Fwurg

[Mercury]

Which neatly brings me to an updated version (beta2) of the tool:

For a view of the system with no planet loaded, use this url: http://www.fwurg.net/tools/system-displ ... lek_system
For a view with a preselected planet in the system, use this url: http://www.fwurg.net/tools/system-displ ... d=ic:mirda

I'll remove the old version when I'm done with the tool.

[Mercury]

New features include:

• Correct implementation of opaque string identifiers
• With correct sorting
• Load entire system instead of world, for snappy experience
• Allow loading of world with system for same functionality
• One click instant action world switching
• Added waiting icons and messages while loading
• Added error checking for invalid input variables
• Some groundwork for additional information display
• Clarified some CSS

Not yet implemented:

• Production data
• Population Display

[Brend]

Cool. Maybe put a box-shadow: 0 0 5px black on .circle though. In Elmer's and my opinion, it helps the visibility.

Also, from a user experience point of view, it is bad form to wait for all data to load before actually showing something. This is especially true for the no-world startup: you could easily show the system overview while waiting for the zones to load. (Note: the population growth calculator has this problem as well -- it will actually take a few seconds before it is workable, while you have to wait for all data to load. And the other factions aren't even relevant.

----

We have identified a problem: it is not clearly visible which zone I actually selected. The highlight is rather subtle, and there is no other identifying feature.

Further note: add the zone's title to the tooltip.

[Mercury]

Cool. Maybe put a box-shadow: 0 0 5px black on .circle though. In Elmer's and my opinion, it helps the visibility.

Will put this in the next version

Also, from a user experience point of view, it is bad form to wait for all data to load before actually showing something. This is especially true for the no-world startup: you could easily show the system overview while waiting for the zones to load. (Note: the population growth calculator has this problem as well -- it will actually take a few seconds before it is workable, while you have to wait for all data to load. And the other factions aren't even relevant.

Impossible!

This would cause error situations where a player clicks on a world, which then goes to be displayed without valid zone data and thus freaky looking zones. And disabling buttons and enabling them when the zone data is loaded is waaaaay too much work for the second or so that is saved. The same situation applies for the population growth calculator I believe. Though theoretically that should be slightly easier to resolve, I don't think its worth the effort it costs to shave one second of pre-loading time.

[Mercury]

I'm open to a better visibility selection CSS option and will look at adding zone title tooltips (shouldn't be too hard) in the next version.

[Brend]

The tool isn't usable on my iPad. Because the zones are floated, they don't align well when viewed (even in landscape orientation). :(

[Mercury]

The tool is designed for a screen width of 1280px minimum. If you can give me the ipads max width resolution, I can see if I can squeeze it in a little bit, though no promises.

[Mercury]

I just checked, Ipad maximum width resolution is 1024 px. I've tried to adjust the width of the left and right menu, but it gets pretty squeezed up, which becomes especially problematic with long planet names.

I deliberately chose to design for 1280 px because in earlier checks (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=160) we found that practically everyone could make that resolution except on one laptop.

I currently need 1210, so as I said, it'd becomes a rather tight squeeze.

Done:

• added black box shadow on zones for greater visibility
• increased brightness and added white border for selected and hovering on zones. Greatly increases clarity
• added zone entry title to zone mouseover

[Mercury]

I added some World Production Details (fully functional) and I'm curious to hear views on its appearance. I am not entirely happy with it yet, for one the specialised fields take up a lot of room, don't clarify which type they are and generally the thing is way too busy, but maybe someone sees something I don't.

EDIT: Now fully functional

[Brend]

Your world Production Details overview is not that great indeed. Why do you bother the user with everyhting the planet does not have?

The Tax Tool leaves everything you have at 0 out, and just displays a normal table, instead of this nerdy 'want all info' table. Why don't you try that? (Go and have a look at the "Industry Capacity" block in the tax tool...)

[Mercury]

I have altered the code to now list only that which is produced in a very much compacted table. Is this better?

[Elmer]

Why not simply use the same lay-out as in the tax tool? I like that layout as every relevant detail is in one row, reducing eye movement and search time.

The other tools mostly have good lay-outs, I suggest to use the same lay-outs in the all the tools if this is possible. People can more easily recognize the elements of the tools and find the relevant data sooner. 'If it aint broken, don't fix it'.

I think I would like it if the production overview does not shift when selecting zones. Players then know exactly were the data is, instead 'somewhere at the side.'

The box shadow and the white outline for the selected zone is much better, I like that.

The loading time is very high at the moment, this is irritating and cause annoyances in using the tool. I take it that the loading time will drop when the code is getting optimised?

As a side note, the population growth tool has a very long load time as well, Brend told me that this is because all the possible needed data is loaded at once. This is illogical as the load time will only increase the more players we get what is undesirable.

[Brend]

I would like to note that I had no ulterior motive while telling Elmer that -- I was just venting my frustrations.

[Mercury]

I have decided to release the current version of the system display. I haven't yet figured out how to make a proper link in the planet, moon or star templates, so I leave this task for others with more knowledge of the template system to implement. It should be relatively straightforward to include a link.

[Brend]

I'll add the link to the planet template :) Will post and update and some small explanation when it's done.

Edit: is it positive to leave out the system reference when linking to a planet? Because it's currently not possible to build links from more than one I'd... This is a limitation of the current plugin, unfortunately.

[Mercury]

Awesome! This should allow a lot more clarity on planet production!

[Mercury]

A system is required with the current set-up, unfortunately. It can be restructured, but that will increase load times.

[Brend]

Ok. I'll see what I can do. It should be possible to work around the problem with a creative application of templates.

(Are you sure that it would increase load times? It should be possible to just load all zones in a specific system based on a single planet name: planet -> system -> zones; then again I haven't looked at your code in detail, so I'll take your word for it.)

[Mercury]

I currently have 2 queries:

1. load every orbital in the system
2. load every zone in the system

What you propose would require 3 queries:

1. load the system associated with the planet
2. load every orbital in the system
3. load every zone in the system

I'll have a quick look to see if I can rewrite the query to go in one go

[Brend]

We really do think in different ways...

You can easily do that with two queries as well:

1. Load every orbital in the system of the planet
2. Load every zone in the system of the planet

It would be something akin to:

Code: Select all

[[ic:planet_id]] System_ref: ?s

<normal query using ?s as system>


[Mercury]

I currently can't get it to work. I'll look at it later.

[Brend]

No rush.

EDIT: I couldn't help myself. If you want to puzzle it out yourself next time, tell me ^_^

Orbital query:

Code: Select all

fields {
  ?p
}
where {
  [[ic:planet_id]] System: ?s
  ?p System: ?s
  union {
    {
      ?p is a: Star
    }
    {
      ?p is a: Planet
    }
    {
      ?p is a: Moon
    }
  }
  optional {
    ?p Orbit Index: ?oi
  }
}
sort {
  ?oi
}


Zone query:

Code: Select all

fields {
  ?r
}
where {
  ?r is a: Zone ?r
  [[ic:planet_id]] System: ?s
  ?r System_ref: ?s
  ?r On_ref: ?p
}


The clue is that the data model is linked, which allows you to do free joins in your queries. So instead of adding another query just to get the system, we just 'walk through' from the planet's system to get the data.

[Mercury]

I have processed the change and it should now be live.

[Brend]

Awesome! it works.

[Mercury]

Yay!