More obvious priority

[jonhwoods]

Proposition: Have better audio/visual clues that you have priority.

(Just to be clear, having "priority" is when your timer is ticking down and the opponent is waiting for your action)

I introduced a few people to xmage, it's a fantastic software, but one thing always happen all the time: I have to point out that they have priority at the moment. Even after quite a few games, I don't always realize I have priority myself for a few seconds.

Right now, you know you have priority anytime a clickable button is active over your hand area. Problems are: 1. that's not obvious at first 2. the button is very small and you don't always look at it.

So, I suggest to make the visual clues bigger and more obvious: Big red background when you have priority and grey when you don't. Should be quite easy to implement.

I'd also suggest an audio clue but that would need an option to turn off since not everyone likes that.

[jgod]

Great suggestion. Love seeing A/V improvements.
How do you feel about something more neutral like black for active priority?

Some other possible cues

• lighting up / fully opaque / bordering some other elements (inactive = slightly darker / transparent / unbordered)
• drawing attention to the cards by highlighting them (more complex to implement and suggests that card is castable in that moment)

Or, more simply, can we make those buttons bigger? Not familiar with how UI is laid out or its limitations, but modern displays need more love, and it makes sense since they're important actions.

[jonhwoods]

How do you feel about...

Many things can be good. The target cue is:
As large and contrasting as possible, to be noticed by peripheral vision, while still maintaining functionality, aesthetics and comfort.
Actually, white (active) and black(waiting) would be even better perceived.
That means highlighting the border of something is an option, but using a large part of the screen would be simpler and more effective.

Same goes for audio cues. They should be as noticeable as possible while still sounding good after playing for 3 hours.

And making buttons larger would make things a bit complicated due to the variable number of buttons. It would mostly be an improvement for touch screens.

[jgod]

Imo, since both black and white are both perceived as "normal" colors (in a lot of UIs), I really like leaning on a shade of gray for meaning disabled, since that's a popular pattern. But then again, "disabled" is kind of weird a weird way of describing priority. Hm.

I don't know what the goal of Xmage is in terms of style, since there's no apparent styleguide, but it seems to me black would fit in better for the "active" prompt, especially with custom backgrounds, since there are already a decent amount of lighter colored elements in the play screen.

Either way, we can implement it however now, and just do a internally consistent restyling of the whole program later (needs to be done anyway to address some ugliness).

And I agree, I saw that you posted in the audio overhaul issue. I personally like the modern approach of short, nothing-in-particular sounds like what Facebook uses. Very smooth and non-fatiguing

[JayDi85]

Example:

1. Red:
   

2. Green:
   

3. Blue:
   

4. Green with more transparency:
   

[JayDi85]

And colors combination:

[JayDi85]

Or it's may be different colors for different turn phases -- like colors of phase buttons:

[LevelX2]

Maybe it does signal something. But it looks it bit ugly.
Activating it optional would be nice.

[JayDi85]

Got it. Will add option to preferences: disable, one color, multicolour.