Topic: Display the convoy health gauge

[Ranran]

Hello gamers. (´・ω・｀)
Since the health gauge was implemented to Ranran, I thought about adding a health gauge to the convoy of simutrans as well as an RPG creature. Please watch the crappy GIF.

Americans might look at this and headshot a convoy or try to camp in front of a depot for a respawn kill, but unfortunately cannot. 

Well that's a joke and this is the loading bar.  Useful to gaze at an empty convoy while watching the convoy go and go at the station.
Also, the yellow health recoverying indicator will be clearer now.

Of course I think this is one of the display options.
What do you think about this?

[freddyhayward]

I think this is a fantastic idea. How will you display overcrowded capacity?

[jamespetts]

This looks interesting - presumably, this can be turned on and off independently of the line name display?

[Ranran]

There have been various discussions about the indication of overcrowding in the past, but it did not end up.
https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,18735.0.html

That bar is the same bar as convoy information, so I think it is better to do it together when dealing with overcrowding display.
But we can add this bar first and change both later.

Maybe this feature can be ported to standard without much effort. Especially before adding a overcrowding bar.
In the mockup above, I used a function called a cylinder bar to represent a three-dimensional bar.

@James - Which key should britain-ex use when assigning this switching function to an independent shortcut key?

[Vladki]

Nice

[Freahk]

Nice one!

Although there seem to be more and more layers, including hotkeys to be added to simutrans.

Might we get a consistent hotkey assignment and an own menu for all map layers?
I thought about something like a sidebar on the right hand side of the simutrans window where each layer got its own button. These buttons would also whow the assigned hotkey as any other buttons do.
Hotkeys for map layers might generally be F-keys.

Just a thought, it's getting very unclear with all these hotkeys.

[Ranran]

The system occupies 1-4,6-9 key in simutrans. Not num keys. And use it to scroll the screen. I think it so strange... I mentioned it somewhere before.
And the simutrans hotkey assumes that you can set it with pakset or personal settings. It is tied to the menubar design. For the icon, the assigning key is drawn by the author who designed it or the pakset author. The ESC (close dialog) and F1 (help) keys are also occupied by the system.
Because of this, I think that it is necessary to carefully consider that a system occupies a particular key regardless of manu.conf.
However, I think that it is very good if the frequently used actions can be activated with shortcut keys.
I want to release those bound numeric keys. And if the button is written as [[1] Start] [[2] Schedule], the operation is clear.

[Ranran]

I pushed my work so far to the convoy-loading-bar branch on my github repository.
https://github.com/Ranran-the-JuicyPork/simutrans-extended/tree/convoy-loading-bar

It contains some experimental elements.
Added cast bar to creatures.
Added the symbol of bad status.
This is due to my intent to add an option to hide the original tooltip. Currently, it is not possible to completely erase the original tooltip. But when the new bar could replace it to some extent, I thought it could be hidden. (I haven't added an option to hide it completely yet). And also intended to have a modern look.

I had an idea to use a health gauge color as the color of the loading goods, but I gave up thinking that it would not work because the waiting limit is shown in yellow.



About setting hotkey:
I thought it would be better to have 3 types of convoy tooltips placed on adjacent keys.
For example, place 3 types of tooltips in shift+7, shift+8, shift+8 as shown below.

Code: [Select]

simple_tool[20]=,'

simple_tool[133]=,(
simple_tool[134]=,)

toolbar[11][8]=dialog_tool[20],,I
Instead, move the factory construction key to ****+I. I think this is an arrangement that is easy to understand because it coincides with the "I" in "Industry".

[Freahk]

For example, place 3 types of tooltips in shift+7, shift+8, shift+8 as shown below.

That's one of the main issues with hotkeys mapped to special chars in simutrans...
There is no way to specify shift+7 or shift+8, there's only chars and these differ in different keyboard layouts.

[Ranran]

That's one of the main issues with hotkeys mapped to special chars in simutrans..

Thank you for your advice. I'm sorry I seem to have talked without realizing that it is a Jalápagos hentai keybord... 
I haven't changed simple_tool[20]=,' and tried to assign it to the keyboard next to it.
Is "[" and "]" adjacent to it on an English keyboard?
Anyway, I wanted to say that it is difficult to place it next to another tooltip because the "I" position currently used by the nameplate is not good.
Fortunately, the icon for the factory construction key does not have the hotkey charactor drawn on it.
But it's a topic of pakset as it is tied to the design of the menubar and menuconf.tab.


The patch has matured and has undergone some minor changes:
No matter what you want to know about your own convoy information, the display options have been expanded because the display of convoys by others can be annoying and interfere with it.
It made the information more difficult to see due to the silly fact that someone else's convoy is on the front of it.
Also it was especially required for the loading bar, which is difficult to distinguish from others convoy.

And then I'm wondering if I really need the option to show nothing. In other words, it means that nothing is displayed when the mouse is over. Is it really necessary?
Will it make the process heavy? IDK...(´・ω・｀)
Ideally, it is preferable that switch option is only /off. 2 options (on/off) and 3 options are very different, but 3 options and 4 options are not so different. However, less is preferable. IMO it is stupid to increase without good cause.
I would appreciate if you could give your opinion on this.

[Vladki]

I like the idea of showing labels and health bars only for your own vehicles. This could be extended to stations or other labels too, with some switches:
vehicles: show all, own, none
stations+labels: all, own, none
Actually none is not necessary, as it is defined elsewhere:
vehicles: show always, mouseover, none
stations: show text, text+waiting bars, only waiting bars, etc, etc, none...

Jalápagos hentai keybord

Do they sell them in set with Jalapagos kamikadze mouse?

[Freahk]

I like the idea but that would finally require a map layer menu with configurable layers (ctrl+click layers button)
Handling all of this with hotkeys will be just as complicated as using blender.

What I desire most is seperating station labels from marker labels.

[Ranran]

Thank you for your thoughts.

This could be extended to stations or other labels too, with some switches:
vehicles: show all, own, none
stations+labels: all, own, none
Actually none is not necessary, as it is defined elsewhere:
vehicles: show always, mouseover, none
stations: show text, text+waiting bars, only waiting bars, etc, etc, none...

I think it should be the station the active player is using, not the player's station.
So if you schedule a convoy to arrive at the another player's station, that station will be displayed.
I've added the checking function when I added the territory filter before, so it's easy to check.
You will automatically be able to see public stations such as the fishing grounds you are using.

What's harder for me is to think of proper short expressions to explain it. (´・ω・｀)
(show only) active player using station? It may be long.
Also, "using" may not be appropriate because you will see those you own but not use.

I think display options will be tabbed like standard in the future, but I think it would be a waste of effort to do a lot of work without overhauling the GUI.
In the future, I think we can change it to put the selector to the right of the label.

like:
Tooltip setting:
Error message: [ All ]
Station : [ All ]
Convoy : [ Own convoy ]
Loading bar: [ All ]

that would finally require a map layer menu with configurable layers (ctrl+click layers button)
Handling all of this with hotkeys will be just as complicated as using blender.

If it was an on/off option, you can use your existing system to add the icon to the menu bar. However, if there are more than two options, you need to implement a method such as overtaking mode selection, which is coding-intensive and may not be player-friendly.
Ideally (as you can see in paid games) each mode has its own symbol, switching between them by clicking a button, etc., but that would also require a lot of work.

What I desire most is seperating station labels from marker labels.

I think it's better to make the markers used for message purposes more accessible than to complicate the options. But I think that using a marker to reserve a land is an act of impeding it.
For example, as Valdki suggests, trying to prioritize a new marker may result in a lot of nonsensical empty markers interfering with it. We can add an option to exclude the empty marker, but I am reluctant to do any additional work to address their unintended use.

[Vladki]

I think it should be the station the active player is using, not the player's station.

Maybe then stations you are allowed to use - i.e. your own, public, other player's who allow you to use their stations, and all player's stations on public roads.

[Ranran]

Maybe then stations you are allowed to use - i.e. your own, public, other player's who allow you to use their stations, and all player's stations on public roads.

The spec I intended is that only the fishng swarm you're catching will display a "nameplate".
The fishing swarm you are not catching will only show the status bar or the waiting bar, giving the atmosphere that it is a station.
Otherwise you may not notice that there is a small bus stop of other players, which I find inconvenient.

[Ves]

Personally I find it very usefull to see the details for other players. That helps me to analyze my own network to see if I can improve something there (which is usually the case....)

I would also like to express my gratitude towards this feature, which I think is a great one!

The ability to show information differently between players is an interresting one. However, in a situation as in the example you point out with alot of convoys at the same place, I find mostly my own convoys bumpling together, clouding the view of the different loading statuses and getting their loading status hidden benieth the station label. This means that the ability to filter out the labels from alien players would in fact have little to no gain in these cases.

[Ranran]

Thank you for your feedback.

However, in a situation as in the example you point out with alot of convoys at the same place, I find mostly my own convoys bumpling together, clouding the view of the different loading statuses and getting their loading status hidden benieth the station label. This means that the ability to filter out the labels from alien players would in fact have little to no gain in these cases.

I am adding a casting bar as an alternative to Loading status. It doesn't know the exact number of seconds, but it does observe a rough cast time.
In most cases, a strict time is not needed, so a casting bar may be sufficient. Therefore, basically, I recommend you to select "Only error convoy tooltip".

[Vladki]

Cast time? What's that?

[Ranran]

Cast time? What's that?

It's the remaining time that Convoy is preparing something. It's like an hourglass. We have time to stop it until it is ready.
In general games, it is displayed when it is chanting something, and when the bar disappears, the cast ends and magic or skill are activated.
That is, the magic is activated and the convoy departs (or start the next action such as reversing.).
In extended, there was an option of waiting time other than loading limit, so it was incomplete without this display.
Americans perform headshots when they see it. Because it's proof of negligence. 

[Vladki]

But it is already there, on mouse over you can see the countdown to departure

[Ranran]

But it is already there, on mouse over you can see the countdown to departure

If we do not use it together, the display of loading limit will be useless. Because even though the limit seems to be set, it seems to ignore it and depart.
And one of the goals of this experiment is to deprecate existing always displayed tooltips.
For example, No route will be replaced by a symbol, which will occupy less space. Mouse over if you want to know more. Makes the default display graphical and slim.

[Vladki]

Short text like no route or stuck is imho better that any symbol

[Ranran]

Short text like no route or stuck is imho better that any symbol

I don't think so. Whether it's short depends on the language and the translation. And you should see something like No route too complex.
I find it annoying that it always appears no matter which option I set. The error is forcibly displayed without the option of mouse over.
You might think that the "no route" indication isn't needed when the casting bar turns red or orange and you know it's waiting indefinitely.
So what I mean is that displaying both is overkill and annoying.
It should be selectable as an option. Anyone who wants to rely on text should just select that option.

EDIT:
Note that I haven't changed the display of the error text so far. I would appreciate if you could test it and give your opinion on whether there is an option to turn it off.

[Vladki]

Just a brainstorming idea, how about having the same style of display for both stations and trains:
- vertical bars showing the cargo loaded (waiting)
- one colored horizontal (health) bar (green/yellow/orange/red)
- line/station name.

[Ranran]

Just a brainstorming idea, how about having the same style of display for both stations and trains:
- vertical bars showing the cargo loaded (waiting)
- one colored horizontal (health) bar (green/yellow/orange/red)
- line/station name.

The cast bar already has such a function. So I was explaining it.

[jamespetts]

This is very interesting - thank you for this. It is very innovative to take a UI element from a different genre, the role-playing game, and use it in Simutrans-Extended; in principle, it seems to work well.

I note that there is some disagreement about a planned development of this feature, viz. the suggestion to replace the text of convoy error tooltips such as "No route" with a symbol. May I suggest that, if this is to be done, the text versions be independently disablable and on by default? That way, new players can learn what the symbols mean by associating them with the text, and then, when they become more sophisticated players, they can choose to turn off the text and just have the symbol to get a clearer display.

In any event, my testing suggests that the feature as it currently stands works well. Is everybody content that this is ready for incorporating?

[Ranran]

Thank you for testing it.

May I suggest that, if this is to be done, the text versions be independently disablable and on by default? That way, new players can learn what the symbols mean by associating them with the text, and then, when they become more sophisticated players, they can choose to turn off the text and just have the symbol to get a clearer display.

Perhaps that's what I intended. Currently it is not possible to remove the error message text (eg "stuck"). My intention is to add the option to hide the text by adding another option to represent it as a symbol.
I haven't checked this patch recently so I don't remember what the current option selection implementation is. I will confirm it later.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for testing it.
Perhaps that's what I intended. Currently it is not possible to remove the error message text (eg "stuck"). My intention is to add the option to hide the text by adding another option to represent it as a symbol.
I haven't checked this patch recently so I don't remember what the current option selection implementation is. I will confirm it later.

Excellent - that is helpful, thank you. The text will need to remain as the default option, as newer players will not know what the symbol means, but people may well learn the symbols after a while.

[jamespetts]

This is now incorporated: thank you for your work on this.

[Ranran]

This is now incorporated

Sorry, some work wasn't done yet. However, it will not interfere with play.

[jamespetts]

Sorry, some work wasn't done yet. However, it will not interfere with play.

Thank you for letting me know. Do let me know when the additional work is done so that I can test and incorporate it.

[Ranran]

Extended an option to allow error text to depend on hidden symbols. You can see the text on mouseover, so when using that option you should check on the mouseover after finding the error symbol.

Check the pull request #243.

[jamespetts]

Splendid, thank you; now incorporated.