Time To Expand Station Purchase Window?

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 13 Nov 2006 07:21

This is not a screenshot .... and while I can reduce the size to 1/4 instead of 1/2 these would be then wasted space as you can't spot details anymore...

Thanks for the Memory fixes, but generally even when declared as byte value it should be a word

And sorry to crash someones vars ...

wallyweb · Post by **wallyweb** » 13 Nov 2006 09:09

Through the magic of cut and paste here are the screenshots of Oskar's latest updates comparing
experimentalfeatures.previewdd off
to
experimentalfeatures.previewdd on

Now we the players have a choice as to what we want to see.
Cookies to Oskar!

AndersI · Post by **AndersI** » 13 Nov 2006 17:40

Looks perfect to me! If the switch is ON by default, the newbies get the nice pictures, and the oldies with perfect recall can turn it off. Best of both worlds.

(I think I'll leave the switch ON, even if it means more scrolling)

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 13 Nov 2006 17:50

Currently it's not the way, (hence it's an experimental feature) because miscmods is nearly full (aka one bit left) so we need somehow a redesign...

m3henry · Post by **m3henry** » 13 Nov 2006 20:02

eis_os wrote:Currently it's not the way, (hence it's an experimental feature) because miscmods is nearly full (aka one bit left) so we need somehow a redesign...

...miscmods2.switch?

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 13 Nov 2006 20:32

I don't like the concept of additional miscmods...

mtwist · Post by **mtwist** » 13 Nov 2006 22:09

Looks very good! Especially for station sets I am not using regulary it is very helpful. I suggest to make the number of shown items variable by adding a parameter to the switch.

michael blunck · Post by **michael blunck** » 16 Nov 2006 16:04

Oskar, could you take a look again on the icon placement in the new station preview menu?

I´m refering to the attached screenshot and the leftmost menu is the original in-game menu. Close inspection reveals that its icons aren´t centered vertically, instead there´s a 4px void space above the icon and 1px space below it.

Centering those icons vertically could save additional 3px (marked pink) or even 5px (marked blue in addition) which multiplied by 6 icons displayed would give room for one additional entry and in this way reduces need for scrolling (rightmost menu).

regards
Michael

lobster · Post by **lobster** » 16 Nov 2006 17:02

dear lord, this new function looks very nice. darn Sawyer for not making TTD OSX'd.

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 16 Nov 2006 19:34

Please look at stations that don't use a special image, I tried my best to reduce the size. However as you see, so I tried to balance the height as much as possible...
Buffer Stop S as Example... At least under the picture there is no room. Still I am not sure if it does make much different if you have 6 or 7 stations... For WinTTD I want to add some resolution depended setup anyway, this means if you play with 1024x768 you see 8 entries...

michael blunck · Post by **michael blunck** » 16 Nov 2006 21:28

> I tried to balance the height as much as possible...

Well, don´t get me wrong, but because both the size of the "preview window" and the ratio of downscaling is fixed, so should the size of the icon, right?

And then, there´s only to decide if there should be some extra space around the icon.

See the attached screenshot: the height of the preview window is 46px and the scaling factor is 1:2, so the icon height results to 23px.

Now, there´s an additional free space of 4px above the icons (marked red), which IMO should be removed and doing so for every entry there would be additional space for one more entry in the menu.

And because there´s already a 2px distance between two consecutive icons, there´s no need for more room between them, IMO.

regards
Michael

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 17 Nov 2006 09:03

TTDPatch doesn't force a grf author to be in the 46px height window...
I will think again about it, will test it and see if I like it.

Moveing the preview to the right place is not that easy as you may think, as TTD isn't that good in drawing 1/2 size in a temporary buffer... And the drawing is already quite complicate...

michael blunck · Post by **michael blunck** » 17 Nov 2006 09:12

> TTDPatch doesn't force a grf author to be in the 46px height window...

Hehe, yes I know. And BTW, I knew that you would say that.

But we (i.e. you) should do so. Didn´t you even write a clipping function for that window to "force" them?

So, that argument is moot because if we´d "tolerate" that behaviuor where´s the size limit? 100px? 200px?

> Moveing the preview to the right place is not that easy as you may think, as TTD isn't that good in drawing 1/2 size in a temporary buffer..

From what I´ve noticed, those small icons are always half the size of the real ones, so ...

> And the drawing is already quite complicate...

Well, I´d say, clip that sprite to be used as the "original icon" to 46px, then reduce it to half size (23px) and reduce the height of the entry by 4px ...

Then it´ll be the best possible compromise, I think.

Good work so far, Oskar.

regards
Michael

eis_os · Post by **eis_os** » 18 Nov 2006 16:26

For testing it would be nice to have a station which fills the window exactly to test if all works correctly.

-edit-

It should work correctly now, should be in the next nightly...

-edit-
comments are welcome aswell

wallyweb · Post by **wallyweb** » 25 Nov 2006 00:56

It's been almost a week since eis_os' last post here and there have been no comments or critiques. Consequently I have to assume that everybody is happy with the expanded station purchase window. I know I am.

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the discussion and extend a special thank you to eis_os for taking on the coding of this fine feature. The cookies are in the mail Oskar.

Raichase · Post by **Raichase** » 25 Nov 2006 01:02

Yeah, I didn't like it until I started using it... Now I think it's fantastic!

.

michael blunck · Post by **michael blunck** » 25 Nov 2006 10:20

> It's been almost a week since eis_os' last post here and there have been no comments or critiques.

Well, I didn´t had time to test it with all my new stuff, but what I´ve seen so far looks good.

> I would like to thank everyone who participated in the discussion and extend a special thank you to eis_os for taking on the coding of this fine feature.

Yes, this is an example how a good thing could develop from a moderate start by a joint effort. There was input from several people (I´d just mention minime and myself

but o/c the main tribute goes to Oskar who didn´t only implement that feature but had been open to our suggestions in a most tolerant way.

regards
Michael

lobster · Post by **lobster** » 04 Feb 2007 00:53

just tried this for the first time, and it´s stunning. great work Oskar.

Transport Tycoon Forums

Time To Expand Station Purchase Window?

Who is online