ZQuest GUI

[fatcatfan]

I want input, lots of it. What interface features would make it easier for you to design your quests? Where's the bottleneck the keeps you from being productive? How do you envision your interface? (short of directly plugging your brain into the app...)

http://www.snakesoft.net/wxifm/demo.zip

how do you feel about this sort of interface? There's some visual aspects of it I don't like, but it is highly flexible. Imagine your tiles, combos, aliases, palettes... well pretty much any current ZQuest dialog or view as a panel you can place as a tab in that sort of windowed environment. You could have mutiple views of the same sort. Want to view two different map screens in different windows? Or maybe you want to only see one at a time, but you want to have another few tabs to let you quickly jump back and forth between the several screens you are working on. Keep different collections of combos or aliases on different tabs for quick access....

Well, the possibilities are endless. You tell me.

[Dart Zaidyer]

That's an interesting way to do it, and it would help with organization. But the functionality should probably be a little more clearly marked.

[ShadowTiger]

Really? ... How so? O_o' Isn't that sort of like saying "You should be told how to click and drag this folder around your desktop?"

I had a lot of things to say, but truth be told, most of them ended up in my other Suggestions thread in this forum about the foldaway Combo Page, ... The seem to do the same thing, roughly, on some level anyway.

Really, my main point here, is that people have to see the negatives to be erased before they see the positives that they want changed. Why turn your legs into a tripod when you can walk just fine. :shrug: If you find a problem with the current ZQuest layout, by all means, report it, but if you don't see a problem, ... you'll not be reporting that then, eh? > >.'

[*b*]

what I would REALLY like is custom GUI graphics. that would be so great

but as for that setup, I don't like it. it would be too confusing with all those windows floating around, especially in the small space that we have

[Dart Zaidyer]

I suggest it only be used in relation to combos. Everything else is just fine, really, it's the combo list that needs it.

[Cloral]

How about tabifying the bottom thing? So instead of hitting pageup/down to move between the views, you just click the tab you want.

[Sephiroth]

How about tabifying the bottom thing? So instead of hitting pageup/down to move between the views, you just click the tab you want.
You know what? That would be perfect. =o

[fatcatfan]

We can do that. Understand though guys, I'm not talking about working in the same mode of Allegro that we have been. We're starting from scratch to create a modern GUI that will use the native look and feel of Linux/GTK, Windows, and Mac OSX.

[Sephiroth]

We can do that. Understand though guys, I'm not talking about working in the same mode of Allegro that we have been. We're starting from scratch to create a modern GUI that will use the native look and feel of Linux/GTK, Windows, and Mac OSX.
FCF: I think he was talking about the current version. O_O;;; Because it would most definately help me out.. I always find myself hitting pagedown/page up for about 5 mins before I actually find what I need at the bottom.

[bigjoe]

I'd prefer an editor that maintains somewhat of a resemblance to the original, but stripped of it's limitations. I.E, you could draw tiles and set combos within the same workspace.

[ShadowTiger]

.. Geez, .. when you work so long with the same program, you stop seeing its limitations. ._.' ... Aww Geez ...

IMHO, all we'd need, are multiple copies of Combo page "pullouts," (Without disturbing the main combo page on the right, ... the ability to dock them somewhere on the left, but still move them around, obviously, .. and set / go to bookmarks on ALL of those pullouts, with confirmations for each action.

And mass-Set-Combo attribute and Mass Overlap would be nice. :p XD

[bigjoe]

I probably need to elaborate more on what I meant.

The ideal Zquest, to me, would look almost exactly the same, but would have a true windows menu. Any editor that was once fullscreen (tile editor, pallete editor, combo editor), would instead run in a new window on the side, rather than filling the screen. Things like rules or screen flags or whatever would be marked in dialogs.

Most importantly, the ability to run it in fullscreen would still exist! (I couldnt think of not being able to run it in fullscreen. Without everything in clear view, quest making is... difficult.

[Freedom]

yea, fullscreen is for me ;)
I like the way it's all set up now to be honest, the one suggestion I would make would be something like "quick links" in combos, to allow you to jump from one section of combos to another, and this has already been suggested.
When you have as many combos as I do you end up spending a lot of time scrolling through them sometimes just to go back and grab one combo you messed up on the screen like a floor or ground tile.
being able to load mass combos at once from tiles instead of one at a time would be real nice too ;)

[ShadowTiger]

Yea, fullscreen is for me ;) I like the way it's all set up now to be honest, the one suggestion I would make would be something like "quick links" in combos, to allow you to jump from one section of combos to another, and this has already been suggested. When you have as many combos as I do you end up spending a lot of time scrolling through them sometimes just to go back and grab one combo you messed up on the screen like a floor or ground tile. Being able to load mass combos at once from tiles instead of one at a time would be real nice too. ;)
... *Bows In Freedom's General Direction* ...
Such a thing would be invaluable! Making a new design for ZQuest is all well and good, the current design is something that ZQuesters are used to. These new features, however, would be something that everyone can use. Perhaps they could take a higher priority over a new ZQuest design? At least for the moment.

If there are two paths for ZC at the moment, the 2.11 continuation, and the rewrite, it should go into both. They're just too crucial to neglect in any way. That's from a quest designer's point of view.

[KingArthur]

The question is do the Devs have enough time and resources to work on both at once? i think it would be best to just get a stable 2.11 out then focous all the resources on the rewrite

[Dark Nation]

Yeah, I'm grave digging.


How about tabifying the bottom thing? So instead of hitting pageup/down to move between the views, you just click the tab you want.

Here is a very crude mockup of what this would look like. There is currently so little vertical space in the lower panel that I had to go with side tabs.

http://darknation.armageddongames.net/zc/zquest_tabbed_panel_concept.gif

Thoughts?

[Freedom]

Will that leave you room to expand?
looks pretty tight.

I can see where that might be a bit faster to use once you get set to memory what is located where.

[Dark Nation]

Well, right now, we only have 7 panels. This design lets us use 8. I can add another set of tabs without too much trouble, I think. This will give us 12 panels (1-9 and A-C or 0-9 and A-B).