Topic: Content and looks of the new "cheap in-game help"

Glad you let me have a go at this!
If it shows that my idea is bad/undoable for one reason or another, I'm prepared to do my best with "just plain structured info"; promised!
Here is one thing, that is not quite what I wanted to express:

1) Astuur wants to be wordy in the help. This is to avoid being unclear and to give players as exact information as possible. He acknowledges a quick tabular view on data can/will be useful but feels that writing this data again (redunantly) in text form will benefit some players.

I don't really "want to write this data again (redundantly) in text form" - In fact, if we could reference the same source in the "wordy" part, as we would use in the "terse" part, I'd be happy to do so and have the facts auto-update. I may want to have some of the "terse" information again (could even be an exact copy sometimes) as an "intro" for some deeper explanation. This is to save the user from tabbing back and forth. But for the most part, I hope to find additional info, that is better presented in words, but would disturb the "at a glance" concept on the terse side.

The Wesnoth example is inspiring in some ways, but there are quite a few differences.
Size: The rich text window that SirVer has given me to play with, is considerably smaller, and I am not sure if we should dedicate so much display size (874x619!) to the ingame help - just lately we changed the stock window from columns to rows in order to keep supporting 640x480 (which btw. is a preferrable orientation anyway). With a size like that you can even accomodate larger text without sacrificing the overview in the layout.
Graphics: related to size, of course, but not only. We may create pictures of weapons in a similar quality, given comparable size, but I certainly cannot come up with a portrait like that of the elven warrior, no matter what size you give me. I'm just not a painter in the true sense of the word!
Language: Let's face it, creating text that transport moods and ambiance, create an atmosphere by themselves, takes an author. I'm not. I'm not even sure I could do it in German, much less in English. Not even an average native speaker will be able to do this, and we dilettantes want to succeed? That's being bold! Let's hope we get some decent help from our players after I have published my pathetic attempt!

All the same, I'll keep on trudging slowly. I'll stick to the wordprocessor files shown as .pdf for the moment, and do .. hmm.. the metalworks/toolsmithy help for each of the tribes?
Would that be okay?

Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

Top

Quote

In the process of tackling the help, I have re-discovered a feature that Erik Sigra had implemented in late March 2009.
It is the parameter "--write_HTML=yes". Basically it will write (or update) the data from the parsed conf-files to one
"index_.xhtml" file in each directory. So, to get everything parsed, a commandline like
"widelands --editor --writeHTML=yes_" is fine.
This feature is little known, or maybe just little used. I wonder why we don't inlcude these files in the daily builds.
They certainly need some looking after, since new directories exist now within the /tribes/[each_tribe] directories,
and there are also some other loose ends, like the reference to a widelands/doc directory, that AFAIK has never officially existed.
Once these files have been created, you can view them with a web browser. They are hyperlinked.
With a little extra work, like creating a common starting page etc. this could be useful for many players already "as is".
This isn't strictly "in-game" od course, but maybe it could in fact be a useful starting point for the "terse" side

of the cheap help system we are talking about here.
It's a bit too terse, I think, but nonetheless helpful; and it auto-updates.
To show you what is covered by these files, I've prepared a html file here that should
work, when placed into the "widelands" directory (for Windows users).

Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

Top

Quote

Next one is ready: The Atlantean Toolsmithy.
here

Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

Top

Quote

I had a look into your suggestions and tried to script it in Lua (never scripted before, let alone in Lua…) and even the lumberjack window of the Barbarians needs a scrollbar.

Well… All right… some pictures could be smaller (don’t know, how to do… should learn Lua…), and somehow it sure is possible to write more in tables. The general section text is the one, SirVer offered, so it definitely could be shortened. But all in all I think it’s too much to get into a window with the actual size. Even with that small building. And that was only the „terse“ side, as you call it.

Two is the oddest prime.

Top

Quote

Using the existing wares help window could be a good idea. The size seems more appropriate.

In this case I would like to see that as the „great ingame help“; but to have a small window with the most important information about a special building (yes, in addition to the great help), would be great, too, because I don’t want to open a big window just to see what the worker produces (just for example). The greatest problem in this case would be to decide, which informations should be offered at a glance and which are more appropriate in the big help.

But I’ll wait for SirVer’s comment and try to learn some Lua in the mean time.

Two is the oddest prime.

Top

Quote