level display
 

This is more of an extension to the idea that the v3 playerlist should be docked to the side of the playing screen and not be considered inside of the level. Why not make it so you can set the dimensions of the playing field view inside of the window by x,y,width,height? and then maybe you could have a chatbox below the playing field and a player list to the right and misc things on the left, etc. Something that would probably go good with this is being able to set the windows width/height/resolution... although the width/height would probably go best at 800x600 (for full screen reasons), or that smaller one that my computer doesn't really support.

Unless you don't get it, I mean like making a webpage with frames, where you can dress it all up graphically.

I know what you mean, but i dont really agree, as im sure everyone else disagreed, by the lack of posts on this thread.

I think it's a good idea since it would optimize the level area. You wouldn't necessarily have to have the stats on the level area, nevermind the playerlist. By chat box, I mean like, something like a server-wide chat. If you have the ability to make Graal read and write from files on the user's computer (I've been told you can do this with v3 from an LAT, I don't really know, though) it would make scripting something like a server-wide chatroom more possible because the player would only have to send/recieve data once, and having a chatroom box that wouldn't interfere with the level area would optimize that. Also, it would make new possibilities for weapons lists, stat showing, etc.

In addition, this is pretty much the only way that having a playerlist inside the playing window would be more acceptable.

ROFL! Who died and left you to decide what is acceptable and not, hmm? I think its just fine the way it is. If I have the ability to completely remove the playerlist I will do so. Why? That's my secret ;)

Stefan is coding Graal in such a manner that will allow the end-user to do more in terms of customization through scripting.

Well, actually, that was more paraphrasing a couple of admins........ but okay! I really don't see why somebody wouldn't want this as a feature, though.... I certainly would.

I guess it just doesn't seem practical to me. Seriously, because the playerlist is scripted it can't be removed from the window. There might be a way around that, but it may lose some functionality. Just deal with it :/ You're becoming annoying by beating this to death. Its not the end of the world if you can't remove the damn playerlist window from the game window :rolleyes:

It's pretty obvious tat you all still don't know what I'm trying to say. Draw the game inside the built in torque game window, but in a smaller area inside of the window. I also made somewhat of a diagram for you all, although I'm not sure that you'll understand.

Just imagine all of this inside of the one playing window! NOT IN SEPERATE WINDOWS. Imagine the stats out of there so you can see the full tiling of the level. I'm not saying move the player list outside of the window. I'm saying leave it inside the Graal window, just make it so that it doesn't have to overlap with the playing area. Does anyone understand me yet?

I hope that's not meant to be a joke. Seriously, I'm sure you'll be able to script all those elements when the time comes. A rather small playing field, though. I guess some people are just that obsessed with knowing who is on and what they are saying. The screen would feel far too crowded, honestly.

Simply put, its not practical or really that efficient. :/ Something like that, if done improperly, could lag some players needlessly. I suppose something like that would be useful more for a community server where the focus is on building relationships with other players rather than action and/or adventure. If you think its that OMG-type of idea then I suggest not limiting the playing window to such a small area. Continue to use the full window but have those extras on an alpha layer so players can see under them :p

The idea is to make it so you can optionally limit the playing window. That is an impractical diagram i made, but it's just so you get the point. Would be very good for the player list problem... To some it might seem that it limits the playing area but subliminally it's more of the thought of having to look at it over the playing area.

Massokre, we can't have options that some people would like!! We have to have things that EVERYONE likes! Don't forget that!!!1111oneoneone

He acted like you were saying everyone would love it for certain, yet he's doing the SAME thing himself by saying they wouldn't. When in fact everyone I have talked to about it agrees it would be the best solution. It IS the best solution since having the player list outside of the window is no longer an option. Anyone who can't realize that has some serious problems. Besides, as Massokre said, it's an OPTION FOR PEOPLE WHO RESCRIPT THEIR STUFF. I had suggested this to Stefan prior to Massokre ever posting here, and he said it would be possible. So we'll see what happens.

http://www.r0bin.net/omg.gif

Clear?

Nope, you definately don't understand either. The way in which I'm talking about would not overlay the level area. The level area would be completely independent of being layered on top of. Any way using showimgs would overlay the level area, which is a point where I had trouble explaining to Galdor when he looked at this thread.

Um, no, i pwnt you. Shut up now.

You're drawing rocks, and pwns the b'kat himself!

I don't understand Wanda's message, but you just really don't get it. A resizable level screen inside of the window, like the playerlist is now, would be one example of what this could be like...

We all know exactly what you mean, and its an idiotic idea, which is why you have been flamed, etc.

Once again you don't see clearly. "We all" is two people, you and G_yoshi. Neither of you understood my idea initially, and I don't even know if you understand it now. The only person who's posted here who knows what I'm talking about is Kat. I think it's a great idea and I'll extend my creativity greatly if the ability to do this is possible.

http://classickat.port5.com/obvious.jpg
Perhaps that will make sense. If not, I give up all hope of ever describing such a simple concept. Why in the world would you want to have the playerlist covering up part of the level when you can have it covering up nothing at all? I fail to see the logic in this. Oh, and don't forget to keep in mind that this is an OPTION.

I know exactly what he means Kat.

Its an idiotic "OPTION", me and yoshi understood that initially. What jake didnt understand, was that no one cares :rolleyes:

Please, elaborate.

To me the idea is completely impractical. I'm not here for a community game. I'm here to have some action and adventure. This kind of idea would benefit servers whose purpose is nothing more than a place for players to get together and chat with one another. And if an option is available to completely disable the playerlist I will use it to its fullest extent. I think you and 'whatshisname' are exaggerating the idea that people are unsatisfied. Not everyone has had a chance to play v3 yet (this would be the non-VIP or non-linux/non-mac users) so you do not know thier stance. Some of them may not care or be concerned enough about such a trivial problem.

Seriously, its not the end of the world if it is in the game window. You can at least see through it. Just move it to a more convient spot if that helps. OR...just avoid using it! What a concept :p


As far as I'm concerned, I already have a way to get around the lack of a playerlist window. Though it won't necessarily be instaneous, players will be able to send letters to each other and there will be places to contact staff if there's a situation that dire that requires an RC for assistance. I don't really intend to have anyone sitting on RC.

Um... look at how many people have griped about the player list in the window on the forums already. I've talked to countless people on Classic who also dislike it. Even then, some people may hate the GUI being displayed over the level as well. There is no harm done by adding a feature. Especially one that a lot of people would enjoy.

Yeah, the playerlist is somewhat transparent... and guess what? That's also extremely annoying. I don't enjoy having to squint at times to read it properly.

I've not seen a lot of people gripping about it. Just the same ones over and over again :p

Even if I'm remembering wrong and they haven't, does it really matter? No. I know for sure that I've seen more complaining about it rather than saying they like it.

Maybe have a small tab on the side that you click, and the playerlist slides out.

Wow.

This is a good idea, I can't understand why so many people are attacking him for it. Yes, it's not necessary, but it provides something truly beneficial that isn't available in the current engine, and it probably won't require a huge amount of programming.

Yoshi, you were belittling him even before you came to understand his idea. R0bin, I suspect that you did the same. And, even if you've figured it out now, you won't dare admit that it has merit. I expect this stuff from the newbies and the l33t d00ds, but I'd like to think that you people would have a little more maturity.

(Hey, I'm allowed one post per month)

The idea has merit, and i understand what he meant from the beginning, however, i do not see any situations where it would be used.

The fact that he kept trying to explain it even when we said it was a bad idea, made us angry and we flamed him. It isnt that we are newbies or "l33t d00ds" :P

I'm still lost on the reasoning that the playerlist is now impossible to separate from the game client as it is plenty possible for stefan to script it so the pm/playerlist windows are separate.

If stefan wants to make the game customizeable, he should just make it so graal can generate new windows.

Server.strings(for the stupid server-wide chat... oh ever hear of toals?)+showimgs(if you don't use alpha, they wont lag)=your idea.

You can make the area covered by the showimg/polygon a percent or such based off of the screenwidth/height variables...

Sure, the graphics wouldn't scale, but it might be worse if they did.


Though, making it so graal can generate new windows would be better for this idea, as nastalgic developers like myself could recreate the old playerlist.



Making the level area an adjustable object would be an intresting idea. Like making game windows like pms, options, and the main level objects like the stats bar, but can be told to move, changed in size (maby even customized in other ways), and even be put into a new window.


Hell, its even possible to make it so the new windows have skins not indiginous to the os, either, but thats minorly off the point.


fyi, I am NOT aggreeing with your idea. I do not think this is the only way like the other suporters of this idea seem to think, and I cerntantly don't think it should be shoved down everyone else's thoat. See if you can rescript other people to be conformists to your ideas before you asume they already are.

The suggestion isn't for the server-wide chat idea. It's more of a personal idea and I already know how I'd script it. I think it would be neat if I could adjust the playerlist and level screen to accompany it. I would want to make it so it only had to use a couple of server.strings and showtexts, though. So that the showtexts would read session historys from lines in a text file that technically keeps the history, and then whenever a new session starts, only read that session.

Yea, I know that I can use a percent based off of screenwidth/height, derr... and why didn't i think of changeimgzoom... i'm an idiot....

I agree that this is not the only way to make the playerlist acceptable by a majority players, but through much brainstorming I, personally, and not by anybody elses opinion, think that this would be the most practical way to go about it.

I wonder if you could make the graal window in full screen and then have an invisible background if this idea was used... hmmmm......... Then someone could make it just like the old graal client used to be, except more souped up, like with skins for the playerlist. I really wish, though, that we'd be able to open multiple PMs... I really miss that.

Yeah, you're the one coding the program. You have all of the C++ knowledge. You know everything about OpenGL and DirectX. It's possible because you say so! No. Stefan has always had a good reason for everything he's done, I'm sure this is no different. I think you're forgetting about the same client being available on Mac and Linux, which don't always have the same controls as Windows. That's the only reason I can think of that it wouldn't be possible. I don't know much about it either, that's just what I think based on what I know. Besides, he's given NO indication that he's going to try to make separate windows.

With that said, yes, this is the best solution. Unless, of course, you have one that's better? I have yet to see it. This isn't about making a chat window, this is about changing the x,y,w,h of the level drawing area.

*sigh* did you even bother to read my post entirely?





...

"I don't know much about it either"

I'm amazed that you can form an opinion based on ignorance. You don't know much about anything.


If you didn't know, opengl is also multiplatform, and works to the same extent in the same way on every platform.

The basis of your opinon is that you idolize stefan as a god, and thefor what you think is his knowledge superseedes what everyone else thinks. Think about that for a few minutes. Realy. Think. About. It.

Also, I highly doubt there is any cooralation (that means a link between two things, for the dumber players who don't realize this forum is labled future improvements...) of one's skill with c++ and weather or not they're coding graal. I can know some things about c++ and not be the one coding graal, as can stefan be the one coding graal and not know some things about c++, afterall.

I know that c++ can make their own windows with their own skins. I've seen it alot. I also know that untill recently, graal was scripted with visual basic and a few other things in combination. Maby Stefan chose those over c++ because he was more proficient in them (proficient meaning more skilled with them... if he is perfect in c++, then it would be impossible for him to be more skilled in anything else... so he would use c++ for the obviouse reasons of overall compatibility. Since the choice of language for the older versions obviousely didn't match the weight of pros and cons, the only other reasonable assumtion that you can make from asuming stefan is reasonalbe is that he is simply better with the other languages... so he can't be perfect in c++...)





*sigh*...

correction, delphi, not vb

Unfortunately, I tried, but you're sure not very good at explaining anything. Besides, if the rest of your post basically says what I did, why did you say what I quoted?
I'm amazed that you're stating the obvious. I already said I don't know what I'm talking about. I was making a logical assumption based on what I knew. As was said already.
That has nothing to do with anything that I said. You're inferring that I said OpenGL worked differently on other operating systems, which hadn't even crossed my mind. Although it would be easy to imagine.
Um... ok. You seem to think Stefan is completely incompetent in what he does and has NO idea that this is possible. As I said, I'm sure he has his reasons for not doing it. I fail to see how what I said makes me think he's a "god" in any way.
Have you ever talked to Stefan? From what I've seen, he isn't the kind of person to say something isn't possible when it very well could be. He more than likely knows of some way to make other windows that would be identical on all OSs, but has some reason not to do it. ...and why you put "improvements" eludes me.
Do you also know that these windows would look identical on the other two operating systems as well? I'll say this one last time... Stefan has reasons for what he does.

I just noticed this has gone way off topic... sort of. Sure, if external windows were made, there would be no need for the level area to be changed. However, Stefan has already told us it won't be happening, so instead of trying to change his mind about something he's already decided upon, we suggest alternatives to deal with the situation.

Then you haven't been reading anything they've said, and I'm inclined to believe that you still don't understand. With his suggestion, it's possible to create GUI components, chat bars etc without obscuring the game screen. That can't be done any other way at the moment.

Firstly, Yoshi certainly didn't understand straight away. It was perfectly reasonable for Jake to re-explain at the start.

Secondly, while you may have grasped the basic idea, you apparently didn't see the benefits it would provide, which is why you produced your stupid little picture. Responding to his counter-argument with "i pwnt you. Shut up now" makes me wonder at your mental age.

You don't know anywhere near as much as you think. Have you ever even written a line of C++?

The language does not make the windows. The language is just a means of communicating with code libraries, which communicate with the operating system, which makes the windows. If you were as knowledgeable as you seem to believe, you would know that Graal is based on SDL, which doesn't have support for multiple windows.

You're just not good at listening. Read it and read it again, my idea isn't the same thing as what you said

I have yet to hear you say something logical... but I'm glad you aggree with me that you don't know jack squat about anything.


Actualy I'm inferring that both c++ and open gl are both cross platformed very effectively, and that c++ using the sdl libraries to access operating system apis to generate a graphical window is quite possible.

but you're aloud to be sarcastic somehow. I'm saying is that I doubt stefan has a 100% perfect flawless god like knowledge of everything about computers, let alone c++. Or that you're not good at interperating what he means...

I'm sure you missunderstood him. Saying something is impossible can mean a number of things. Sure impossible means its not going to happen under the existing cercumstances, but that could mean manythings. It could mean that it is impossible that he'll change his opinion. It could mean its impossible for a window to suport alpha transparency so that the desktop showes through in windows98. My joke about the "improvements" was that the idea in question isn't an improvement. Your inteligence also eludes you.
The windows would look the same on the bassis of how good the operating system is. On something like windowsxp or any newer version of linux with updated stuff like x, alpha transparency of the playerlist would be quite possible. In the case of an outdated os like windows98, thats just something one would have to do without, wich is common in windows98... but thats something one has to bear in their choice of os. If you want a crappy gui, go with windows. If you like a pretty desktop, go with anything else. Personaly, I think opacity should be optional anyway.
I think this is all plenty on topic. I also think there is more merit to nocking some sence into stefan than brown noseing him.

----

alrighty, next post....
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yes I have. writing in c++ isn't a feat.
Actualy, I didn't know that graal was smart enough to use SDL. The rest of that is more or less true.

You neglected to mention the programing code is converted into assembly or pure binary, and uses the APIs and all that fun stuff. I'd love to spell that out for you, buts its pretty damn early right now (4:28 am, gmt-6).

Since v3 is using SDL, that makes stuff easy. If there are truely no librarys to do something as display a new window (wich I'm sure do infact exist), then stefan could easily make one of his own for it (and I don't give a damn if you think stefan shouldn't do it because it might take more than 3 seconds to do something so basic as to tell the os to generate a new window, so don't bother sugesting he shouldn't make his own library because of his hypothetical workloads).


At any rate, the only concern of incompatibility would be using alpha in the playerlist window for obsol33t operating systems like windows98.

I'll gladly elaobrate on the technical issues when I'm more awake, but for now you can just dissagree with my oposing voice of reason just like you have to any voice that isn't your own.


oh, and lastly, for the record my opinion is that they should just export all windows into some form of object that can be scaled and customized in their own ways, and then make it so the objects can be assigned to different windows etc or merged into the same one, as would new objects be possible to generate, such as backgrounds. Listening isn't you peeple's strong point.

And yet, for some reason, I don't believe you. Perhaps it's because you don't show any understanding of programming whatsoever.

I also neglected to mention that apples are crunchy and bananas are yellow, because those facts are just as irrelevant. Who do you think you're impressing?

The whole point of SDL is that it provides cross-platform compatibility. Now you're saying that he should discard that and start writing platform-specific code?

You may not "give a damn" about increased workloads, but that's probably because you're not the one writing the code. Stefan has to balance the gains with the necessary time investment, and if the latter outweighs the former then the idea is unworthy. Such seems to be the case here, and will be so until you can give a specific way to provide multi-window functionality without requiring hours of work.

When you've had time to find a website from which to copy&paste, you mean.

I don't care about your fanciful meanderings, nor did I comment on them in any way. Grow up and stop guttersniping.

I read through most of this post rather quickly, from what I can see you are arguing over the stupidest things, anyhow.
[list=1][*]Graal 3.x uses an in-game rendering system for windows, this superseeds any need for platform specific windowing code or dependancies on third party libraries. The Windows windowing API is completely different from the various Linux libraries for windowing.[*]Creating new windows without a well developed library in Windows takes over 50 lines of code, somewhat simple to do, but it is still a large task to do all of that windowing code.[*]I fully support the idea of an extended window with playerlist it would be quite useful in both 2.x and 3.x -- Graal 2.x had this but it was overlayed on the actual game screen rather than a seperate area.[*]The windows, etc, in Graal 3.x are seperate from the code, but they are hidden from us (and "compiled") so we cannot modify them.[*]Server-wide chat already exists, it's called a toall.[/list=1]

I like my idea of clicking a tab that makes the list slide out either vertically or horizontally on the side of the window or within the window.

I'm not talking about rendering, I'm talking about the creation and management of window objects. Graal uses SDL to achieve that effect. Since SDL doesn't provide support for multiple windows (or so I believe), Stefan would need to write platform-specific code or find some suitable free library.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Handling input is another major concern, for example.

The layout of the windows, you mean? Probably best to be unambiguous when dealing with non-programmers...