On the quest to "ungeekify" the client... ;-) Based on recent discussions and a comment from Mwedel, I'd like to propose a revision of the inventory and "look" areas, and the introduction of three new things. (Of course I'm volunteering to write the code for this.)
The question being: do people really *USE* all those 10 tabs? Very occasionally I use "unlocked" to sell stuff, but most of the time I use "icons" and the first one. And really, neither is the ideal UI for what I actually want to do. So here's the proposal: Currently we have an inventory notebook and a "look" table. I propose to replace them with two other widgets: what I call the "stuff notebook", and the "shortcut area". The "shortcut area" is really Mwedel's idea. It would be a 10x2 or 10x3 (or even 10x4) table, and you drag either equippable items or spells to that area. Each "slot" essentially manages one keybinding; so if I put my axe on 1,1 and small fireball in 2,1, then pressing "1" does "apply axe" (well not really, but you get the point), and "shift 1" does "cast small fireball". The rows correspond to no mod, shift, ctrl, and alt. Then the "stuff notebook"; I imagine it has a control (checkbox or toggle button) that chooses between "details" and "icons" mode, regardless of tab (I think the choice applies to all tabs). First tab is "look"; the objects on the floor near you. Second is the plain, unfiltered inventory. Yes, the filters are occasionally useful, but IMO, not often enough to justify polluting the UI. Fourth tab is the spell list; this is an awesome addition to the game, IMO it's about time it gets a more permanent space in the UI (and it's somewhat necessary in order for the shortcut area to be useful for mages). The third tab deserves its own paragraph :-) what I'm proposing here is a "body diagram" similar to what many computer adventure games have. Yes, it would require some tinkering, since we have IIRC 3 or 4 different combinations of body parts... but I have an idea how to do it and I'm willing to write the code. Here, you'd have a rough outline of a body, and for each "body slot" your character has, there would be a space where an icon can be drawn; if you equip an item on that slot, the corresponding icon appears there. Clicking a slot (with or without an equipped item) would bring up a menu with the items that can be equipped there. Since it's a notebook widget, it would be hard to drag items from the inventory to the body diagram; but then again, I have no idea why you'd want to do that, since you can double-click it on the inventory :-) I think hovering an icon on any of those widgets, if you are on "icon" view, would display the rest of the information (what you would have on "detail" view) on a tooltip. Thoughts? best, Lalo Martins -- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. ----- personal: http://lalo.hystericalraisins.net/ technical: http://www.hystericalraisins.net/ GNU: never give up freedom http://www.gnu.org/ _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list crossfire@metalforge.org http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire