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Icon standardization - RFC

Started by VS, January 05, 2013, 07:44:12 PM

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VS

Currently we have a lot of infrastructure like ways, stops and extensions. Their toolbar button uses little icons to show what is what, since these can not be distinguished from their picture alone.

So far, a few "standards" exist - cargo icons are shared across paksets, and Fabio introduced speed and waytype icons. These are mostly used in an internally consistent way.

I would like to use this topic for discussion about the few pieces missing to a general guideline, usable at least for pak128.




My proposal loosely follows the already existing practice, and is the following:

1) The object is placed on a diagonal such that top left and bottom right corner are left less visually "used".

2) Bottom right is used for indication of WHAT & WHERE - fundamental way or building type: normal, bridge, elevated, tunnel | stop, extension, depot, dock

3) Top left is used for indication of VALUE:
  a) for ways, speed - black number on white in red circle
  b) for stops and extensions, cargo - standard icons
  c) "specials" - currently only control tower (I think)

Can you tell what each of these will build?





As you can see, there are some conflicting points.

Control towers are just weird - would they be better signalized as special building type? (I am talking only about the icon, not function!)
Do docks need their own type of icon?
What pictogram would be best for depots?
Is there some better way to hint that an item is for underground?

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Zeno

For underground, maybe the ground line could be painted in top of the station's roof, or just put that pictogram upside down.

Sarlock

Perhaps the icon background could be a dirt colour to indicate that it belongs underground?
Current projects: Pak128 Trees, blender graphics

Fabio

Depots could use vehicle pictogram (from line management dialog) with a roof above and maybe two pillars.

Underground stations and tools can use tunnel pictogram, maybe smaller and in top right corner, or in the bottom right coupled with station pictogram.

I would also like to think of a different icon background (the button itself), as present one is good but a bit outdated in style (win98/xp legacy). Think of how MS Word toolbars changed over time.
Changing all icons could be a massive work, but easily automated with Imagemagick.

greenling

VS
Your Idea it very goodi like it.
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prissi

I think some building icons (especially the human, letter and good and maybe also undergroud are probably best done by the program, as it know about it and prevents mistakes ... ) Also the key could be added than automagically.

For best result, one would of course want to seperate the icon content and the background image. ANy further rescinning would be much easier, and even icon resizing could be semi-automatical.

VS

That sounds great! Separating at least the background and cargo would help a lot. At the same time, it will be a bit hard without blending and alpha channel, which usually helps when composing the icons a lot...

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

dennosius

#7
Icon design should be approached from usability aspects first and then from the aesthetic aspects.

My 2 cents on it: When I open up the railway menu, the main information I need is not that I'm building railway tracks, because that's what I know. So the actual tracks don't have to be so much in the focus. What is important is the type of track (regular/tunnel/bridge/elevated) and the speed limit. So in my view, the track image could be slightly smaller and the sub-icons for type and speed bigger than currently. This applies to tracks/ways, it's again different with stops, where I usually know what I want to built and how that looks like, so identification works through the image.

On the other hand - there should also be a clear optical difference between railway, road etc., because if there are several toolbars open, it's currently not very intuitive to find the right one. But also here, I think, images of the actual tracks are not the best solution, as they are not different enough at the first glance (especially if sub-icons for type and speed become larger). This could be done by colours instead. I'm not thinking of full coloured buttons (would be too colourful), but something like a thin line in the icon background (like blue for canals/ships, yellow for roads etc.).

I think we also need a sub-icon for ground level to distinguish stops that can be built in tunnels and on ground from those only in tunnels. For extensions, I'd rather not add a sub-icon at the lower right, but a plus (+) in front (or behind?) of the pax/mail/cargo icons on the upper left. That way, we wouldn't need any special sub-icon for stops and extensions, everything that has pax/mail/cargo in the upper left corner, had to to with stops (I know this doesn't work with the control tower, but one special case should not be considered too much for the design, as also airports are not built often).

I don't like the red circle around the speed limit very much. Circle outlines take a lot of space (if they are bold enough to look nice and like the traffic sign) and the red colour attracts too much optical attention. Also, this speed limit sign is mainly an European thing, and even in Europe, it indicates a regulatory limit and not a technical limit, and is used in road traffic only.

Quote from: Fabio on January 05, 2013, 10:32:41 PM
I would also like to think of a different icon background (the button itself), as present one is good but a bit outdated in style (win98/xp legacy). Think of how MS Word toolbars changed over time.

That's right. But modern icon style makes, for it's usability, use of 3D mouseover effects that we can't have in Simutrans (or can we?).

kierongreen

In Britain the red circle white background is used on roads and railways.

mEGa

Quote from: dennosius on January 11, 2013, 11:06:33 PM
Icon design should be approached from usability aspects first and then from the aesthetic aspects.
...
That's right. But modern icon style makes, for it's usability, use of 3D mouseover effects that we can't have in Simutrans (or can we?).
Yes I agree. If we can't get 3D effects, new icons will have hardly utility.
I'm trying to accordate "web 3.0 aspect" designed icons with 2D main aspect of pak128... And I mean it's too hard.
But it's really good idea to create a rule for design icon. principe sketched by VS is good for me and if we can as Prissi said cover automatically static element (way, tracks, boat...), it's wonderful .
Current projects in progress : improvements of few designed french paks

VS

Absolutely agreed about waytype (road/rail/...) not needed in the icon as a prominent part. The way type I meant is actually internally called "system" I think, and means elevated/bridge/...

Plus for extensions is good idea.

I have some real tests, I'll show them later.

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

dennosius

This is just to illustrate the idea, if rail was 'green'.

For the extention, I assumed it can be built on ground and in tunnels (I know that this extension can't and probably extensions can never be built in tunnels, it's just to illustrate the ground/tunnel combination for stations and the extension + at the same time).

I'm not happy with the look of mail/pax icons and the + sign, those may need some kind of background box, but again, just to illustrate the idea. Also, the green bar may not be needed/useful for buildings.

mEGa

Finally I decided to show you my test to create button with 3D aspect... It isn't successful, I admit it.
Just to say, we can also decide to show each element with one tonal color theme which will be the background color of button.

Current projects in progress : improvements of few designed french paks

Markohs

If hover effects are desired by the community, wr can implement them for sure. shoudn't be hard to code

prissi

To get this into a constructive realms, lets summarize what possibly go into overlay, and what is part of the supplied icon graphics:

Overlay:
pass, mail, freight, tunnel, overground, extension, electricity, command key (bold one not existing yet)

Underlay:
default button graphic(s if different buttons like stops, track/bridge/tunnel and stops/extensions will get different backgrounds.

Icon:
Just the graphics, probably wil a color scheme and maybe a speed symbol for ways

VS

#15
I can see the following criterion hierarchy (not always related to actual class inheritance).


If the whole thing is to be composed of 3 layers, a natural question is, what goes up and what goes down? Personally, I could see the things on the right side [of the graph] as underlay (some?) and the rest as overlay, detecting cases with star for their own icon. The goods concept is actually somewhat tangential to this scheme.



Let's forget about special cases. There could even be a dat-file option to indicate that overlay is included in icon, true by default in compatibility code so that old stuff breaks only a bit.

(PS: Personally I would like a graphic for no goods allowed, too. But that's not really important now.)




edit: Well, if I remove the signs, the list gets less overwhelming! Attached my suggestions (not decisive at all!), and the freemind map.

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

dennosius

Surface/underground and station/extension can't go into the same corner, as we need to indicate both for stations (and theoretically for depots and extensions?).

What stations and ways have in common is the information where we (can) build it, so this should be at the same place (lower right preferably, as upper left is for speed limit or pax/mail/goods now and I don't see a reason to change this).

VS

I think you interpreted just the text without looking at pictures ;) I meant the items on the right side of the chart, not right side of icon.

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

sdog

Extension buildings  a "plus-sign and a house", since they can only be added to stations.

The symbol for platforms is not very identifiable. Perhaps a frontal view of the edge of the platform (rotatet 'L') and a train next to it? Or something showing the function of loading/unloading: _ -> [] (empty platform, arrow, box/crossection)

For all waytypes a symbol of the waytype would be sufficient, a picture of the actual structure isn't needed. Thus they could all be generated automatically.

You might also think about leaving some space for maximum weight or a similar concept. Firstly because it might get added to simutrans at a point, secondly as it's already in experimental.

ӔO

#19
If colours are used, I would suggest white text on blue.

red/black is not distinguishable for most colour blind users.

what I worked on previously...
I think the icons for indicating bridge vs. elevated are slightly more obvious in this.
The tunnel is a matter of preference, I think.



For station extensions for passengers, something like the outline of this would be a bit more obvious:
This has a welcoming? entrance and shelters on the side.




For the warehouse, the roofs could be less pointy and flatter. shallow angles gives the impression that it is a large structure.
kind of like the one shown, in the middle left, here:
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mEGa

#20
Well very interesting. I mean we do not have to forget that size of buttons is 32x32 p. So icons and pictos have to be very precise because they are small !
@VS : good analyse. Priority is to define element of layers :
- background button : choice of color for each category ?
- background over button = little representation of objet/item
- corner left top = special parameter (like speed max for way for exemple... Or passengers/messages for extension station...)
- corner right bottom : pictos of type of category (as you designed it: bridge, elevated way, way or tracks, depot...)

EDIT : example to show result :
Current projects in progress : improvements of few designed french paks

VS

Yes, the small size is really limiting. I chose strong contrast with as few details as possible. AEO's concepts look great, but need so much space...

AEO's point about warehouse roof is good one, my "flat way" icon sucks (mEGa's is way better but needs blending), and the station/stop symbol is too railway oriented.


My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

ӔO

@mEGA

In menuconf.tab, icon_width and icon_height can be given a higher number to make the icons larger

48x48 or maybe 64x48 would not be bad.
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greenling

AEO
I think 48x48 or 64x48 are too borad for some old computer.
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dennosius

The icon bars take a lot of space  already even on a 1920x1200 display, just due to the large amount of icons (I tend to have railway and road menu open almost all the time).

So let's see what we need to indicate for what (besides of waytype, which we I think agree to indicate by button background color):

Ways

  • Max. Speed
  • Where (surface, underground, elevated, bridge)
  • Max weight?

Stations and Extensions

  • Freight (pax/mail/cargo)
  • Extension if applicable (by + sign)
  • Where (surface or underground)?
  • IMHO we do not need to indicate that it is a station/extension as such, because freight icons are used for nothing else

Electrification

  • Max. speed
  • Electrification as such (maybe as the main thing? Identification by the actual image is not helpful for electrification IMHO)

Depots

  • Depot as such
  • Could there be different depots for surface/underground? If yes, 'where'-Icon.

Signals
Do we need to indicate anything at all or are the signal images self-explaining? They are not for rising bollards, if that is considered to be a signal, and they are neither for the elevated train (I mean that trains hanging on the elevated monorail - what's the correct description for them? That's a type different from those driving on a monorail, isn't it?). So icons could be useful, especially if we choose to introduce special signals for trams or narrow gauge some day.

DirrrtyDirk

Quote from: dennosius on January 16, 2013, 03:05:22 PM
Signals
So icons could be useful, especially if we choose to introduce special signals for trams or narrow gauge some day.

Actually narrowgauge needs a complete signal set of its own, and these would be part of the separate narrowgauge menu, so no need for any special markings there (apart from overall background color or whatever is decided for the whole waytypes). Special tram signals should become part of the tram menu, so no need there either, IMHO. As of now, one can already create signals for tram in the dats and they already appear in the tram menu... unfortunately they don't work then. But I'd think as long a track and tram are compatible systems, it shouldn't be hard to code into the game, that tram signals work exactly like track signals, just be part of the other (=tram) menu...?
  
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sdog

QuoteThe icon bars take a lot of space  already even on a 1920x1200 display, just due to the large amount of icons (I tend to have railway and road menu open almost all the time).
Yes, i think there needs to be some method to make it more compact:

Show only one of each type, way, elevated way, bridge, platform, etc
A right click (or ctrl-left for 1 button mac-mouse) opens a pulldown with all other versions of the way. Example:

only 30km/h road is shown,
  right click on it, one can chose 30, 50, 100 m/h roads, by clicking left on one,
    clicking right on one option makes this one active, but does not change the default. (this is important eg if players build lots of signals, and want exactly one pre-signal)

It would be good to show the currently active build tool as an icon in the top left hand corner, perhaps at double the size.

Station extensions would become a button on the menubar aswell, opening a new toolbar with all the station extensions. This would allow us to have more different station extensions without cluttering the toolbars too much.

Optionally allow the old mode to be set in the options menu. Pakset chooses the default (it is important for pak64 and pak128, but eg pak192comic wouldn't need it)


ps: if there's enough interest, i'll write it up as an extension request.

dennosius

Quote from: DirrrtyDirk on January 16, 2013, 04:08:50 PM
Actually narrowgauge needs a complete signal set of its own, and these would be part of the separate narrowgauge menu, so no need for any special markings there (apart from overall background color or whatever is decided for the whole waytypes). Special tram signals should become part of the tram menu, so no need there either, IMHO.

I know they'd go into different waytype menus. Still, the functionality of the same signals is the same (a narrow-gauge one-way-signal works just as a tram one-way signal). So if the functionality of the signal is not clear from the signal image, an icon would IMHO be useful to easier identify the type of signal. So it's not to identify whether it's a tram or narrow-gauge signal, but to identify whether it's a one-way, platform-selection or regular signal. If we decide to introduce different looking signals for different waytypes, this would make sense IMHO.

QuoteAs of now, one can already create signals for tram in the dats and they already appear in the tram menu... unfortunately they don't work then. But I'd think as long a track and tram are compatible systems, it shouldn't be hard to code into the game, that tram signals work exactly like track signals, just be part of the other (=tram) menu...?

Isn't it possible to put signals defined as railway signals into the tram menu? They'd still work work for railways (and the other way round), but it would at least be possible to build different signals.

prissi

I do not think we need icons for stations versus extensions, as the graphics quite easily tell you what a station is (some way is visible) and what an extensions is (and both will show the pas, mail, good symbols too). Same for depots or signals, those are obvious from the graphics.

If you want symbols for depots, halt, halt extensions, elevated ways, and so one, those can be also generated by a script from the actual source of the icon prior to paking, since these will never change during game (while pas, mail, goods depend on the simuconf.tab setting, as well as the command key).

An overground/underground symbol needs to be shown only in sliced mode, since otherwise the icon will be not shown anyway. That will reduce the clutter of icons a lot for most situations. Thus this need also handling by the program.

What is the ramp symbols in the lower left of VS proposal?

DirrrtyDirk

Quote from: dennosius on January 17, 2013, 10:25:32 AM
I know they'd go into different waytype menus. Still, the functionality of the same signals is the same (a narrow-gauge one-way-signal works just as a tram one-way signal). So if the functionality of the signal is not clear from the signal image, an icon would IMHO be useful to easier identify the type of signal. So it's not to identify whether it's a tram or narrow-gauge signal, but to identify whether it's a one-way, platform-selection or regular signal. If we decide to introduce different looking signals for different waytypes, this would make sense IMHO.

Ok, as long as we're talking about the differences between normal signal, 2-block-signal, choosesignal, etc. (for all waytypes, e.g. track, narrowgauge, monorail, maglev, tram) I'm with you there. To me it sounded like you'd want different type-overlays for icons even for normal signals just because one is for track and the other is for narrowgauge.

Quote from: dennosius on January 17, 2013, 10:25:32 AM
Isn't it possible to put signals defined as railway signals into the tram menu? They'd still work work for railways (and the other way round), but it would at least be possible to build different signals.

Sure you can. But so far you can only add all of the railsignals there... or none of them*. And that's not really what I'd want in the end, since it would be the identical list as displayed in the track menu already. I'd prefer signals specially painted for tram that show up only in the tram menu (just like tram tracks, catenaries, depots and stations already do) - even if they could be placed and used on normal tracks (and vice versa) as well - or not. Whatever is easier to code.

*) as long as you're planning to keep the menuconf.tab automatically showing all new signals as soon as they are added without having to add each one specifically to the menu (and I haven't yet tried if that is even possible)
  
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arroyoc

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VS

I think we all agree that button background and cargo icons would be good... Once that is in place, other parts can be added once we agree again ;)

Quote from: prissi on January 17, 2013, 10:52:28 AM
An overground/underground symbol needs to be shown only in sliced mode, since otherwise the icon will be not shown anyway.
That's actually true... Why didn't I think of that?

Quote from: prissi on January 17, 2013, 10:52:28 AM
What is the ramp symbols in the lower left of VS proposal?
Maybe plain way? I am not sure which you mean...

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DirrrtyDirk

Quote from: prissi on January 17, 2013, 10:52:28 AM
What is the ramp symbols in the lower left of VS proposal?

To me it looks like iso-view of a normal piece of road, not a ramp...
  
***** PAK128 Dev Team - semi-retired*****

dennosius

#33
Quote from: prissi on January 17, 2013, 10:52:28 AM
I do not think we need icons for stations versus extensions, as the graphics quite easily tell you what a station is (some way is visible) and what an extensions is (and both will show the pas, mail, good symbols too).

You think so? I can hardly recognize that already for the current passenger train station. In 32x32, the way can become so small that it's hard to see  if the building is rather large.

QuoteIf you want symbols for depots, halt, halt extensions, elevated ways, and so one, those can be also generated by a script from the actual source of the icon prior to paking, since these will never change during game (while pas, mail, goods depend on the simuconf.tab setting, as well as the command key).

How does pax/mail/goods depend on the simuconf settings? Even if the game is played without exclusive station capacities, it still needs one station/extension element to enable pax/mail/goods for the stations. Or is there another simuconf setting that allows to load/deliver pax to a station that has no pax element?

Quote
An overground/underground symbol needs to be shown only in sliced mode, since otherwise the icon will be not shown anyway. That will reduce the clutter of icons a lot for most
situations. Thus this need also handling by the program.

That's technically right, but I don't think that changing icons for the same things between surface/underground and sliced mode is ergonomic. If the icon isn't shown, it isn't shown, but if it's shown, it should always look the same IMHO. Also, the information represented by the subicons is not completely useless: If a station icon carries surface and underground subicons in surface view, that at least tells the user that the station could also be built underground.

Quote
What is the ramp symbols in the lower left of VS proposal?

I also see it as an isometric view of a piece of road. I don't think that's a perfect illustration for a regular way, but we'd rather not discuss design at the current stage (although there are some very good things among the proposals).

Back to the general discussion:

What should be the colours for the waytypes?


  • Waterways: Should be blue, this is a pretty clear connotation.
  • Road: I propose yellow.
  • Rail: I propose red
  • Tram: I propose orange, as it's a mixture of yellow and red
  • Air: I propose white. Airplanes are usually white, also white has some 'light' and 'flying' connotation
  • Monorail, Maglev, Narrow Gauge: any ideas? I wonder whether it's good to use colours similiar to red (as those are railway variations), on the other hand, it may be more ergonomic to use colours mire different from red in order to avoid them being confused with railway
  • General Icons: Should be grey.

ӔO

^ shapes would be better, compared to colours.

Colour blind users may find coloured icons to be confusing if they are not chosen correctly.

Use of red ought to be avoided completely and what you will be left with are shades of blue and yellow.
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VS

Personally I think that indicating waytype with colour is somewhat less important, since presence in certain menu and hover hint (?) both help identify the item. Indicating underground seems more important...

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Vladki

Hello all,

there are lots of interesting ideas here. I would like to say that not everything has to be displayed on the icon. We still have the tooltips, and also order of icons is given - normal road/track, elevated road/track, bridge, tunnel, wayobj/electrification, signals, bulldozer, depot, station. And roads are ordered by speed, stations by capacity. So a lot of info can be found intuitively or from tool tips.

My proposal is to keep additional icons for roads/track as fabio did - show the speed, and icons only for elevated, bridge and tunnel. Plain road can be without extra icon. Electrification should have the red lightning,

Stations symbols for pas/mail/cargo and some extra icon only for extensions. Platforms can be without icon. For undeground only stations a tooltip might be enough, as they will be visible only in underground mode.

Depots are just fine as they are. Or they could have a wrench icon in place of cargo icons.

For signals, we could use letters, as I did for pak128.cz - letters in right bottom corner: S-signal, P-presignal, L-Long, C-Choose, E-EndOfChoose, O-OneWay.

Someone mentioned that toolbars occupy a lot of space even on fullHD screen. I'd like to ask for vertical toolbars. In past few years displays grow only horizontally, from 1280x1024 to 1900x1080 - thats 620 px extra widht but only 53 px height. There is a lot of space on sides of screen for vertical toolbars.

dennosius

As we discussed before, background colours are not for finding an icon (so they don't have an identification function for the icon itself), but for identifying the icon bar, mainly in case a couple of icon bars are open already. Of course, if one just opened the railway icon bar, there's no need to indicate that the icon bar contains railway elements. But if there are several icon bars open, identifying them by the icons is hard, as icons look pretty similar on the first glance (esp. if we put more common subicons on them).

I also think that tooltips are quite the opposite of intuition. If one needs to read the tooltip, the icon hasn't worked (so in best case tooltips are not used/only used for additional information such as pricing).

greenling

#38
Hello on All
I think that all pakset need Submenüs for Rail,Road,Tram,Ships,Plans,Monorails,Station Ex tations.
Here it a photo that show how many space be need the window, then install a addon out japan and that without
Timeline. Those photo give the Size again they i use to play with simutrans on my laptop there two tool on the
Screen with use. And that not all addons they i have install here in those photo.

(Klich here, then the Photo not be show.)
https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/simscr06.png?attredirects=0
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Raiser

Quote from: greenling on January 18, 2013, 09:15:03 AM
Hello on All
I think that all pakset need Submenüs for Rail,Road,Tram,Ships,Plans,Monorails,Station Ex tations.
Here it a photo that show how many space be need the window, then install a addon out japan and that without
Timeline. Those photo give the Size again they i use to play with simutrans on my laptop there two tool on the
Screen with use. And that not all addons they i have install here in those photo.

(Klich here, then the Photo not be show.)
https://sites.google.com/site/000002expend/simscr06.png?attredirects=0


Yes thats right - i would agree to introduce sub task bars.

dennosius

Quote from: ӔO on January 17, 2013, 07:09:48 PM
Colour blind users may find coloured icons to be confusing if they are not chosen correctly.

Is that true? I mean, worse than the current all-grey icons?

Non-colourblind people are, on the other hand, not trained to tell shades of a colour apart, and limiting the number of colours to two (blue and yellow) is probably not a real step forward in ergonomics. What I mean is: I really like the idea of barrier-free design, but not on the cost of loosing ergonomics for ordinary users if there's no win in ergonomics for colour-blinds on the other hand. In other words: An improvement should still be done if only ordinary people profit from it, unless it makes things even worse for colour-blinds than the current state.

But coming back to my question whether it's good or not to use similar colours (i.e. shades of one colour) for all railway-like ways (narrow gauge, maglev, monorail) it may be a good compromise to answer this question with 'yes' and use (shades of) yellow (as blue is clearly intuitive for waterways) for those, so colourblind users take at least advantage of the majority of colours used.

sdog

Quote from: dennosius on January 18, 2013, 07:00:54 AM
As we discussed before, background colours are not for finding an icon (so they don't have an identification function for the icon itself), but for identifying the icon bar, mainly in case a couple of icon bars are open already. Of course, if one just opened the railway icon bar, there's no need to indicate that the icon bar contains railway elements. But if there are several icon bars open, identifying them by the icons is hard, as icons look pretty similar on the first glance (esp. if we put more common subicons on them).


Then the consequence of this would be to mark the bar instead of the icons!

perhaps put a train, lorry, ship symbol at the beginning of each bar, perhaps also do a colour coded rim.

ӔO

Quote from: dennosius on January 18, 2013, 05:36:13 PM
Is that true? I mean, worse than the current all-grey icons?

Non-colourblind people are, on the other hand, not trained to tell shades of a colour apart, and limiting the number of colours to two (blue and yellow) is probably not a real step forward in ergonomics. What I mean is: I really like the idea of barrier-free design, but not on the cost of loosing ergonomics for ordinary users if there's no win in ergonomics for colour-blinds on the other hand. In other words: An improvement should still be done if only ordinary people profit from it, unless it makes things even worse for colour-blinds than the current state.

But coming back to my question whether it's good or not to use similar colours (i.e. shades of one colour) for all railway-like ways (narrow gauge, maglev, monorail) it may be a good compromise to answer this question with 'yes' and use (shades of) yellow (as blue is clearly intuitive for waterways) for those, so colourblind users take at least advantage of the majority of colours used.

From an ergonomics stand point, colours aren't necessary for the icon background. The picture in it should be obvious enough already. i.e. a ship looks like a ship.

The various toolbars you can open are already sorted as well. i.e. Tunnels are lumped together with tunnels, etc.

The only problem in identifying differences are stations, station extensions and electrifications. In some paks, the icon image overlaps the type icon and it may also be of a similar colour, which will cause some confusion to the user. Particularly bad ones are some of the railway stations and extensions in pak128.
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Colour safe chart:

dennosius

Quote from: ӔO on January 18, 2013, 08:25:27 PM
From an ergonomics stand point, colours aren't necessary for the icon background.

This discussion is becoming a bad example of open development :) Once everyone agreed we should use colours and then we discuss what colours, people start arguing we don't need colours.

Once again: Ergonomics in GUI design (esp. icon design) means that functionalities of icons are visible at the first glance intuitively. In Simutrans, we have (at least) two different levels of choosing the right functionality: If users want to perform a certain action, they need to 1) find the right toolbar and 2) find the right icon within the toolbar.

Colours are exclusively for the first level. And colours are - at the current stage of discussion and proposals - the only possible identifiers for this level. Having to look at the icons contents for identifying the toolbars' purposes is bad ergonomics. It's like not naming the main menu items in applications with the argument if the menu contains 'Save as', it must be the 'File' menu, and if it contains 'Copy' and 'Merge', it must be the 'Edit' menu. It's practically not that bad in Simutrans, but the approach is just the same.

It's currently impossible to identify (esp. already open) toolbars in Simutrans at the first glance intuitively. This especially applies to the road and railway toolbars, which are similar in size and contain similar icons (recognizing them left-to-right both starting with a bunch of icons with speed limit info as the most eye-catching elements). And it'll get worse as soon as we have maglev and narrow gauge toolbars in place who will (necessarily) contain items very much similar to each other and the railway, monorail and tram toolbars.

Ergonomics and intuition are not about finding the icon at all. This is of course perfectly possible at the moment. They are about finding the right toolbar/icon without having to look twice, think or concentrate on it. Players' concentration should remain completely focused on the in-game task they are performing and not on how to control the software. And this, if possible, from the very first minute (so we all have to go back from our own personal scale, knowing all icons and elements already by heart).

QuoteThe picture in it should be obvious enough already. i.e. a ship looks like a ship.

There's not a single ship within the waterways toolbar, just as a remark. There's a greyish canal, a bridge icon that could at the first glance as well represent a paved road, a bulldoze icon that is almost the same in every toolbar, and a couple of stations that could at the first glance as well be stations or extensions for any other waytype.

Colours are not mainly for the case players click on the ship icon. If players click on a waytype icon, it's obvious and intuitive that the toolbar then opened is the one belonging to the waytype icon. But already this is not easy: railway and narrow gauge icons both show locomotives, the road menu shows a lorry although in practice often used more for buses, the monorail icon shows something looking more like a maglev, and the tram and airplane icons are not easily recongnizable. Anyway, once several toolbars are already open, identifying the toolbar by the icons contained is the wrong way from an ergonomics perspective, and it's also practically difficult as contained icons look too similar.

QuoteThe various toolbars you can open are already sorted as well. i.e. Tunnels are lumped together with tunnels, etc.

Yes, this is already good and intuitive. Slower ways to the left, faster ways to the right, and same levels (underground/surface/elevated/bridge) together. We still need to identify the exact speed limit and 'where' to build it.

ӔO

I'm not sure I follow, because it's pretty obvious which toolbars are which, at least in pak britain...

The toolbars are clearly labelled
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various projects rolled up: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/Roll_up.rar

Colour safe chart:

sdog

Quote from: dennosius on January 19, 2013, 01:26:39 AM
This discussion is becoming a bad example of open development :) Once everyone agreed we should use colours and then we discuss what colours, people start arguing we don't need colours.
I did not have the impression there was full agreement. To the contrary, it appears VS, who started the project did not consider it important. Only AEO, whose position you so staunchly oppose took a major interest in it.

I also would not consider this a bad example of an open development process either. The people who actually do the work, will pick the good ideas and develop them further or implement them.

VS

#46
To clarify my position towards colour with far more verbosity:

The most important part of icon is the graphic itself, which identifies it with how it looks in game world - is unique + recognizable (dubious-contest). With all the stuff we could push into icon, it would be more and more hidden. The other parts must not overlap the central space, allow the diagonal free of clutter so that more can be seen. And - it must not drown in other colour. Perhaps you noticed that all the "type" overlay suggestions converged to b&w? I think we all intuitively understand this...

Anyway! IMO the colour coding of what waytype the item belongs to is rather secondary - as of now, we do not mix waytypes, we sort them into toolbars. Thus it can be just a tint of the background.
(BTW, there are extensions with waytype, but it is not important where you build them.)

As I see it, I am not against colour, just... not very much for it, either :D

This is not in any way authoritative.




Quote from: dennosius on January 19, 2013, 01:26:39 AM
This discussion is becoming a bad example of open development :)
Maybe!

Unfortunately, this is a topic where everyone has an opinion (including me). We can all agree that a standard is a good idea. We can all agree that something goes below the item's graphic, and something goes above it. That's about it. Perhaps it is not important to arrive at a consensus. I certainly did not expect that! I had to discuss this kind of initiative, or it never even came to mind of anyone (or so it seemed). In the end:

Quote from: sdog on January 19, 2013, 03:16:00 AM
I also would not consider this a bad example of an open development process either. The people who actually do the work, will pick the good ideas and develop them further or implement them.

The point is (probably) that this is not the development, this is a discussion... The painfully suboptimal part is where we can't tell experts from "everyone".




Quote from: ӔO on January 18, 2013, 08:25:27 PM
From an ergonomics stand point, colours aren't necessary for the icon background. The picture in it should be obvious enough already. i.e. a ship looks like a ship.
Yes :) With building-like structures, in the available resolution, it gets worse, though :-/ If we could make icons 64*64, quite a number of these problems would go away...

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

dennosius

#47
@sdog
Please consider the smiley. I anyway didn't want to start a meta discussion now (by having done so despite the smiley, I gave a bad example as well, sorry for that).

@ӔO
This is the Pak128 forum. Pak128 of course shows the same labels. But labels are never 'obvious' in an icon/toolbar ergonomic sense, because reading is nothing that comes from intuition. Especially not the toolbar labels, they don't have much contrast (brown/white on orange), and they contain similar descriptions ('Tools' everywhere, 'Rail' and/or 'Road' in many).

Your screenshot is actually a good example. It shows 9 toolbars with approx. 200 icons that all look pretty similar at the first glance. Imagine you just now needed to build a road depot.  You will of course find it, but it'll take like 3 seconds, an unexperienced player may even need 5 or 10 seconds. And you'll need to concentrate on finding it. If ergonomics were perfect, we'd be able to find the road depot instantly without having to invest any attention.

@VS
I share most of your points. What I don't second is that graphics are the most important part for ways, because the look of ways doesn't differ and has little (if any at all) identification potential for the capabilities (esp. max speed). A 160 km/h railroad track is not unique and recognizable if compared to 100 km/h and 280 km/h railroad tracks. And although I do share your point that the graphics are most important identifiers for most of the other items (esp. stops and extensions), some identification potential of the graphics unfortunately gets lost by the small graphics size on the icon. We'll need to find a solution for this, but that's not what the colour is good for.

As I said before, colour is not about the identification of an icon. As we don't mix waytypes *), once a user knows he's in the right toolbar, colour has little or no use, I fully agree to this. But we have to find the right toolbar first, especially if toolbars are open already (it's easier through the waytype icons at the top, so if the toolbars are not open already). So the main use case for colours is identifying the needed toolbar among several toolbars already opened.

*) This leads me to another question: Is the waytype sorting useful for extensions at all? Most (if not all) pa/mail/goods extensions are good for any waytype. Why is the petrol tank in the railroad toolbar? Shouldn't it also be used for petrol storage near harbours? Couldn't the airport passenger terminals as well be ferry or maglev passenger terminals? Why are car parks in the road menu (bus stops are probably the type of stations where in real life dedicated parking space is least common, compared to railway stations, airports and harbours)?. And what do post offices have in common with making a stop public so they go in the same toolbar? Would it therefore be a good idea to sort universal extensions into an extra toolbar?

VS

Funny... Transport Tycoon can have only one way toolbar open at a time. Thus, it actually already wins in that aspect!

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

dennosius

Quote from: VS on January 19, 2013, 11:51:46 AM
Funny... Transport Tycoon can have only one way toolbar open at a time. Thus, it actually already wins in that aspect!

I don't think that's a win. Simutrans clearly wins this, as it's possible to build combined stations and combined networks without having to open and close toolbars all the time (or even maintain different type separate networks). We can make it a bigger win by making this more ergonomic.

Vladki

Quote from: DirrrtyDirk on January 17, 2013, 11:09:11 AM
Sure you can. But so far you can only add all of the railsignals there... or none of them*. And that's not really what I'd want in the end, since it would be the identical list as displayed in the track menu already. I'd prefer signals specially painted for tram that show up only in the tram menu (just like tram tracks, catenaries, depots and stations already do) - even if they could be placed and used on normal tracks (and vice versa) as well - or not. Whatever is easier to code.

*) as long as you're planning to keep the menuconf.tab automatically showing all new signals as soon as they are added without having to add each one specifically to the menu (and I haven't yet tried if that is even possible)
Wow, is that really really possible? Any hints how modify the menuconf.tab to have just some signals into a tram menu? I have a set of tram signals, but they are coded as normal rail signals, so they appear in rail menu.

DirrrtyDirk

No, apparently you can only have all or none (at least I could not get anything else to work). To include all train signals into the tram menu, all you need to do is add (or change) a line in the tramtools section of menuconf.tab:

toolbar[5][3]=signs(2)
It says signs(7) in the original line, but that would only display signals coded for tram - and these (while showing up correctly) don't work as such in game.
  
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greenling

Hello on all
I have look in the menuconf.tab but i have not understand how she work.
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sdog

@denosisus today my post reads much harsher than it seemed yesterday. Please accept my apology for this.


I also think, it would be helpful to make the toolbar itself more distinctly identifyable. Your point is good there. Of course, as VS said, the waytypes are grouped in their own categories -- but with the new icons the toolbar for 'Road' and 'Rail' indeed look very similar. Of course a different button opens them, however once, open they can be confused. How about a colour code for the toolbar title-bar?

ӔO

I think there is a small issue with the visibility of the title bars in the various menus.

White on orange is not exactly the most contrasting.

White on blue would be, and it's quite popular for high visibility/legibility road signs.
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various projects rolled up: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17111233/Roll_up.rar

Colour safe chart:

dennosius

#55
Quote from: DirrrtyDirk on January 19, 2013, 07:05:22 PM
No, apparently you can only have all or none (at least I could not get anything else to work). To include all train signals into the tram menu, all you need to do is add (or change) a line in the tramtools section of menuconf.tab:

toolbar[5][3]=signs(2)
It says signs(7) in the original line, but that would only display signals coded for tram - and these (while showing up correctly) don't work as such in game.

I think it could be possible. Fences in the special tools menu are defined as some kind of railroad ways:


toolbar[10][1]=ways(2,255)


So it's the second parameter (255) that makes it possible to put fences, although railroad ways, go to the special toolbar. That parameter is not documented in the menuconf file (could at least not find it), but with this kind of parameter it seems to be possible to put certain (but not all) railroad items into a different toolbar, so it seems this could work the same with signals into the tram menu. Maybe the parameter has to be set in the dat file?

Quote from: sdog on January 20, 2013, 02:49:36 AM
How about a colour code for the toolbar title-bar?

I think we can't set colours for the toolbars, or can we? My original idea was not to use a full icon background, but to use some kind of a colour bar. I illustrated it in the middle of the icon, it could as well be on top. The disadvantage is that it takes space within the icons. We could adjust icon height to 36 to avoid this (so have a 4px colour bar at the top). The disadvantage of full coloured icons could of course be that it becomes too colourful, which could somehow be avoided by using gradients and not using full colours (so not a #FF0000 red, but a lighter one). And I don't know whether a colour bar at the top is as intuitive as a background colour, it may be less visible.

prissi

You can chnage the color of the unowned player (15) which would change all unowned windows title bars.

dennosius

Can only icons in the main toolbar open new toolbars, or are nested sub-toolbars theoretically possible?

DirrrtyDirk

Quote from: dennosius on January 23, 2013, 01:02:44 PM
Can only icons in the main toolbar open new toolbars, or are nested sub-toolbars theoretically possible?

Submenus are possible (and not just theoretically  ;)).
  
***** PAK128 Dev Team - semi-retired*****

dennosius

Sounds good. I wonder whether we should make use of this. Of course, it's good to have all items in one bar without sub-menus. But only if the number of icons in one toolbar is not too large. The railway and road menus are already now at the maximum, in my view. It might be useful to put less frequently used items into submenus (like bridges and elevated are probably less frequently used in comparison to surface and tunnel ways - or is that just me?).




greenling

Hello
I have find in the Simuconf.tab a Parameter with the names toolbar_max_width = 0 and toolbar_max_height = 0 .
I have those parameter be test and i must said that those parameter make the Menü smaller.
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Fabio

Ways can already have a menu entry (currently a shortcut for roads and rails) for latest used. If this could be extended to bridges and tunnels as well, we could have 2 buttons for ways (latest used and sub menu), 2 buttons for tunnels, 2 buttons for bridges: 6 buttons instead of the zillion we have now. Stations and extensions could have a sub menu as well.

ӔO

if menus get a key, I would suggest using the top row of keys. Function keys would be preferable.

F1: help
F2: options
F3: map
etc.

I think that would be pretty easy to find and also be universal across all types of keyboards.
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prissi

You can define F1 to F12 in the menuconf for toolbars already ...