Mars Simulation Project
Future of Java UI #979
Replies: 4 comments 16 replies
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I agree on swing, we used it so far and I see no explicit reason, why swing is no longer enough. What we could consider is using Radiance for Look-And-Feel and some nicer ways to handle actions. But that is rather maintenance, it alone does not provide new features or better usability. I think, the real question for the UI is, which goals we want to pursue with the UI in the future. Personally, I am not a fan of the classic Multiwindow approach, when it comes to usability. IMHO, better would be a good navigation breadcrump with a single main focus window and one or two detail windows at the sides or at one side, providing additional information. A bookmark UI component (tab? menu?) could be nice to save often used views (with their focus object, e.g. "Processes: Alpha Base") The views should be configureable to the needs of the player. Also possible: Saving an invocation context to a view configuration. Like, in prosa: User is clicking on a button next to a settlement in the event view for a medical emergency and the views are opened to a medical context with the settler mentioned by the event. The player could choose to open the settlements medical overview in the main view, while the medical data of the settler alone is displayer in a side view. It might be possible to select that a side view should show the view from which this view configuration is invoked, e.g. the event view. |
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Well, most humans and players are bad at multitasking. You just look at one window for a while and then switch it, if you switch too fast, you can't do much. For additional data, there is the idea with the secondary view. Even if we think about aircraft, the pilots rarely have more than two major displays each. Not sure, if it would make sense for larger or wider screens, to permit two main views with their associated context and secondary screens to be displayed. Like that, (sorry, I made this quickly and not for accuracy or beauty) |
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Good point ! It doesn't feel like having too much freedom in opening whatever Unit Windows in the desktop can become counterproductive. They've done studies on how living space is related to the brain developed of mice. The first group of mice are initially given a huge area to roam around freely without restriction. The second group of mice are initially given only a smaller area to live but gradually having more space opened up for forage. The second group turns out to be smarter and having more developed front lobe to respond to the environment. I suppose this could be applied to human being :D. If not, I do see it's a better approach for mars-sim in having more structural UI with just one main view and perhaps a second view and some side views if needed. |
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I think we are all actually agreeing. In the center "main" view there would only ever be one window visible. So there would only be 4 oanels visible but in the center the user has tabs to flip between different Entity Windows. |
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Sounds OK for me, but I would include general or "planet-wide" views as well. For keeping track what happens, we could simply use a small log view at the side, maybe with configurable triggers, about what kind of events the player wants to be notified there. Nice would be some non-text indicators, of what severity the events are, so that its easy to see if a emergency happens. Again, for a wide screen setup or for people who use two displays or more, we could allow an alternative UI. For example, we could provide a Top-level Frame, which just shows a view. Its some time to christmas, but I ask: Can I have a rotating and shaded view of Mars in JOGL like a screen-saver, which just switches between certain information boxes or highlights the position of a settlement or rover, while time passes? Or maybe shows the latest event when its location is visible for the player? With Earth time and the current Mars time on top? Maybe we could also see the trajectories of incoming or departing spacecraft there. Would look nice in full screen and could catch some attention. |
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That's true. I always run mars-sim on a machine with 2 LCDs set up. For now, I usually use one LCD in Eclipse for debugging and the other LCD for running mars-sim's Swing UI. And I put mars-sim's console on either LCD. btw, @bevans2000, can you modify UIConfig to save the position of the mars-sim console/terminal ?
One problem is that the concept of full screen in swing is ill-defined and is not the same as the full screen mode in some games. In JavaFX, there's a full screen mode but it may or may not be what we want... |
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Is it possible we use the mars-sim.com site for bouncing off JSON messages ? Say, I host mars-sim server version at home. It will listen in any JSON messages via the mars-sim.com site. In the mars-sim server, I may be running 2 different simulation sessions. The first session is an old build that's more stable. The other one is a newer, unstable build for testing features. Then you run mars-sim client version in your house and you log onto the new build to test it. At the same time, @Urwumpe runs mars-sim client in his house and log onto the old build to play mars-sim. Any networking library out there we may look into to achieve this ? |
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Yes this is a classic architecture and not difficult. The problem is our current ui is tightly coupled to the core engine, there is no interface between the 2. So how would a client make a remote call to get the details of a Person for example? |
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May I ask why and in what ways you see GraphQL being a good choice ? Will it be too complicated ? |
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GraphQL is very good at exchanging partial object models which is what our simulation engine is based on. The UI screens use a hierarchy of objects to render a screen screen. Traditional REST approach involves a lot of calls per screen. GraphQL has a lot of libraries out of the ox now, particularly in SpringBoot. |
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Thinking about #1149 I've realised that tools like the Science tool could be redesigned to be consistent with the Unit window approach. So Science studies become a tab in the Monitor Tool and they have a dedicated Window when selected.
The latter would be the central panel in the models above. |
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I found this interesting Java library that we could use as a basis for a more dynamic UI docking solution https://github.com/andrewauclair/ModernDocking |
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Looks like a good solution for us. We don't have to develop a docking mechanism from scratch. |
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We may as well first convert the combobox to sponsors before proceeding with this new change, right ? |
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Yes I agree, we should do the Authority change first in 3.8.0 |
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btw, regarding authority (settlement/sponsor) combo box, I encounter two anomaly. (1). If we are to start the sim as a standard scenario, 'Arcadia' will normally be the first top settlement to be listed in the authority (settlement/sponsor) combo box. However, let's say I open the settlement map on a settlement, say, 'Foundation'. All of a sudden, it would jump back to 'Arcadia' while I was still in the middle of viewing what's on that map. Why would that happen ? (2). the authority combo normally start out alphabetically for all the settlement. However, after using it a while, it would suddenly become non-alphabetical, which makes it harder for me to find my settlement. Have you seen that ? |
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To move to a web UI the first step is to convert the current engine into a API service. Based on the graph nature GraphQL is a great choice. I propose we look to add an API as part of 3.9 with a roadmap of a simple web UI in 4.0. This is a long road so we need to support the Java UI inparallel |
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There have been a few mentions of what to do with the UI long term such as create a Web UI, move to JavaFX. These relate to the technology used but the first question is how should a user interact with the UI. @mokun & @Urwumpe
User Interaction
The current user experience with the simulation can be confusing as the user is presented with a desktop and a number of tools. What is the best way to interact with the simulation? It is not obvious although the UI is very information rich which is good. The current approach allows the user to interact in any way.
An alternative is to adapt a more structured experience, consider for example Eclipse or VSCode where the user has a layout pre-defined. This workbench style would be very suitable from mars-sim. There is a mock-up below.
The components are:
Missions, Science & Supply Missions are now rendered as standalone windows in this desktop. The Mission, Science and Transport tools are no longer used because the entities can be selected in the tree/table/event feed. The right panel viewing panels of these tools become the windows shown in the center panel.
The tree panel can also support a Favourites as well.
Implementation
The implementation is not as easy. With the above adopting the Eclipse workbench framework would be a good idea BUT this means adopt SWT which would need a total rebuild of all UI panels. So this would involve a lot of effort.
The same applies for JavaFX in that nothing can be re-used.
A web UI I feel is the ultimate goal and whilst this can adopt the workbench style it involved even more development effort and bigger question on how a web API should be developed.
Therefore the Swing implementation is likely to be our best opinion.
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