View icon on every location-related window

[Hyronymus]

I propose to add a view icon to every location-related window in OpenTTD. The function of this button is that it focuses the main view on the location attached to the window, be it a town council window, a vehicle window or a tile information window and whatever type of window that can be related to a location. In some cases the function of this icon may replace an existing button.

The icon can be placed next to the cross to close a window and the other 2 icons to the right or completely opposite to the left. As a suggestion I'm thinking of a simple icon of an eye for the icon.

[Supercheese]

The icon can be placed next to the cross to close a window and the other 2 icons to the right or completely opposite to the left. As a suggestion I'm thinking of a simple icon of an eye for the icon.

So you mean to replace the eye on vehicle windows, and the "Location" button on town and industry windows? They're not good enough as-is?

[wojteks86]

Hi, I always like the minimalistic ideas - I prefer icons rather than text.
Going after your idea, what should we do with the "Display chain" button?
Make it an icon or leave it as it is now? For this particular function I'd rather leave this as a text button.

[Hyronymus]

The icon can be placed next to the cross to close a window and the other 2 icons to the right or completely opposite to the left. As a suggestion I'm thinking of a simple icon of an eye for the icon.

So you mean to replace the eye on vehicle windows, and the "Location" button on town and industry windows? They're not good enough as-is?

Where the function already exists it works well as-is and there are windows that lack it together with room to supply such a button. And as wojteks86 put it, adding an icon is a minimilastic way of solving this and yet offer a standard solution throughout multiple windows. It's definetly not a complaint against the function.

[AndyLandy]

The icon can be placed next to the cross to close a window and the other 2 icons to the right or completely opposite to the left. As a suggestion I'm thinking of a simple icon of an eye for the icon.

So you mean to replace the eye on vehicle windows, and the "Location" button on town and industry windows? They're not good enough as-is?

I do like the idea of 'standardising' the function. I assume the ability to control-click on a vehicle's location button will still allow you to 'follow' a vehicle?

[Hyronymus]

The icon can be placed next to the cross to close a window and the other 2 icons to the right or completely opposite to the left. As a suggestion I'm thinking of a simple icon of an eye for the icon.

So you mean to replace the eye on vehicle windows, and the "Location" button on town and industry windows? They're not good enough as-is?

I do like the idea of 'standardising' the function. I assume the ability to control-click on a vehicle's location button will still allow you to 'follow' a vehicle?

Yes, of course, following to me is something completely different from the defauly view function.

[frosch]

Independent of the unification...

What windows refer to locations and miss a button currently?

[Hyronymus]

Independent of the unification...

What windows refer to locations and miss a button currently?

- tile information window
- city council window
- rename city window
- error messages

Windows that can be "unified" are:
- town windows
- industry windows
- vehicle depot windows
- station windows
- vehicle windows
- buoy/waypoint windows

[supermop]

I was just thinking last night that it was silly that this function is sometimes a text button at bottom of window, and sometimes an icon on the right. Regardless of position I would like to see this move to a standardized icon on all relevant windows.

[talebowl]

Working on a patch for a unified top-of-the-window graphical location button, as previously talked about on IRC.

About the proposed list of new windows to get the location button:

Independent of the unification...

What windows refer to locations and miss a button currently?

- tile information window
- city council window
- rename city window
- error messages

Any more opinions on this? Also, Hyronymus, could you give an example of an error message that's tied to a location, can't really think of one at the moment..

The vehicle viewport GUI should not become too flat after loosing a button on the right. Maybe the other buttons could be changed in size, or maybe there is another useful button which could be added?

I've currently made the panel/empty space at the bottom of that list of buttons bigger by the height of the previous button, though I'm not quite fond of how it looks (especially on non-train windows, thinking it would look better if train view and other-vehicle view would be the same size). Can't really think of a button that would be useful there though (and would think that that's not quite the "correct" approach to gui design?). Not sure if making the other buttons longer would be good either, for example: road vehicle depot looks a bit awkward as it is, to me, with the buttons longer than they need to be / images not vertically centered. Might be alone in that view though.

Additionally: opinions on where it should be in the top-bar? I've now put it in the right-most corner, but I feel like it would be better fitting just right of the caption, as it is more related to the "subject" of the window than some of the other buttons in there...

[planetmaker]

Working on a patch for a unified top-of-the-window graphical location button, as previously talked about on IRC.

About the proposed list of new windows to get the location button:

Independent of the unification...

What windows refer to locations and miss a button currently?

- tile information window
- city council window
- rename city window
- error messages

Any more opinions on this? Also, Hyronymus, could you give an example of an error message that's tied to a location, can't really think of one at the moment..

* Cannot clear tile
* Bridge in way
* Must be build on XXX terrain
...

[Zuu]

Slightly related to this is that the Story Book window supports a page element for viewing a location. It will insert an icon at the left margin and some text adjacent to it that the GS decide. At the moment the same icon is used for any type of target, although it is possible for someone to make icons for "view station", "view town" etc. and provide different page element types for that.

I don't know if any GS is actually using this right now. But you can see it in this example screenshot, where "Town B" and "Town C" are page element that when clicked will center the view on some tile:



You find the development thread for these graphics here:
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 1#p1081551

[J0anJosep]

frosch on the wiki wrote:
The vehicle viewport GUI should not become too flat after loosing a button on the right. Maybe the other buttons could be changed in size, or maybe there is another useful button which could be added?

Maybe a button for vehicles sharing the same orders. The button may be shadowed if no vehicles share the same orders. If the orders are shared, clicking it would make the window show next (+ctrl, previous) vehicle in the chain. I think that next vehicle can be shown in the same window instead of opening a new window.

[Transportman]

frosch on the wiki wrote:
The vehicle viewport GUI should not become too flat after loosing a button on the right. Maybe the other buttons could be changed in size, or maybe there is another useful button which could be added?

Maybe a button for vehicles sharing the same orders. The button may be shadowed if no vehicles share the same orders. If the orders are shared, clicking it would make the window show next (+ctrl, previous) vehicle in the chain. I think that next vehicle can be shown in the same window instead of opening a new window.

And when would this button be useful? I don't really see a use-case for such a button.

[J0anJosep]

And when would this button be useful? I don't really see a use-case for such a button.

Not really useful, but may fill some space.
I only used this very few times for spotting problems (vehicles piling up at some station due to timetabling/full load order or low income because transporting almost no cargo), which can be done by other existing means.