0AD GUI and icons

[ConfusedRose]

Hey,

Just switched from A23 to A24, I was just wondering why the icons on the GUI are so small, like the icons for building and training units. Is there a way to resize these bigger so that they are more like A23? 

Thanks.

[Stan`]

You can edit your user.cfg file and set gui.scale=1.2

[ConfusedRose]

what file path would that be in?

[Nescio]

It depends on your operating system, see https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameDataPaths

(There should really be a FAQ section on play0ad.com to deal with such questions.)

[Stan`]

2 minutes ago, Nescio said:

It depends on your operating system, see https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameDataPaths

(There should really be a FAQ section on play0ad.com to deal with such questions.)

Not sure that people would see / read it. I don't suppose a FAQ wiki page would help much ?

[ConfusedRose]

OK, i set guiscale to 1.2, but everything else kinda just messes up: fonts are buggy and have random fragments and such. Is there a way to only enlarge the icons? By icons, I mean like when you click civic center and you train units, the buttons for spearmen/skirmisher.

Is there a possibility that this would be fixed if I set my resolution lower? If so how would I do that?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

55 minutes ago, Nescio said:

It depends on your operating system, see https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameDataPaths

(There should really be a FAQ section on play0ad.com to deal with such questions.)

 

52 minutes ago, Stan` said:

Not sure that people would see / read it. I don't suppose a FAQ wiki page would help much ?

Better yet, an in-game Option. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

19 minutes ago, ConfusedRose said:

OK, i set guiscale to 1.2, but everything else kinda just messes up: fonts are buggy and have random fragments and such. Is there a way to only enlarge the icons? By icons, I mean like when you click civic center and you train units, the buttons for spearmen/skirmisher.

Is there a possibility that this would be fixed if I set my resolution lower? If so how would I do that?

Try experimenting a little bit with the scale. 1.21 or 1.19 or 1.33 or some such and see if those artifacts are removed. Font rendering in 0 A.D. is pants tho.

[Nescio]

45 minutes ago, ConfusedRose said:

OK, i set guiscale to 1.2, but everything else kinda just messes up: fonts are buggy and have random fragments and such. Is there a way to only enlarge the icons? By icons, I mean like when you click civic center and you train units, the buttons for spearmen/skirmisher.

Is there a possibility that this would be fixed if I set my resolution lower? If so how would I do that?

No, there isn't, the gui scale scales the entire interface. As for why the icons are smaller than they used to be, this was necessary because some civs have more structures than could be displayed with the old 3×8=24 icons in the right selection panel (and it also improves mod support).

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

Not sure that people would see / read it. I don't suppose a FAQ wiki page would help much ?

People manage to find play0ad.com and download the game from there, so if they encounter problems, that would be a place to start looking.

32 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Better yet, an in-game Option. 

Actually there is a patch for that: https://code.wildfiregames.com/D3037

However, for other questions a FAQ is still useful, e.g.:

• Why is 0 A.D. still an alpha?
• When will be the next release?
• Where do the screenshots go?

33 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Font rendering in 0 A.D. is pants tho.

Yes, proper font rendering (e.g. with pango) would be great to have. It would also remove the need to bundle Chinese etc. in separate mods.

[ConfusedRose]

On 21/02/2021 at 12:29 PM, Nescio said:

No, there isn't, the gui scale scales the entire interface. As for why the icons are smaller than they used to be, this was necessary because some civs have more structures than could be displayed with the old 3×8=24 icons in the right selection panel (and it also improves mod support).

 

Is there a possibility where I can revert back to 3*8 icons when possible and use the smaller icons only when necessary? For me it really is very impactful because my vision isn't that great and having big buttons is really nice. Maybe I can edit user.cfg with an icon.size command? 

[Stan`]

You can also right click on them to get details :?

[ConfusedRose]

yeah I know I can click on them to get details, it's just that the buttons themselves are smaller now and you need more precision to click it. Now that I am speaking further about it, I know it sounds rly dumb, but I really just want the big buttons back bc you have less error to click. Maybe the solution is just learning and memorizing the keybinds

I still want big buttons tho

[Bings]

The buttons are stupidly small now.  It was a bad change.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Bings

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Part of the problem is that some folks insist that the UI fit to ridiculously small horizontal resolutions. IMHO The real solution would be to design the UI to the common HD resolution, then use scaling for smaller resolutions. 

[nani]

Or increase vertical space for the panel only if needed, but that also raises the question about if the current panel interface is meant to handle 24> icons or a new one (subgroups) should be made for 24> case

[Nescio]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Part of the problem is that some folks insist that the UI fit to ridiculously small horizontal resolutions. IMHO The real solution would be to design the UI to the common HD resolution, then use scaling for smaller resolutions. 

Due to the way things are rendered, scaling up is fine, while scaling down makes things unreadable. People have a variety of screens and while designing an interface for 1024×768 is indeed a bit harder, it does allow everyone to use it, whereas designing for 3840×2160 might be easier but would alienate everyone who doesn't have such a screen.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

No where do I say design a 4K UI and scale it down. I say design for 1080p [1920 width] and scale from there. With all the numbers and data you want to load the UI up with I don't see how you could do it any other way. How are you supposed to fit all the attack data and other stats you want into a 960px wide UI while also having a production panel, a minimap, and a garrison panel. Honestly you will have to start having things climb up the sides of the screen, but I have yet to see a serious proposal for that.

[Bings]

I use 1920 X 1080. The steam survey shows 2/3 users use this resolution and no other resolution gets into double figures of % usage. The buttons are too small for the resolution that the vast majority of people use. They don't even fit in with the size of other parts of the UI, which haven't changed in size.

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, Bings said:

I use 1920 X 1080. The steam survey shows 2/3 users use this resolution and no other resolution gets into double figures of % usage. The buttons are too small for the resolution that the vast majority of people use. They don't even fit in with the size of other parts of the UI, which haven't changed in size.

The steam survey?

[Bings]

This: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

[Nescio]

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

No where do I say design a 4K UI and scale it down. I say design for 1080p [1920 width] and scale from there. With all the numbers and data you want to load the UI up with I don't see how you could do it any other way. How are you supposed to fit all the attack data and other stats you want into a 960px wide UI while also having a production panel, a minimap, and a garrison panel. Honestly you will have to start having things climb up the sides of the screen, but I have yet to see a serious proposal for that.

Scaling 960 by a factor 2 or 4 works fine, whereas scaling 1920 by 0.5 or 3840 by 0.25 does not; images are not the problem, text is. Try it yourself.

1 hour ago, Bings said:

I use 1920 X 1080. The steam survey shows 2/3 users use this resolution and no other resolution gets into double figures of % usage. The buttons are too small for the resolution that the vast majority of people use. They don't even fit in with the size of other parts of the UI, which haven't changed in size.

Keep in mind new laptops with a resolution of 1366×768 are still being produced and sold. 0 A.D. should work on those too.

[Bings]

Well ideally the UI should look good on all resolutions. That said, the current situation of having it look bad on the most used by far resolution to suit a minority of people with outdated machines or low end laptops is silly.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 01/03/2021 at 9:57 AM, Nescio said:

Keep in mind new laptops with a resolution of 1366×768 are still being produced and sold. 0 A.D. should work on those too.

#1 Why "should" 0 A.D. work on a laptop clearly not built for gaming? Probably a Chromebook or something similar. 

#2 1366 pixels wide is clearly more than your proposed 960. 1366 pixel width is wider than the current 1024 pixels the GUI is crammed into. I would happily design a UI to fit 1366 pixels. I propose we make that our new min resolution. 

[Nescio]

3 hours ago, Bings said:

Well ideally the UI should look good on all resolutions.

Exactly!

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

#1 Why "should" 0 A.D. work on a laptop clearly not built for gaming? Probably a Chromebook or something similar. 

What kind of an argument is that? Linux isn't specifically designed for gaming, should we therefore drop support for Linux too? Many people have machines not built for gaming, yet can and do enjoy 0 A.D.

By the way, the minimum resolution required by Windows 10 is 800×600: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-specifications#primaryR2

2 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

#2 1366 pixels wide is clearly more than your proposed 960. 1366 pixel width is wider than the current 1024 pixels the GUI is crammed into. I would happily design a UI to fit 1366 pixels. I propose we make that our new min resolution. 

1366×768 is basically the 16:9 counterpart of 4:3 1024×768. I favour a width of 960 because it allows for easy scaling, but I'm not mandating others to do the same. You can design an interface for 1920×1080 or any other size you like; the important thing is that it should be implemented at 0 A.D.'s minimum resolution. People with higher resolution screens can use the gui.scale setting.

(For the record, I have a 3840×2160 screen.)

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

9 minutes ago, Nescio said:

What kind of an argument is that? Linux isn't specifically designed for gaming, should we therefore drop support for Linux too?

Ridiculous comparison and you know it. Linux is capable of being run on very beefy hardware.

 

10 minutes ago, Nescio said:

By the way, the minimum resolution required by Windows 10 is 800×600: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-10-specifications#primaryR2

Another non sequitur as the Windows UI isn't an RTS GUI.

 

14 minutes ago, Nescio said:

(For the record, I have a 3840×2160 screen.)

Congratulations. 

 

For the record, the reason I care about any of this is because some folks want to include all kinds of unit stats in the UI and I just can't see it all fitting in a UI with only 960 pixels of width, at least not without looking extremely ugly (and my mod would be stuck using this ugly UI, as I am no coder). I would be delighted to be proven wrong.