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Topic: Adding wares/workers to expeditions

WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2021-05-02, 12:28

It's nice that one can add additional wares and workers to expeditions. There is a problem though: This requires a lot of micro management because of the user interface.

I suggest to consider to make a different interface: It could look very similar to the economy settings interface. A table of workers/wares where you can select icons by clicking or drawing, and then you can configure the numbers (zero by default) with the help of plus / minus buttons and see the numbers... The ware table and worker table could be combined to one big table. The wares / workers could be sorted like in the inventory, not alphabetically.


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2021-05-02, 12:39

WorldSavior wrote:

It's nice that one can add additional wares and workers to expeditions. There is a problem though: This requires a lot of micro management because of the user interface.

I suggest to consider to make a different interface: It could look very similar to the economy settings interface. A table of workers/wares where you can select icons by clicking or drawing, and then you can configure the numbers (zero by default) with the help of plus / minus buttons and see the numbers... The ware table and worker table could be combined to one big table. The wares / workers could be sorted like in the inventory, not alphabetically.

+1 from me as the scrolling interface is really hard to use.


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2021-05-02, 13:01

I had considered that when designing the interface but I decided against it because it has several drawbacks:

  • It might be harder to see how many free slots you have left.
  • Where would we put the indicators how many items of which type are present, coming, or missing?
  • The window is already quite large, and would become so huge that it will not fit on the screen any more.

Provide a mockup that solves all these issues (and fits the screen at 800×600) and it'll probably get implemented


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2021-05-02, 13:06

What about keeping the current slots. and openeing an inventory like window to select the ware/worker from, to get rid of the long scrolling list which consumes a lot of time and is hard to use. so we would only have to clicks per slot. One to open the window and one to select the ware/worker?


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Nordfriese
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Posted at: 2021-05-02, 13:25

Good idea face-smile.png
Will be hard to implement though
https://github.com/widelands/widelands/issues/4842


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2022-01-31, 18:35

Bug or feature:

Use only the outer right button for adding additional expedition items. Once an item get clicked, it will be added to the left entry. Clicking again on the outer right button saves one from scrolling (assuming you want the same ware/worker to be added), because the opened list stays at its last position.


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Solstice_s_Return
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Joined: 2020-01-28, 13:24
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Posted at: 2022-01-31, 20:58

kaputtnik wrote:

Bug or feature:

Use only the outer right button for adding additional expedition items. Once an item get clicked, it will be added to the left entry. Clicking again on the outer right button saves one from scrolling (assuming you want the same ware/worker to be added), because the opened list stays at its last position.

That's nice to know if it works like that as that alone saves a lot of work. However, in my opinion a bit bigger issue is that the ships "steal" those workers/wares (maybe this is already solved in 1.0, I just haven't played it that much, still using mostly b21) even before a player has any chance to use them as intended.

I actually have my five cents for the problem also: Pre-selected sets in addition to the current list and that function kaputtnik just revealed. At least I usually put together the same combo to minimize the need of additional shipments to a new location, until it can produce basic wares itself. So what kind of set do you usually create? Maybe the most used sets could be selectable from a list. With Empire my most used set is this: 3 trunks, 4 planks, 1 stone, 1 soldier, 1 woodcutter.


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