Re: [TuxKart-devel] GUI

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

Oliver Jeeves wrote:
> 
> I kinda agree with some of what you're saying.

Damn!  Now the debate isn't over!

To save typing:

    Many single-widget screens == SWS  == What the majority(?) seem to prefer.
    Single many-widget screen  == MWS  == What I want.

> The GUI should be as simple as possible, after every game, the play should be 
> able to play again immediatly if there are no changes he/she wants to make, 
> and changing tracks will probably be something that the player will want to 
> do often, so this should be readily available too.

Both SWS and MWS can handle that.  Once the game is over, the SWS system can
pop up yet another widget-screen with something like:

    REPLAY THIS LEVEL?

...and a single button click gets you off and playing again (but with the
EXACT same setup).

With the MWS approach that I favor, you'd just get dumped back into the
big GUI page with all of the widgets set up how you left them.  So, again,
a single click on the "PLAY!!" button gets you the same thing...back playing
with a single button click.

I'd argue that the benefit of the MWS approach is that you can very simply
play again - but with more or less laps - or with a different Kart or whatever
using only one click to change the option and another one to replay.  In the
SWS approach, that's a LOT harder because you have to navigate through a
stack of menu screens to get to where you can change that one thing - then
back though a bunch of 'no change please' clicks to get back to playing
again.

So (of course), I maintain that the MWS approach wins hands-down (especially
if you allow the joystick to steer the pointer as well as the mouse and have
the joystick's "A" button work like the mouse button does.

> However, I definatly register my vote for being able to change options via 
> joystick.

I never denied that possibility - although you'd have to be doing it by
steering the mouse cursor around with the joystick...which is certainly
possible although perhaps not ideal.

I still think everyone is grossly over-estimating the number of
people with joysticks.  I've been playing with this stuff for a
long time and I *know* it's a rare thing in the Linux population.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
HomeEmail: <sjb...@ai...>    WorkEmail: <sj...@li...>
HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
Projects : http://plib.sf.net    http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
            http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
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