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Settings only for mind readers and clairvoyants

Started by Spike, January 26, 2012, 11:44:15 PM

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Spike

I guess the settings dialog is for mind readers and clairvoyants only? For a dialog that is to open from the start screen I'd say the texts are pretty poor.

What does a "simple_drawing_tile_size" of 24 mean? Or a "bits_per_month" of 18?

How could ever a new player make use of this dialog? And if it is for experts only, why is it on the start screen to open? As a newby I'd curiously click and then be confused, not knowing if and what I should do with all these settings  ::-\

Besides this, why does the dialog open so small? The first thing every user will do, is to pull it big to see more of the options. It overlaps with the "new game" menu anyways, so it can be much bigger initially without a problem IMO.

Please, try to have good texts, or at least texts, for at least the first few dialogs that a new player will experience  :-[

isidoro

It is always very interesting what a new user sees of an application.  When playing a game or using an application for a long time things that seems simple or natural have been learned indeed.

In the case of Simutrans, from the first time you open the game to the time you have a train running,  it is a long jump.  The best alternative would be an interactive tutorial like many games have, but that is difficult to achieve I guess...


Ters

There is also the ongoing battle between the user interface wishes of novice and advanced users. The latter want every option available with a single click or keypress, the former just gets confused by it.

AP

Maybe that should be the first choice upon starting the program?

jamespetts

I do agree with Hajo about this - the options should be in plain English, I think, not their simuconf.tab parameter names, and have tooltips explaining what they do. Better still would be a way to obtain those tooltips and names automatically from specially formatted comments in simuconf.tab, although that might take much work, I suppose.
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Ters

Editing the configuration file by hand is easier than this dialog, at least once one have figured out how to open .tab files. The configuration file contains helpful comments and examples. If this dialog is to ease configuration, it fails misserably, but I suspect its role may also be to edit setting that have been read from the configuration file and stored in the game/map itself on creation. Or is that a different dialog?

prissi

This dialog is not to be edited by any casual player. But you need the option available here. It is the classical conflict between novices and expert. If both complain, you either did right or utterly wrong.

The is the same as with OpenTTD extended settings. The lines here have the same name that simuconf.tab and are not translatable, exactly for being and staying the same. Since after a restart and value in simuconf.tab will overwrite values set here, those settings are better modified there.

Maybe there should be a red warning text to explain this above the tabs.

Fabio

Settings could read simuconf.tab comments and show them as tooltips. And there could be an option to save these settings to personal simuconf. Only advanced users should ever touch text files, things like increasing station coverage or initial money should be set by UI by default.

prissi

As those strongly destroy pakset balance, those should not be touched by novices anyway. But we could easily go back to the old times, where you only had simuconf.tab for this.

Combuijs

I like the settings dialog, indeed not for novices, but it is a handy overview of all options.

Apart from the meaning of a setting, the thing I mostly miss is wether a setting is saved in the savegame or not.

I would even suggest that settings that will be saved in a savegame should be in the dialog, and settings that are not should only be in simuconf.tab.
Bob Marley: No woman, no cry

Programmer: No user, no bugs



Lmallet

I agree with Combuijs, maybe separate the more common settings (ie. drive on left, autosave) from the more advanced settings.

Isaac Eiland-Hall

Interesting to me that editing text files is considered the option for novices, while the in-game dialogue is considered for experts. I think in most other situations, the reverse is the case.

Fabio

Quote from: Isaac.Eiland-Hall on January 28, 2012, 02:13:15 AM
Interesting to me that editing text files is considered the option for novices, while the in-game dialogue is considered for experts. I think in most other situations, the reverse is the case.

I completely agree.

prissi

Neither editing simuconf.tab nor this dialog is inteded for new players.

When there is consent, which options should be accessible by novices, then we can have a simplier dialog and only show this monster, if there is a switch in simuconf.tab (expert_settings=1) or so.

Btw. everything you edit there is saved in the game. If not, I would not need to show them here. Some settings you can overwrite later (especially if not in networkmode) using simuconf.tab.

(While I find it very helpful to discuss shortcoming, I would like to have a more constructive approach. Please, suggest improvement. Most extension request only make the game harder, not easier.)

isidoro

There is always the possibility of a settings menu for general use with an "Advanced..." button.  If the user presses it, he knows it's not going to be fun, as usual...  :police:

sdog

#15
QuoteWhen there is consent, which options should be accessible by novices, then we can have a simplier dialog and only show this monster, if there is a switch in simuconf.tab (expert_settings=1) or so.
This might be desirable for a lot of dialogues in the game! This could even extend to tools shown in the icon bar, and buildable objects. (perhaps with a different switch)


QuoteI would like to have a more constructive approach. Please, suggest improvement. Most extension request only make the game harder, not easier.
i tried an approach, as extension request
http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=9100


(please don't be angry on me for writing it, but not doing it, you asked for an approach ;-)

Fabio

Quote from: isidoro on January 29, 2012, 02:04:49 AM
There is always the possibility of a settings menu for general use with an "Advanced..." button.  If the user presses it, he knows it's not going to be fun, as usual...  :police:

Totally. We could start changing thD translation to "Advanced..."

missingpiece

Quote from: prissi on January 27, 2012, 11:05:12 PMThe lines here have the same name that simuconf.tab and are not translatable, exactly for being and staying the same.
I'd like to disagree with this design decision having userfriendliness in mind as the OP. I would prefer seeing translated labels, and then a bubble help which may give the parameter name as in the simuconf.tab . Being an almost novice player, I would prefer editing values from a dialog instead of using a text editor (with the added benefit of having direct value consistency check and not corrupting the file).

Pulling the explanation texts in the file comments and for a game dialog from the same source is a coder's wish, I know. But that should be subordinate to a more streamlined user experience in-game. My suggestion for achieving the "same source" goal : use placeholders in the committed simuconf.tab file and replace them with texts from the translation resources using a script hooked into the build process.

Also, using .tab as an extension for configuration files was a very ... "exotic" choice IMHO as most users of window managed OSes will likely have to associate that extension with a text editor first before being able to edit them. A very advanced technique I may say for most players.

The online installer -- which also pulls paksets and removed the need of placing files into the file system after an excursion to sourcefourge -- went a HUGE way into a direction of making the game more accesible to the casual gamer. Which is a good thing, I want to add.  8)

Quote from: prissi on January 27, 2012, 11:05:12 PMSince after a restart and value in simuconf.tab will overwrite values set here, those settings are better modified there.
But why is that so ? Why not allow persisting the values chosen here to the user's simucon.tab ? Not necessarily persist them all the time after editing, but have a save button. Or, indeed, a warning that the changes are for the current session only.

I support the idea of splitting the dialog into two levels, where the second shows the more exotic options after pressing "advanced".

Finally, I want to remind you of the confusion that I and others had, since the option of how station names are formed does not even appear, or it is not stored to the save game, or it is not read from simuconf.tab ... I am again totally confused without re-reading the thread.

Spike

Quote from: missingpiece on January 30, 2012, 05:06:24 AM
Also, using .tab as an extension for configuration files was a very ... "exotic" choice IMHO as most users of window managed OSes will likely have to associate that extension with a text editor first before being able to edit them. A very advanced technique I may say for most players.

I came from Linux, and around 1997 there were not many of the "window managed os" things there, no KDE, no Gnome, no Unity ... and the window managers like fvwm don't care about extension at all. You made an xterm and typed "vi myfile.whatever" and the text editor started. Or emacs, pico, jade, xedit, whatever editor you liked best.

Not trying to reason that ".tab" is a good choice nowadays. But trying to explain why at the time when it was invented, it seemed as good as any other extension. And changing it will lead to a lot of consfusion, if players have their own *.tab files lying around, and Simutrans stops reading them and favors simuconf.txt suddenly. Or simuconf.ini ... or simuconf.xml? Even nowadays there are many formats and extensions  ???

Fabio

Windows installer could optionally associate .tab files to NotePad (or better still, to the same text editor used for .txt
It could also associate .sve to Simutrans.exe -load %1 ;)

sdog

users who can't even open the file, are perhaps not necessarily users we would like to edit settings. Especially as most settings are accesible from within the game now, i can't see why wether it is named .tab is important anymore.

wlindley

.ini (Windows heritage) or .conf (Unix heritage) would be preferable at some point in the future, if ever the UI has a major overhaul.  I am most grateful that settings are not stored in some uneditable binary mischmasch... eventually, saved games and pakfiles should all be text based (inside a compressed container).  Simple, plain text file formats are much more resilient to long-term use.  And, I do like the concept of having a tooltip in the UI tell you what the configuration file parameter is -- that's an almost unheard-of convenience!

Ters

I don't think text format is suited for saving maps. It's simply too much data, so it won't really be human readable anyway and just increase the file size for minimal benefit. Some data, such as vehicles and lines, could maybe work as text.

Pakfiles are in a sense already text, since the image part won't work as text either, but they're preprocessed externally before loading for some reason.

prissi

An map saved as XML is only 50-200 times larger than bzipped. You can tried it, but prepare that reading the map will take most of the time for loading actually.

But back to topic:
What should accessible on such an "basic" config dialogue?

Format of time
drive left
autosave
Format of station names
length of month (UI friendly)

just_in_time
beginner mode

random pedestrians
stop pedestrian
traffic level
traffic lifetime

left_to_right_graphs
window icons on right

Suggestions please, and think of novices.


Combuijs

I admit I don't know the difference between stop_pedestrians and random_pedestrians  :-[ .

I think the default_citycar_life does not belong in a novice dialog.

On the other hand starting_money might be interesting for a novice (so he experiment a bit more without going freeplay).

For the rest, it sounds good to me.
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Programmer: No user, no bugs



Fabio

Definitely station range too. There are many playing styles and being able to widen the range is already important (see thread about covering all a village with a single station).

Also industry_increase_every can be useful. E.g. if one plays with pax only might want to turn industries off altogether.

Starting money. There is free play anyway, so why not letting player start with more cash if they want to?

All these options are not technically advance like max_hops and can let the player customize their gaming experience.

sdog

Industry spacing is also interesting, especially when plaing with large maps. It is however not a simple thing to change reasonably.

Carl

Could Help Text not be provided to explain what these various parameters do? (that is -- text which appears when one clicks the mini-question mark)

prissi

This help text are bound to be obsolete. And it is much boring work, which I have no intention to do personally.

And this will have one simple settings. Not a personal wishlist. So definitely no industry spacing settings.

prissi

Could please everybody focus on the question, what casual player may want to modify?

If nobody is interested, things will stay as they are.

sdog

For casual player:

Maps Size (and dimensions)
timeline, start year, beginner mode (could be more prominently placed)

things like number of cities, city mean, tourist attractions, industry chains, intercity roadlength and so on, should use good values based on map size. (perhaps, but this is more difficult, land size)
casual players are usually completely overpowered by those settings. Tweaking all together with a setting similar to map object density. If the values are good, only advanced players need to tweak most of the values on the map setting dialogue.


In landscape settings:
Map roughness, Mountain height, Woods density (if simplified)
one combined setting for climate zones, specific values could be distributed over the available height ranges automatically, a single setting from cold to tropical would shift this the centre of the distribution up or down.


more advanced features (easily available):
station coverage, just in time, bits per month, passenger factor, max transfers (can run into trouble with 7 only for larger games.)

ӔO

for novice

autosave (actually, even this is not necessary if it is set to something sensible, like quarterly or biannually)
starting year
starting money
use timeline
landscape settings (but I don't think river settings are necessary)


Otherwise, I agree with sdog that the pakset or game should decide how many cities, industries and attractions can fit on a certain sized map.
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Dwachs

For beginners, the settings dialog does not need to be shown at all. Only landscape settings. After all, program and pakset should provide sensible values for all the settings.

If after some playing the user wants to change certain settings to customize / try out then the dialog can be shown.
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jamespetts

The river settings do need to be shown, since the number of rivers should vary with the size of the map.
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Carl

I can see very little in the initial "Settings" menu that would be of interest to a new/casual player. I would be inclined to simply change the "Settings" label to "Advanced", since almost everything in that menu pertains to advanced settings. Those that do not can all be edited very easily in-game:  stop_pedestrian, random_pedestrian and show_names can all be altered in the Display Settings menu.

The only setting one might consider moving out from the Advanced menu into the basic menu is Starting Money. Things like station_coverage and citycar levels can safely be left in an Advanced menu. Casual players do not need to see them.