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08-31-12, 01:16 PM   #369
Meorawr
A Chromatic Dragonspawn
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Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 193
I'll consider allowing subgroups. At the moment I'm trying to decide if I should also put in a few 'risky' internal changes with the ID system. In theory, doing so would fix every possible deletion, creation, linking, and so on bug. It's just that it'd take a few days to fully remove the old stuff from the code.

Thank christ for branches <3

Anyway back to the UI subject, before posting the mockups here's a quick rundown of the things I want to change:
  • Support triggers are badly implemented - they're too well hidden for most users to find.
  • The advanced editor is poorly designed - while it allows for nice configurations (I managed to set up a display which tracks the application of pyroblast, ignite and the cooldown of combustion whilst also checking the strength of ignite last night), it's a bit too...Well. Take a look at it

Now the screenshots, this also includes the explanation of what I want to do regarding the Matches configuration system.

Conditions, Conditions pt. 2 (with new Match system), Rules, Sequences

So what I've done there is merged the basic and advanced editors, and added a second sublevel for navigating. I'll run down the changes in order of the links:

Conditions

Currently you're only able to have a single Main trigger. This is the same as 4.x, but a consistent request is for an easy way to check multiple things at once (buff + cooldown, for example). So the change I want to try here is removing the one main trigger limit, and using the pagination system at the bottom for accessing additional main triggers.

The risk I'm running in to with pagination is that numbered pages are too vague, and named pages are too verbose. What I'd be willing to try out is another search bar for filtering the types.

This example also gives an idea for the tabled match system - each row is a separate match, and clicking the edit button will open the configuration UI for that match in a sort of 'overlay' that would appear docked to the bottom of that particular row. This is where scrollframes are buggy - they really hate it when things like this are done, so it's certainly not final and is pending a working PoC.

The second image gives an example of that configuration window's location.

Moving onto the third, the Rules page: I'll flat out state that this page is probably too vague for users to find still, however I think the concepts within the page are fine.

Support triggers are fairly simple in their configuration, so I've opted for the same tabled approach as shown on the previous image. Each option has its own row, and will be filterable via a search box (which isn't included). The edit system will work the same as on the previous page.

Again, to support advanced configurations, you'll be able to define additional rulesets on a page by page basis.

Now, the Sequences page will only need to be touched by the user in extreme situations. The plan is the automatic configuration will work by combining main triggers into a series of AND checks, and rulesets into OR sets - (1&2&3&4)&(5|6|7) as an example. However, for advanced users, manual configuration is again added. Pagination isn't needed on this page, and we'll just reuse the tables.

Clicking the Edit button on a table row in the Sequences editor will also expose the per-sequence action settings (eg. Color, Scale) for users to play around with. I may have to unfortunately 'hide' the duration stuff in here as well, but I'll try to keep it exposed.

I'm going to start working on some ingame concepts tonight to see how well these ideas truly work. My worry is the activation editor now leans too much on the advanced side again.