Topic: GUI overhaul

[sanna]

I think, "show in Transient window" gives the popup which takes away focus, while "show in non-transient window" will show messages in the message dialogue box, but you have to manually open this window. Technically it's the correct term, but I would have to say that it's not immediately obvious to someone who doesn't know the terms.

Now you are making me confused *smile* I thought Transient window was simply a temporary dialogue window that went away after a short while even if you do not click the close button, while a non-transient window was one that stayed up until deliberately closed.... In both cases not the "main message dialogue (where messages ALWAYS will be shown, no?) but newly created dialogue windows...

[ӔO]

Now you are making me confused *smile* I thought Transient window was simply a temporary dialogue window that went away after a short while even if you do not click the close button, while a non-transient window was one that stayed up until deliberately closed.... In both cases not the "main message dialogue (where messages ALWAYS will be shown, no?) but newly created dialogue windows...

I could be wrong.
My reasoning is: Why would there be a checkbox for both 'temporary pop-up window' and 'regular pop-up window' that are both selectable at the same time?

[prissi]

Because simutrans leave you the freedom. But I could easily force only one of those buttons to remain. If all three are selected, only the permanent one will win.

@VaclavMacurek the wagon show despite show all disabled have very likely broken constrains. Can you compose a train out of them? If you, I would need the pak files to find the error.

[skreyola]

@sdog: I agree. vim/pico forevar!

I think, "show in Transient window" gives the popup which takes away focus, while "show in non-transient window" will show messages in the message dialogue box, but you have to manually open this window. Technically it's the correct term, but I would have to say that it's not immediately obvious to someone who doesn't know the terms.

sanna explained the difference correctly:
The transient dialog comes and goes on its own. The non-transient dialog comes and stays until you dismiss it. All messages show in the message (mailbox) window, (even if you deselect all options for it, I think).

@prissi: I think that particular option (Message Center Options) dialog needs no improvement. Both the transient and the persistent (non-transient) dialog options are needed... and you can't make them radio buttons, because then the user couldn't disable dialog boxes... or if you had the whole row radio buttons, the user couldn't do both ticker and a dialog. Current freedom seems best to me. But I think the transient should win over persistent, if both are in the on position. If the user wants persistent, transient should be off... or maybe transient should be dependent on persistent (i.e., the persistent becomes "show a dialog", and the transient becomes "automatically dismiss the dialog" and does nothing if the one currently persistent isn't enabled). Or maybe have the transient become "show a dialog" and the persistent be a modifier to the transient "dialog is persistent".

[sdog]

I don't quite understand why 'transient window' is bad? It describes the behaviour very directly, regardless if it is a computer science word or not. It is self explanatory.

Or do you suggest to call it persistent and transient windows, to get rid of the 'non'?

[ӔO]

I don't quite understand why 'transient window' is bad? It describes the behaviour very directly, regardless if it is a computer science word or not. It is self explanatory.

Or do you suggest to call it persistent and transient windows, to get rid of the 'non'?

That sounds good. Persistent and temporary transient window.

[sanna]

That sounds good. Persistent and temporary transient window.

Not BOTH temporary and transient please... *smile*

[knightly]

@Isaac

I'd really like to be able to select text with the mouse, and perform simple operations - delete, cut, copy, paste. Delete is most important... I remember when we couldn't even click in the middle of the text, and being able to do that helps a little, but in a perfect world:

- highlight text with mouse
- For highlighted text, delete key deletes

I have just fulfilled this part of your wish Please check out the next nightly. In particular, you can
1) select text with mouse drag
2) select text with Shift-[Left/Right] for selecting individual characters
3) select text with Ctrl-Shift-[Left/Right] for selecting words (as delimited by spaces)
    [of course you can just use Ctrl-[Left/Right] without Shift for cursor navigation]
4) select text with Shift-[Home/End] for selecting towards the start/end of text
5) delete selected text with DEL or Backspace key
6) delete selected text simply by overwriting with new text

That's most important. But also nice:

- ctrl-a selects all text in a box
- ctrl-c copies to clipboard
- ctrl-x cuts to clipboard
- ctrl-v pastes text (overwriting any highlighted, if applicable)

I don't know how universal those keyboard shortcuts are, though...

For these clipboard functions, as I don't have access to other platforms except Windows, I can't complete this task on my own. I will ask Prissi/Dwachs if they are interested when they come back.

Edit :

Forgot to mention that Ctrl-A is also implemented as that is not related to clipboard. And, by default, the whole text is selected when the text input receives focus through tabbing.


Knightly

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

Wow! Wow!! That's really awesome! I'll definitely test tomorrow on this.

[VS]

Ohhhh.... thanks a lot! I dreamed, too, but didn't even dare speak

Clipboard implementations could be switched like other backend parts... First a "fallback" version using internal buffer, os-integrated versions could be added later as available.

[prissi]

I had once a version with OS-specific copy support for windows. I am not sure, why it this was lost.

[jamespetts]

This looks impressive!

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

It works! Ah, it's amazing how such a relatively small thing makes life easier. Thank you!

I do notice that when I click in a text box and CTRL-A, it moves the position shown in the main window - as in, in my testing so far, it moves to the edge of the map. Which is weird.

EDIT: Above was on default map with pak128, renaming the generated town. For some weird reason, after I maximized the window, it no longer moved. Will do further testing to try and narrow it down...

EDIT2: Coincidence that purchasing a new vehicle highlights name? That's WONDERFUL - means I will be naming my vehicles like I always wanted to, but never took the time because backspacing was too slow... Ah, this is nice.

[knightly]

Thanks all for the support Glad that you like this small improvement.

@Isaac

I do notice that when I click in a text box and CTRL-A, it moves the position shown in the main window - as in, in my testing so far, it moves to the edge of the map. Which is weird.

EDIT: Above was on default map with pak128, renaming the generated town. For some weird reason, after I maximized the window, it no longer moved. Will do further testing to try and narrow it down...

I have tracked down and fixed this bug, which is caused by the city info dialog processing the Ctrl-A event as though it were a mouse event (and trying to reposition the map as though it were a mouse click on the minimaps). Thanks a lot for the report

EDIT2: Coincidence that purchasing a new vehicle highlights name? That's WONDERFUL - means I will be naming my vehicles like I always wanted to, but never took the time because backspacing was too slow... Ah, this is nice.

If the name text field has the focus when you buy a new vehicle, the whole name is selected because setting a new text in a text field also highlights the whole text by default. But this convenience only happens if the name text field has the focus initially.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

If the name text field has the focus when you buy a new vehicle, the whole name is selected because setting a new text in a text field also highlights the whole text by default. But this convenience only happens if the name text field has the focus initially.

Is it relatively easy to make the text field have focus initially? I only ask because if it is, I bet there are a number of dialogues where that might now make sense, and I'll compile a list of suggestions, if that would be helpful. hehe

[knightly]

Is it relatively easy to make the text field have focus initially? I only ask because if it is, I bet there are a number of dialogues where that might now make sense, and I'll compile a list of suggestions, if that would be helpful. hehe

Thanks for your feedback. IMHO, giving text fields the initial focus may cause accidental deletion of the text therein (you know, we don't have Ctrl-Z to undo the previous change and any single keystroke will overwite the selected text ). But you are right that in some cases, activating the text field after certain operation is a good idea. But I am not sure if that can be done.

[knightly]

@Isaac

- ctrl-c copies to clipboard
- ctrl-x cuts to clipboard
- ctrl-v pastes text (overwriting any highlighted, if applicable)

These are now implemented. Please check out the nightly

Edit :

For Windows versions (both GDI and SDL), the system clipboard is used and you can copy text from outside Simutrans and paste it into the text field, and vice versa. For other platforms, the clipboard functions only copy to and paste from an internal buffer.

Knightly

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

Very little time to test - got a job, and doing a theatre show at nights, but I downloaded the new version and tested.

Summary: It works! :-D

Also: I learned about the 29 character limit for city names. :-)

Will test more later.

This is really nice, thank you. :-)

Instead of using abbreviations, this will make it easy to uniquely identify all convois with meaningful names, i.e. instead of "HO1", it's easy to do "Hereford Oil #001", "Hereford Oil #002", etc...

Same with stations, except usually I personally use shorter names because of screen space... But this, I might make long names now and just turn the station signs off and on