>
> Just to repost the link, here's Mark's engine:
>
> http://rails.sourceforge.net/18XX_Engine.Sept_2008.zip
>
> ---Brett
>
>
>
> --------------

Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4

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

As for the Revenue Circles background the same as the tile background, I was
attempting to mimic the way the tiles are drawn on the actual board, which
is white circles. 

Some games do it this way, yes, but others don't (for instance 1830 and
1835).

I will agree that they do appear too large on the default scale of 8 (or
smaller). But I don't think making them the exact tile background color
would work either. I feel the revenue value would be lost.  Maybe some other
neutral color... say maybe a pale blue background might be better. 

Ouch...

I am not sure what you mean by the "for contrast... " statement. 

The idea was to draw a white circle and number on dark tiles (keeping the
background as is). Just an idea. Keeping the tile colours on the light side
is probably better.

As for the over-laps, yes, the City Name overlaps have bothered me. A the
idea of simply having the names on the tool tip would be fine. For the costs
for Terrain features, one update I had not gotten to yet was the currency
symbol.  But yes, the overlaps even without the City Names do happen at a
few points, and to fix those, requires tweaking the placements a bit this
way or that way, which ends up being more a tedious data change, rather than
the fun coding bit... :--)

As for wrapping a name, Yes, it could be done, but may not be worth the
effort. The code is designed to draw the map hex, by hex. And draw the names
as the hex is drawn, rather than after all the hexes are drawn to go back
and plot the names down. But maybe do a combination of the Tool Tip for
Scale < X, and drawn when Scale is >= X is feasible. I shall look at that
option. But do note, when the Scale is increased, the Font Size is current
not increased to match. I was figuring that when I got to that bit, I would
actually look at each scale level, and determine by eye which font size was
best.




On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Erik Vos <eri...@hc...> wrote:


Another suggestion would be to make the background color of the revenue
circles on the tiles equal to the tile color. The current white bg, together
with the relatively large size of these circles, make them look almost like
cities. For instance, in 1835, yellow Berlin almost looks like having three
cities, rather than two.
 
For contrast, it might then be worth considering to turn the back foreground
color into white on darker backgrounds.
 
Work is needed on the correct relative placement of tile elements (name,
cost, other features), as these currently often overlap.
 
Names often extend to outside the map hex. Perhaps wrapping over two lines
should be considered in some cases, or perhaps the names should only appear
on the tooltip, or should only be shown if the map scale is above a certain
threshold.
 
Erik.

Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4

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

On Fri, 2008-10-17 at 21:06 +0200, Erik Vos wrote:
>         On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Erik Vos <eri...@hc...>
>         wrote:
>         
>                 Another suggestion would be to make the background
>                 color of the revenue circles on the tiles equal to the
>                 tile color. The current white bg, together with the
>                 relatively large size of these circles, make them look
>                 almost like cities. For instance, in 1835, yellow
>                 Berlin almost looks like having three cities, rather
>                 than two. 
>                   
>                 For contrast, it might then be worth considering to
>                 turn the back foreground color into white on darker
>                 backgrounds. 
>                   
>                 Work is needed on the correct relative placement of
>                 tile elements (name, cost, other features), as these
>                 currently often overlap. 
>                   
>                 Names often extend to outside the map hex. Perhaps
>                 wrapping over two lines should be considered in some
>                 cases, or perhaps the names should only appear on the
>                 tooltip, or should only be shown if the map scale is
>                 above a certain threshold. 
>                   
>                 Erik. 
>                 
>                 
>                 
>         
>         
>         As for the Revenue Circles background the same as the tile
>         background, I was attempting to mimic the way the tiles are
>         drawn on the actual board, which is white circles. 
> Some games do it this way, yes, but others don't (for instance 1830
> and 1835).
>         I will agree that they do appear too large on the default
>         scale of 8 (or smaller). But I don't think making them the
>         exact tile background color would work either. I feel the
>         revenue value would be lost.  Maybe some other neutral
>         color... say maybe a pale blue background might be better. 
> Ouch...
>         I am not sure what you mean by the "for contrast... "
>         statement. 
> The idea was to draw a white circle and number on dark tiles (keeping
> the background as is). Just an idea. Keeping the tile colours on the
> light side is probably better.
>         As for the over-laps, yes, the City Name overlaps have
>         bothered me. A the idea of simply having the names on the tool
>         tip would be fine. For the costs for Terrain features, one
>         update I had not gotten to yet was the currency symbol.  But
>         yes, the overlaps even without the City Names do happen at a
>         few points, and to fix those, requires tweaking the placements
>         a bit this way or that way, which ends up being more a tedious
>         data change, rather than the fun coding bit... :--)
>         
>         As for wrapping a name, Yes, it could be done, but may not be
>         worth the effort. The code is designed to draw the map hex, by
>         hex. And draw the names as the hex is drawn, rather than after
>         all the hexes are drawn to go back and plot the names down.
>         But maybe do a combination of the Tool Tip for Scale < X, and
>         drawn when Scale is >= X is feasible. I shall look at that
>         option. But do note, when the Scale is increased, the Font
>         Size is current not increased to match. I was figuring that
>         when I got to that bit, I would actually look at each scale
>         level, and determine by eye which font size was best.


These colors probably should just be user-configurable.

Mark's drawing code appears to make that possible. 

Implementing user configurable colors after his code is merged seems
like the easiest path to solving the problem. ;-)

---Brett.

Euch ist bekannt, was wir beduerfen;
Wir wollen stark Getraenke schluerfen.
		-- Goethe, "Faust"

Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4

[Mark S. <mar...@gm...>]

I am going to have to go back and pull out my 1830, and 1835 copies and
examine them. You may indeed be correct, and I was just seeing what I wanted
to see.

The code I have put together is intended to allow for changes like this.
Including having each game color schemes to be configurable, and to have the
future ability to have the entire color scheme configurable to the
individual player's personal preferences. The last would be most useful in
network based play, where you have your client set to the color scheme you
prefer, and each player would see a different color scheme for the same
game. Think about people that are color blind. Or those that say "I don't
like that color of yellow".

On source check-in, I have not had enough time yet to resolve the XCODE-CVS
Checkin issues. I think I will try and see if I can do it via command line.
If I can, then the issue is with how I configure XCODE, and not with the CVS
Configuration, or with any sort of firewall issues. More to come soon I
hope.

Mark

Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4

[Mark S. <mar...@gm...>]

That is odd. When you extracted the Zip file, you should have ended up with
a directory "18XX XML Data" that contains 33 files. This directory should
live right next to the Engine_18XX.jar, and you should be in the directory
where you extracted it from.

The other question is whether any of the maps for any of the other games
show up. If they do, and only 1830 map fails, then see if the file "1830
Map.xml" is in the "18XX XML Data" Directory.

If you still have problems, I will go back and look at it again.

Mark

On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 5:05 PM, kos petoussis <kos...@gm...> wrote:

> java -jar Engine_18XX.jar works, but loading a map 1830 gives an Oops
> mucked up the xml path.
>
>
>>
>> Just to repost the link, here's Mark's engine:
>>
>> http://rails.sourceforge.net/18XX_Engine.Sept_2008.zip
>>
>> ---Brett
>>
>>
>>
>> --------------
>
>
>
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Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4

[Mark S. <mar...@gm...>]

And yes, my Error messages are not super-descriptive...

Erik has expressed the preference for the light-green default background on
the playable hexes. And yes, that is very possible, just a minor change to
one line of code specifying the background color. Just have to dig into the
code to find that line. Other improvement suggestions are always welcome.

Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4

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

Another suggestion would be to make the background color of the revenue
circles on the tiles equal to the tile color. The current white bg, together
with the relatively large size of these circles, make them look almost like
cities. For instance, in 1835, yellow Berlin almost looks like having three
cities, rather than two.
 
For contrast, it might then be worth considering to turn the back foreground
color into white on darker backgrounds.
 
Work is needed on the correct relative placement of tile elements (name,
cost, other features), as these currently often overlap.
 
Names often extend to outside the map hex. Perhaps wrapping over two lines
should be considered in some cases, or perhaps the names should only appear
on the tooltip, or should only be shown if the map scale is above a certain
threshold.
 
Erik.


  _____  

From: Mark Smith [mailto:mar...@gm...] 
Sent: Wednesday 15 October 2008 00:53
To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4



And yes, my Error messages are not super-descriptive... 

Erik has expressed the preference for the light-green default background on
the playable hexes. And yes, that is very possible, just a minor change to
one line of code specifying the background color. Just have to dig into the
code to find that line. Other improvement suggestions are always welcome.

Re: [Rails-devel] Rails-devel Digest, Vol 19, Issue 4

[Mark S. <mar...@gm...>]

As for the Revenue Circles background the same as the tile background, I was
attempting to mimic the way the tiles are drawn on the actual board, which
is white circles. I will agree that they do appear too large on the default
scale of 8 (or smaller). But I don't think making them the exact tile
background color would work either. I feel the revenue value would be lost.
Maybe some other neutral color... say maybe a pale blue background might be
better.

I am not sure what you mean by the "for contrast... " statement.

As for the over-laps, yes, the City Name overlaps have bothered me. A the
idea of simply having the names on the tool tip would be fine. For the costs
for Terrain features, one update I had not gotten to yet was the currency
symbol.  But yes, the overlaps even without the City Names do happen at a
few points, and to fix those, requires tweaking the placements a bit this
way or that way, which ends up being more a tedious data change, rather than
the fun coding bit... :--)

As for wrapping a name, Yes, it could be done, but may not be worth the
effort. The code is designed to draw the map hex, by hex. And draw the names
as the hex is drawn, rather than after all the hexes are drawn to go back
and plot the names down. But maybe do a combination of the Tool Tip for
Scale < X, and drawn when Scale is >= X is feasible. I shall look at that
option. But do note, when the Scale is increased, the Font Size is current
not increased to match. I was figuring that when I got to that bit, I would
actually look at each scale level, and determine by eye which font size was
best.


On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Erik Vos <eri...@hc...> wrote:

>  Another suggestion would be to make the background color of the revenue
> circles on the tiles equal to the tile color. The current white bg, together
> with the relatively large size of these circles, make them look almost like
> cities. For instance, in 1835, yellow Berlin almost looks like having three
> cities, rather than two.
>
> For contrast, it might then be worth considering to turn the back
> foreground color into white on darker backgrounds.
>
> Work is needed on the correct relative placement of tile elements (name,
> cost, other features), as these currently often overlap.
>
> Names often extend to outside the map hex. Perhaps wrapping over two lines
> should be considered in some cases, or perhaps the names should only appear
> on the tooltip, or should only be shown if the map scale is above a certain
> threshold.
>
> Erik.
>
>
>