Unmet requirements tooltip

[zoot]

I've made a little hack (attached) to show unmet requirements in the tooltips of research icons:

Please feel free to use/modify it as you see fit.

techtiphack.diff

[feneur]

That tooltip is getting larger and larger But in this case I think it's fine since it's such a specific and important thing. I really think we should start to think about eventually implementing a "barebones" GUI version But then the problem would be to decide what's the most important/enough for those who already know the details

[zoot]

My intention here was just to get the basic "counter" feature in place. It should be easy enough to merge some of the text and remove those extraneous line breaks etc.

[BrynnOfCastlegate]

That's nice! One thing I had noticed is that it was hard for me to find the line that tells what resources a unit or building required from the tooltip. It would be nice if that information were made to stand out more in the tooltips.

--Brynn

[fcxSanya]

One thing I had noticed is that it was hard for me to find the line that tells what resources a unit or building required from the tooltip. It would be nice if that information were made to stand out more in the tooltips.

Not sure it is the same what you mean, but maybe it would be better if there will be small resource icons instead of resource names (not just in this patch, but in general for any resources mentioned in tooltips). I think technically they can be inserted there.

[historic_bruno]

We could combine the unmet technology and resource requirements under a single heading: "Unsatisfied requirements", but in the current order. That would potentially shave off three extra lines.

[zoot]

We could combine the unmet technology and resource requirements under a single heading: "Unsatisfied requirements", but in the current order. That would potentially shave off three extra lines.

That's certaintly possible, though the heading may be a bit on the geeky side?

Here is another option:

The artist/tech designer can choose to e.g. use a red font for the "x more" part to have it stand out more, as Brynn requested.

techtiphack2.diff

[feneur]

That's certaintly possible, though the heading may be a bit on the geeky side?

Here is another option:

The artist/tech designer can choose to e.g. use a red font for the "x more" part to have it stand out more, as Brynn requested.

Hmm, the only downside to doing things that way is that it won't teach players the total required number of buildings. Not sure how big an issue that is in reality though as most maps doesn't start out with any other buildings than the starting civ centre.

[luziferius]

then do it like this:

Requires 5 Village Phase structures (except Palisades and Farm Fields)[# left]

then everything is said: how many buildings are required and how many you have to build

Edited August 29, 2012 by luziferius

[Shield Bearer]

Or

3/5 Village Phase structures built.

[fcxSanya]

3/5 Village Phase structures built.

Sounds like there is 5 structures limit and you already built 3 of them.

[Shield Bearer]

Exactly

[feneur]

Exactly

Well, not exactly. He meant (or at least I think he meant ) that it may be understood as there being a total limit for how many Village phase structures you can build at all as opposed to how many you are required to build before you can advance to the next phase

[idanwin]

'3 of the 5 required village phase structures built'?

Edited August 29, 2012 by idanwin

[Deiz]

Your patch is a little crufty, you ought to add -x --ignore-eol-style to svn diff.

Style-wise you've got some K&R indenting in GetNeededRequirements, as well as a few tabs that are spaces rather than actual tab characters.

As far as the content goes: I don't really like doing string replacement, because it means requirement tooltips will be inconsistent, much like the unit tooltips are (with some showing attack bonuses, others showing nothing besides a brief description, etc.).

That said, the only way I can think of to avoid string replacement would be to have a look-up table in TechnologyManager, something like this:

var tooltipClases = {
   "Village": "Village Phase structures (except Palisades and Farm Fields)"
};

While the function that constructs the tooltip for a class-based numeric requirement would do something like:

// reqs.numberLeft is your patch's reqs.number, my reqs.number is the untouched, absolute requirement.
var tooltip = "Requires " + reqs.numberLeft + " more " + tooltipClasses[reqs.class] + " (Needs " + reqs.number + " in total)";
return tooltip;

However, perhaps your approach is sufficient for now. There aren't very many technologies at present, and they have simplistic requirements.

[zoot]

Your patch is a little crufty, you ought to add -x --ignore-eol-style to svn diff.

Thanks, I'll try that.

Style-wise you've got some K&R indenting in GetNeededRequirements, as well as a few tabs that are spaces rather than actual tab characters.

I tried to follow the indentation style already used in the respective files, but it's quite possible I botched it.

As far as the content goes: I don't really like doing string replacement, because it means requirement tooltips will be inconsistent, much like the unit tooltips are (with some showing attack bonuses, others showing nothing besides a brief description, etc.).

I see your point, however I assume whoever (quantumstate?) decided to add the "requirementsTooltip" property to technology templates instead of doing something like you suggest did so for a reason? (... Or they were just lazy, that's also a possibility.)

Edited August 29, 2012 by zoot

[k776]

If not already done, please make sure you post this patch to the Trac under a new ticket if one doesn't exist already. Posting on forum for feedback is fine, but you must have a corresponding ticket, else the patch could be forgotten/lost.

[zoot]

Here's an updated version:

(I had to tweak the tooltip to say "6" structures required, because the engine happens to count the Civic Center as a Village Phase structure.)

Note that the format used in the previous version is still possible in this version, at the technology designer's discretion.

I've also tried to rectify the style/formatting blunders in the code.

techtiphack3.diff

Edited August 31, 2012 by zoot

[quantumstate]

The reason for adding a manual field to the technology templates is that the possible requirements are varied so having a human write the tooltip should result in clearer, more well written tooltips.

[zoot]

The reason for adding a manual field to the technology templates is that the possible requirements are varied so having a human write the tooltip should result in clearer, more well written tooltips.

I tend to agree.