Re: [TuxKart-devel] GUI

[Ingo R. <gr...@gm...>]

Steve Baker <sjb...@ai...> writes:

>> Would a GameCube game use tiny scrollbars and radio buttons? No, it
>> would use big bold simple obvious widgets with gamepad control.
>
> Yeah - but we aren't as horribly limited as they are on a GameCube.
>
> But do you think they'd still do it that way if they had a mouse
> attached to the system?

I hope so, constantly switching controlling devices just isn't
something that will improve the experience, but just something that
will annoy the player.

Beside that having the computer additionally attached to a TV is
getting more an more popular, so having the game 'TV-ready', like a
console game, would be strongly prefered, mice just don't navigate all
that good on a couch.

> Because the mouse is a really nice pointing device (and a joystick
> sucks for accurate pointing because it's a relative motion device
> not an absolute position device)

Thats why you don't use a joystick as pointing device, but just have
widets to which you switch via up/down/left/right instead of
navigating a pointer to them manually.

> - so if you have a mouse, you can dispense with all those
> layer-upon-layer menu's with easily forgotten options. It's much
> simpler IMHO to just lay out all the options on a single page and
> let the person see all of them. They can verify that everything is
> how they want it - and when it is, click the "GO" button.

Having everything layed out on a single page is really a bad idea, it
will just lead to people forgetting to turn some option and such and
so having to quit go back to the menu again. Seperating all options
(track-select, player-select and such) to different screens will do a
much better job here.

> We don't regard a joystick as a good GUI device for other
> applications, why would we use if here?

Because there is only a rather limited number of options that the
player has, just which game-mode (gp, time trial), which track, which
character, rest is driving in game. The GUI should be keept as simple
as possible, there is no need to have screenfulls of buttons and
stuff.

> Well - it doesn't really matter. We can certainly make the joystick
> work the GUI if that's what everyone wants.

The joystick/keyboard should be considered the primary input device
for all of the GUI and so it should make sure that it works good and
well and doesn't feel emulated or whatever (moving a pointer with the
joystick and such). Mouse is something that is nice-to-have, but not
something that anybody would miss if the game itself is 100% joystick
controlled.

> Aside from improving the general look and layout of the GUI widgets
> (which is easily done) - I'm not sure I'd want to spend a lot of
> additional effort on it.

The current GUI might be more or less functional, but it neither looks
good nor feels 'right', just extending it with more widgets and stuff
just isn't doing the game any justice.

-- 
WWW:      http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/ 
JabberID: gr...@ja... 
ICQ:      59461927