Re: Another Possible Solution to the Occupants Display Problem

[Jim Kingdon <kingdon at panix dot com>]

> "Occs" is a button that brings up a popup containing images of the
> occupants.

Instead of "Occs" or "OV", I think I'd go with an icon (if someone can
design one which makes sense and fits in 16x8 or so).  Or maybe just
"...".  That fits in almost any size box and seems to be kind of
logical for what the button does (and indicates).  Or maybe just draw
the transport full-size in the "unit in a white box meaning occupants"
which the tcltk interface now uses at 16x16 (hmm, I guess that only
works if the popup is a mouseover, because click means to act on that
unit).

> For 11x11 (8x8), clicking anywhere in the transport should probably
> bring up the occupant view popup.

Yes.  Likewise at any magnification for clicking on occupants which
are displayed in the transport (in the 1-2 occupant case).

But it seems odd for click to sometimes mean act on the unit and
sometimes mean bring up the popup.  I'm thinking more that the popup
should be a mouseover (although I don't know about things like nested
popups in that context).

> the transport's name, location, and similarly-sized image should be
> near the top of the popup

Also ACPs, materials and plans (hit points optionally, although there
is already a damage bar for that).  As long as we are bringing up a
popup, might as well make it possible to avoid having to glance over
to a separate unit details pane.

I'm not as sure about location - it seems like the fact that you get
to the popup from the map maybe means location is reduant.  It seems
kind of inelegant to be using a bunch of text if there is some way to
provide the information visually in a contextual way.

Anyway, if the popup has this kind of information, it would be useful
to be able to bring up this popup by clicking on the transport itself
(or a unit with no occupants).

> Thoughts?

I don't remember what the other choices du jour were, but this one
seems promising.  Or some variant thereof...

I think the main alternative which is springing to mind is being able
to magnify the map more than you can now (with probably a key or
something which takes you immediately to the maximum zoom which is
needed to see the selected unit and its occupants, or something).