26 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 81st comment:
Votes: 0
26-Sep-2010: Standardised the size of the font for the boot and crossed swords icons, as suggested by Kline. There are now four different boot icons to indicate different movement speeds.

Alayla (one of my admin, and the person responsible for most of the graphics) pointed out that the avatars were a bit blurry - turns out I had them enlarged to 70x70, even though most of them are 64x64 images. Shrinking the avatars to their "proper" size would have messed up their alignment with the icons though, so Alayla created a background for the avatars. They're now a bit smaller, but I think I prefer them with the background, it makes them look sunken into the display.

Still not entirely happy with the spell icons. They could really do with a border as well, but I'm not sure how to do that without needing to realign everything else. Perhaps add the border directly to the icons, to make them more like the crossed swords, heart and boot?

26 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 82nd comment:
Votes: 0
A simple bevel effect for those icons might fit in with the stone motif. You could possibly add icons for notable status ailments if your mud uses that thing - haven't really played it so I might be making an entirely irrelevant suggestion.

Maya/Rudha
27 Sep, 2010, Kjwah wrote in the 83rd comment:
Votes: 0
Looking really good KaVir! I need to stop slacking and get back on there and play some more. Makes it much enjoyable with your GUI you've made. :D
27 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 84th comment:
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Thanks Kjwah, but please let me reiterate that my intention in this thread isn't to promote my game - this is really a journal of my experiences trying to build my first GUI, and while feedback is definitely appreciated my main reason for recording my progress and concerns at each step is that I'm hoping it might be useful for others who are considering creating their own GUIs.

I know I've fancied something like this for a long time, but I never really knew how to go about it - other muds only ever seem to present people with the end product. As a result, being purely a server developer, I had no real idea how to get started, and little idea of how much effort might be involved.

I think it'd be really cool to see more muds offering custom interfaces, and I'm hoping that people reading through this may realise that it's actually not that hard, at least not from a technical perspective. I may even have a go at putting together a Generic Universal MUD GUI to go with my MSDP snippet (which has been neglected, I really should finish it off).
27 Sep, 2010, Tavish wrote in the 85th comment:
Votes: 0
I'm really looking forward to the generic GUI, even if nothing more as a jumping off point. I've toyed around recently and added the MSDP handshake (along with several other protocol negotiations) but haven't really decided on which way I want to go with the capabilities. My hiatus from developing my codebase started right around the time that MXP/MSP was beginning to catch on and I've started flushing those out first since they have the most obvious and straightforward applications. But a custom GUI has always been fairly high on my wish list, this thread has been just the thing to get the juices flowing again.
27 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 86th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, for what its worth you have me kind of inspired to play around witha web client interface using msdp. :p

Maya/Rudha
28 Sep, 2010, Bobo the bee wrote in the 87th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I think it'd be really cool to see more muds offering custom interfaces, and I'm hoping that people reading through this may realise that it's actually not that hard, at least not from a technical perspective. I may even have a go at putting together a Generic Universal MUD GUI to go with my MSDP snippet (which has been neglected, I really should finish it off).

I know that I've been reading through this thread and gotten plenty of ideas of what I might be able to do. I really hadn't even considered the possibilities of something like this for the MUD I'm working on until you brought it up. So, thank you.
29 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 88th comment:
Votes: 0
29-Sep-2010: Alayla has provided a smaller set of spell affect icons (28x28 rather than the previous 32x32) and some 34x34 backgrounds for them. Although this does mean that the affect icons are closer to each other than all the other icons, I still think it looks good - it acually makes them look more like a coherent block.

I'm considering reducing the size of the duration text, so it doesn't block too much of the spell images, but I'm worried about making it too small to read…it's a difficult balance between cosmetics and functionality.

29 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 89th comment:
Votes: 0
I've been playing around with the size and position of the duration text:



Still undecided. I quite like the bottom-right one (the four icons with the size 6 font in the bottom-left corner of each icon) from a stylistic perspective, as it doesn't hide much of the icon, but it really is small.
29 Sep, 2010, Kayle wrote in the 90th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I've been playing around with the size and position of the duration text:



Still undecided. I quite like the bottom-right one (the four icons with the size 6 font in the bottom-left corner of each icon) from a stylistic perspective, as it doesn't hide much of the icon, but it really is small.


I like the top right selection, but middle top isn't bad either. Maybe an option to select which they'd like and support all of them? I dunno how hard that would be, but it might be worth considering. Other than that I like what you're doing here KaVir. If I didn't have so many scripts, aliases, triggers, and what not in CMUD, and an overall lack of drive to convert them, I might switch to MUSHClient and try and accomplish something similar.
30 Sep, 2010, ATT_Turan wrote in the 91st comment:
Votes: 0
How unique are the spell icons? If they're one-to-one with the various spells (such that I can tell what specific spell it is from the icon), then I like the top-right examples. If there are any duplicates, I would prefer the larger text in the middle of the icon.

Have you considered having the duration floating beneath the icon instead of someplace on top of it? You seem to have plenty of space on that left side-bar, unless people routinely have a ton of spells on themselves at once.
30 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 92nd comment:
Votes: 0
If it's anything like some Diku derivatives (not sure haven't played), you probably have a few dozen spells on you at any given time if you're a spellcaster.

I like the option with the numbers in the corner, it keeps the icon actually visible, where its hard to discern the actual icon when its across the middle; incidentally, Im not sure if MC allows it or not, but popup/"alt" text with the spell/effect names would be nice.

Maya/Rudha
30 Sep, 2010, donky wrote in the 93rd comment:
Votes: 0
I find all except the bottom right to look.. erm, what's the word.. amateur. The bottom right looks more professional because the purpose (or image that describes) the button is not overly obscured. The rest, I feel like I am trying to look around the text to see what the button does.
30 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 94th comment:
Votes: 0
ATT_Turan said:
How unique are the spell icons? If they're one-to-one with the various spells (such that I can tell what specific spell it is from the icon), then I like the top-right examples. If there are any duplicates, I would prefer the larger text in the middle of the icon.

They're mostly unique - some haven't yet been assigned, so they use the default, but that'll be changed in the near future. For things like 'rage' I use a single icon, even though there are multiple types of rage - but each character can only have one so I think that's okay.

Originally I only intended to use them for a little background flavour behind the timers - Alayla sent me a bunch of different icons and I just assigned them based on gut feeling. But I think it may be worth trying to create icons tailored to each affect, particularly if I'm making the image more visible.

ATT_Turan said:
Have you considered having the duration floating beneath the icon instead of someplace on top of it? You seem to have plenty of space on that left side-bar, unless people routinely have a ton of spells on themselves at once.

An affect is an object that can be assigned various attributes and then be attached to a "Thing". It was originally intended for attaching spell affects to creatures, items, and locations, but was generic enough that I ended up using it for most situations where I need a delay. For example, things like shapechanging and planar travel can take a little time to complete - so I moved the functionality into callback functions and assigned the functions as attributes of spell affects, and then when the command is executed I just attach the appropriate affect to the character.

A side effect of this is that most timed abilities get sent to the plugin to be displayed as icons. For example if you use your 'rage' power, the mud will add its bonuses to you as if it were a spell affect - and when it expires, the callback function then creates another spell affect for exhaustion, which gets sent to the plugin as well (with a different icon of course).

So yes, there can be quite a few icons, particularly if you're using powers that can be made permanent or have their duration timers paused. It's also possible to have multiple instances of the same affect in some situations, although if those become a problem I could just combine them into a single icon.

Rudha said:
If it's anything like some Diku derivatives (not sure haven't played), you probably have a few dozen spells on you at any given time if you're a spellcaster.

No there shouldn't be that many - but there could be enough that I'd rather not use up any more space than I am already. I also think it looks nicer to have the text on the icon.

Rudha said:
I like the option with the numbers in the corner, it keeps the icon actually visible, where its hard to discern the actual icon when its across the middle; incidentally, Im not sure if MC allows it or not, but popup/"alt" text with the spell/effect names would be nice.

It does, and I already do that - I don't usually bother for screenshots though, as they don't show my mouse pointer, so it looks a little wierd.

donky said:
I find all except the bottom right to look.. erm, what's the word.. amateur. The bottom right looks more professional because the purpose (or image that describes) the button is not overly obscured. The rest, I feel like I am trying to look around the text to see what the button does.

It's not a pressable button, just an icon. And when it comes to GUI design I am indeed an amateur ;) At work we have specialists for this sort of thing, so I don't have to make artistic decisions about the GUI, only figure out how to turn a PowerPoint slide into a real application.
30 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 95th comment:
Votes: 0
I agree that the text looks better on the icon, in the cases where it doesn't obscure the icon. Just keep in mind that the point of the icon is to make it easily discernable what the effect is at a glance, and when the text takes up the majority of the icon, that is made difficult somewhat.

Maya/Rudha
30 Sep, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 96th comment:
Votes: 0
30-Sep-2010: I decided to try with the bottom right option and see what it was like in play. The text really is pretty small, but it's usable - I've still not made my mind up about it.

Last year Nick Gammon showed how to create cooldown buttons in MUSHclient, and I've kept meaning to try it out - so today I did, adding expanding pie-shaped shading around the spell icons to show their last 60 seconds of duration (it could easily be extended to show the true percentage, but I didn't want to change the format of the MSDP variable just to test something out). I'm not entirely happy with the results, but perhaps it would look better if I adjusted the lighting.

30 Sep, 2010, Rudha wrote in the 97th comment:
Votes: 0
I think if you made it higher contrast it would be helpful, but they are nonetheless a helpful visual aid.

Maya/Rudha
02 Oct, 2010, donky wrote in the 98th comment:
Votes: 0
I think your client looks great. However, if I were to change one thing to make it look even better, it would be the bars at the bottom. On one hand, they are candy coloured. And on the other, they are gradients. Both these things undermine the general feeling of quality that is otherwise present.

However, it is easy for me to of course say this as I am neither doing the work required to change it, or using the client.
02 Oct, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 99th comment:
Votes: 0
What would you suggest instead, donky? Candy colored or gradients but not both?
02 Oct, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 100th comment:
Votes: 0
donky said:
I think your client looks great. However, if I were to change one thing to make it look even better, it would be the bars at the bottom. On one hand, they are candy coloured. And on the other, they are gradients. Both these things undermine the general feeling of quality that is otherwise present.

However, it is easy for me to of course say this as I am neither doing the work required to change it, or using the client.

Not my client, just my plugin for MUSHclient :)

If you look back to the first page you'll see I started out with paler colours. When I redid the bars to draw text over the top, I changed to the more basic (255,0,0) colours to make the text more visible. I later added a black outline around the text, so that's no longer necessary.

This is what the bars would look like without gradient (full screenshot) and with paler colours (full screenshot):

80.0/177