Cataclysm-dda: Possible way to save space in the side panel

[RogueYun]

Game version: 0.C-27943-g56bbaf0 (tiles)

Operating system: Windows 10

Tiles or curses: Tiles

Mods active: (Default)

Suggested Concept

The idea was to try to be more intuitive (and therefore require less labeling)
The body part damage indicators are outlined like the hangman figure on the left.
The body is showing an infected cranium, a bitten torso and left arm, a bleeding left arm, and a broken right leg. (Maybe have an option to reverse it for people who don't think that direction).

• Focus and Power would be just Fcs and Pwr.
• Str, Dex, Int, and Per, would be St, Dx, In, and Pr.
• "Hungr" is showing hunger at "Full" while "Thrst" is showing "Very Thirsty" (As it lowers it would turn pink, red).
• "Status" indicates important/dangerous status's for a player. (Grabbed, Running, Smoked, Poisoned, Downed, and some space for some more).
• BTmp is the body temperature and is showing chilly and falling though the old version could be put up there with speed... There is still some free space to play around with.
• Pain, Hunger, Thirst, and the Status bar would all vanish if not used. Leaving your panel looking something like this for the most part.

Edit

I forgot I left the lighting in there, it doesn't even belong in this part of the panel.. just imagine that is free space too.

[FulcrumA]

I like the hangman but the rest I like much less. Seems that there's no space should the player also measure other, less common info - pressure, exact temperature, humidity and so on - which all would make this panel cluttered. I guess it's alright as an optional setting and even this version could work better if some words would be changed for images in tiles version.

[RogueYun]

Darn, And I wasn't thinking about what it would do to the vehicle panel.. Dang.. this is a tough one. I'm trying to mentaly get my mind around a possible solution so that we can fit a status panel in somewhere.

[RogueYun]

This really was just a proof of concept. Things like "Comfortable (Falling)" which takes 21 characters can be replaced by a smaller status bar that take up 14. Very Hungry and Dehydrated probably could be replaced with a short title and the || bars that are so prevalent in the game.

If anyone wants to try to take a stab at designing a better panel, this is a pretty cool tool

[RogueYun]

Just for comparison

All the smiles indicate liberated space as compared to the game version.

Though I would like to put a status bar in there somewhere.

[cainiaowu]

Where is the time indicator? Also those health bar are confusing.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Why not arrange your three-letter status bars vertically?

[DracoGriffin]

Just want to say these look quite clean and nice although I don't know if I'd use them. It would definitely take time to re-adjust -- best as started a like a mod or option.

So is this meant to change from being vertical on the right side of the screen to the top/bottom horizontally?

[RogueYun]

Here are some other examples (I see I didn't make my explanation very clear, so I'll try to use pictures).

• Top: What it could look like on average
• Middle: What it could look like when things get a little crazy
• Bottom: What it might look like in a regular game when things are a little crazy (Minus the useful status bar! Sadness)

@BorkBorkGoesTheCode

Why not arrange your three-letter status bars vertically?

I tried... it's not so easy to fit it in, though there might be ways that I haven't considered. Feel free to contribute ideas! I'm only hoping a nice dev will linger on the thought and put it to action.

[budg3]

I like it overall, but the health bars are a bit confusing.

[RogueYun]

Here is another alternative.

[cainiaowu]

Space should also taken into consideration the size of Wide Character(like CJK characters) after translation .
Body parts need at least 4 letter wide so 2 Wide Character could fit in.

[Zireael07]

Hangman is awesome, I have to say. So is the body temp bar.

[RogueYun]

This one tries to address the issue of language/labels for the health bars by just trying to be more intuitive. It makes the status bar smaller. usually you are going to be dealing with one to three really dangerous status ailments, but if there are more the status bar can fit 4 and any more it will take the top three most important ones and then tell you there are more you can view with the @ display. (There you go @BorkBorkGoesTheCode, you motivated me to design a vertical status bar).

Edit:

Oh yeah, this one frees up a whole line at the bottom and a couple other small spots (below "SAFE" safe and below "Stm |||||")

[Night-Pryanik]

I like: the latest version of Body Temp indicator, with C and H at the edges. It is intuitive and just cool-looking.
I don't like:

• hangman and new hit-points indicators. White hangman is tolerable, but it's really hard for me to recognize something in multi-colored version.
• two-characters vertical status indicators. Two characters is just too small.

Don't forget to add fatigue indicator somewhere.

I think we should either make display of Moon indicator toggleable in options or remove it completely (anyone ever used it for something?) to free some space.

I recommend grouping Speed and Stamina, also Hunger, Thirst, Fatigue and Pain. Power indicator shouldn't be on the second line IMO as frequently player are getting power in mid or late game, so this indicator could show zero for a long time.

[Night-Pryanik]

By the way, the sidebar you're trying to improve is a Narrow version. We have Wider version, which is 10 character wider (45 versus 55)! Take a look on it.
Or maybe we just need to get rid of fixed sidebar width and make it scale dynamically based on screen resolution.

[RogueYun]

You'll... uh... have to tell me what the fatigue indicator is and what it generally looks like... is it the 90 near speed?

[RogueYun]

Nvm, I'm stupid.

[papersplease]

Does the sidebar really need saving _space_? Do you really need the log being longer, or the minimap being disproportional?

My impression is that it's cluttered and confusing, not large. Making is too small would be even more confusing, cryptic and hard to notice. What is really needed is at least distributing the information by importance inside the sidebar, making unimportant things smaller or removing them completely.

That being said, your cold/hot gauge is just 10/10, great and informative while not being oversized. I'd label it Cold and Hot instead of C and H, it's more intuitive while still short. The moon phase indicator is absolutely not important and is way too big I guess. Hangman is fine IMO and overall a good idea, but it's a bit confusing which bar is which body part, referring to torso and head specificially. Hunger and thirst indicators probably don't need an additional border.

One more suggestion: place critical indicators closer to the inner edge (keep in mind the sidebar can be either on the left side or on the right side of the screen). That way they will be closer to the player's sight. "Nano"-map is not very important to have in constant sight, for example.

Also, keep in mind there's a bit different layout for driving. One issue I have with it is fuel gauge, it's "realistic" but not informative at all. I don't care about it when I have enough fuel, but it's important to know if I'll make it for another city block when tanks/batteries are nearly empty, and it doesn't give me any info on that.

[Brambor]

I really like the Status bar as in the current game I have a hard time telling whether I am grabbed or not (the only way I know is looking at the log). Actually, there is no way of telling when there are two zombies one of which grabbed you and then one of which is killed. Are you still grabbed or not? (It would be nice to see who grabbed you in general, for example in detail view).

And the "Bitten arm" constantly reminding that you are in great danger is great as not to forget this invaluable information might be quite fatal.

[papersplease]

It would be nice to see who grabbed you in general

I'm afraid that's not possible, because the current grabbing mechanics is a hack and you aren't being grabbed by anyone in particular, see #17439 . The best you can do is to use a tileset with good status overlays, indicating the grabbed state.

[CoroNaut]

It should be possible to make an in-game tool to create any interface you want for the side panel, can we do that? All of these variations you've come up with can be presets and presets could be exchanged between players. I'm saying this because I like the original interface the best among all the designs, but I would still like to change a couple things. If this is too much to code then perhaps just make all these variations into regular presets for choosing in the options.

[AMurkin]

MXotto+ tileset have great status indicators (not ASCII obviously).

[nexusmrsep]

There is another approach that came to my mind. Think about the opposite. A large window opened by separate key, or even an extention to @ window, with all data from the status window presented in a more verbose detailed way. Now think of status windows just as a mere indicator that something is wrong (ex. health) or something important is happening. If confused by the clatter in status window (head up display) you hit the "status" key and get detailed, expanded info about everything, perhaps with even some help hints about consequences of different status efects, for better accessibility. I can imagine it would justify HUD size reduction, and as option for some players, even a posibility to turn off hud/status window altogether, relying only on detailed info in dedicated status popup window.

Imagine only having the hangman shown on main window, white when healthy, green, yellow, red when wounded, blue infected, etc. You dont need health bars, and when you want to examine your status in details, ie. see those health bars, and other things among them, you go to status popup window. Same with some more obscure environmental things like temperature, moon, etc.

[kevingranade]

Seems to be stalled, and there was no solid consensus around adoption.