> Gtk2 client is IMO the most official of the clients - others may disagree. > I'm tempted to spend an evening whipping up a glade configuration file for > the > gtk2 client that looks like the gtk1 client, just so it stops any complaints > there - the question then comes how many different glade configs should there > be > - it is arguable if those are easier or harder to maintain than different > bits > of code.
A hearty amen to doing up a Glade configuration for the layout though, if it helps focus attention on one client code base! It seems there is a reasonably big split on the development side. I see that the GTK2 client is becoming true ("most official") from a packager's standpoint. Mandriva is no longer packaging the GTK1 client to my dismay. I do not wish to become (or continue to be) one of the "complainers", but it may take more than a different glade config to stop the complaints. I set about installing the GTK2 client on my son's (KDE) computer to get one running fast as he was bugging me to play - He just turned four, and I figured it would be a good time to try party play with him - and I did, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Summary: If it is indeed the "most official" client, certain issues should not persist. To that end, as "priority" is being discussed, as much objection as there is to the GTK1 client crowd, I think putting the client work higher on the list is important. I've only worked with Glade one time to try out GUI programming - as I never got into graphical UI development - so the whole thing about trying to fix it myself is pretty intimidating. The client is as subject to feature creep vs. quality improvement work as the server is. Details for whomever might care to know. Screen resolution: His system was using a 13-15" monitor, because that is what I had laying around. I had fired it up once before, and said forget it because the desktop was set 800x600 or so both due to screen size, but also because it is good for learning mouse skills. The GTK2 client is, for any practical purpose, unusable at that resolution. He now has a 17" monitor at 1024 x 768 and I only set that resolution up for the sake of Crossfire. Anyway, I decided to give it another go and it took forever (in a four year old's mind) to play around with stuff to get it acceptable, and even that was only really possible, because he is four and cannot process information that a reader does. Font size / Text cut off. I don't know what determines the GTK2 default font size, but it is so big on his Mandriva system it causes difficulty getting even a little bit of information on a 1024x768 setup. It would be appropriate to have text size changeable somehow. Googling on changing default GTK2 font size hasn't revealed any miracle cures yet without getting some tool that does not appear to be in the distribution. Maybe it can be configured through KDE and I just haven't figured it out yet? Headings Some title headings will not render properly at any setting. I am sure this is not related to the screen resolution as mine is a dual-head 1280x1024 and no matter how wide the client is, the Weight\column title is always cut off. There is no reason for that as the description column is so big, as I test, that it is more than 50% white space. Skills & Experience At 1024x768, it practically impossible to get a Skills & Experience tab that is readable because the text overlaps. Maybe it would work if the right hand colums were microscopic? If I set my client on the 1280x768, dual head system to use one head for the map and the other for the text windows, it works ok, but that is pretty unreasonable for a client size requirement, let alone that the width does not help the troublesome vertical screen constraints on the right hand side of the client. Inventory icons. Non-graphical icons (inventory, and so on) are cut off too at 1024x768 and I haven't yet figured out if there is a scaling/size setting that might fix it. It was better than my configuration when I set it to 100/100, but it will take more fiddling to see if it is fixable. Ok, the basic issues represented here represent a set of technical issues, aside from the comment about the vertical space, that may or may not be in the vein of the layout issues in the client. I think GTK2 changed some default rendering things that affect lower resolution users more than others, but there are also some issues that are hard to think aren't due to design. Enough on that I guess. It sounds too much like a complaint for my liking. Sorry, I guess to to a player, the client is most of what they see, so the flaws, or limitations to fit the client to one's play style, stick out. _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire