Mainmenu: Add customisable pager, add new change game dialog #8758

rubenwardy · 2019-08-06T14:21:55Z

This is the first PR in a series to improve the main menu.

This should be merged as two commits.

The first commit splits up the tabview in such a way as to allow layouters. A layouter is an object with methods which are called to generate the formspec and handle events. The aim of this is to allow easy customisation of the navigation of the main menu. In future, games will be able to provide a Lua script at menu/init.lua to customise their main menu.

The second commit adds a new Change Game dialog, akin to celeron55's plans. This dialog will be the first thing that a new user sees when they start minetest, and will promote the use of ContentDB for installing games and such. Once a user has selected a game, future boots will load directly into that game. To get back to the change game dialog, they can select the layout's change game option.

To do

Add tab view layouters
Add change game dialog
Fix game selection only working on local tab
Change selected game setting name so that users with existing installs will see the dialog
Show change game dialog when menu_current_game is nil
Implement "play online", "content", and "settings"

How to test

WIP PR, testing later

rubenwardy · 2019-08-06T14:29:58Z

Current Builtin Layouters

Please note: these currently look a little ugly because they're not themed very well. This is mostly to demonstrate layout and such rather than my graphic abilities

tabs

The current system

vertical

tabs are on the side, the original form of this PR. With formspec scaling, this would become the fullscreen version

mainmenu

Wuzzy2 · 2019-08-23T02:35:12Z

How do you select singleplayer games, though?

ClobberXD · 2019-08-23T06:44:08Z

How do you select singleplayer games, though?

As far as I can tell, "New Game" to create the world, and "Load Game" to load an existing world.

Wuzzy2 · 2019-08-23T17:16:02Z

That's not what I meant … I mean, how do you select a different game? How do you go from Minetest Game to MineClone 2?

LoneWolfHT · 2019-08-23T18:23:14Z

That's not what I meant … I mean, how do you select a different game? How do you go from Minetest Game to MineClone 2?

I think what they said can still be your answer, just with slightly different wording

rubenwardy · 2019-08-23T20:01:36Z

You click "Change Game" which then shows this screen:

This will also be the first screen you see when you launch Minetest

This is WIP, the layout and the contrast isn't as good as it could be.

Wuzzy2 · 2020-01-05T16:47:25Z

This is a much better layouting than our current one.

Random thoughts:

The “You can download new games …” message: I'm not sure if it's neccessary. Sure, for new users it might be useful but after that it becomes a distraction. Maybe it could be a message that only appears once?
Overall, all the menus need to become much more visually appalling, but I understand this is out of scope here. But I think it's important to keep in mind
Change game dialog: Names need to be readable in full. Also, I'm kind of missing a game description here, but it would be very appropriate for such a menu to show the game description. I'm not sure about the layout. Maybe it's better to show games in a scrollable list (w/ icon, title and description).
Main menu: Yes, 99% approval! This is the kind of main menu you know from most other games, so meets player's expectations. The only thing I'm missing is the “Quit” button. :-)
A huge problem in UI design we have IMO is that we only have one font size for everything. A title has the same font size as everything else. This makes it difficult to implement e.g. captions and menu titles. E.g. the caption for the game selection dialog is very small

I have actually cloned your repo just to test this stuff myself, but it does not look at all like in the screenshots. :-(

rubenwardy · 2020-01-05T18:51:02Z

The “You can download new games …” message: I'm not sure if it's neccessary. Sure, for new users it might be useful but after that it becomes a distraction. Maybe it could be a message that only appears once?

This is only for the first load, yeah

Change game dialog: Names need to be readable in full. Also, I'm kind of missing a game description here, but it would be very appropriate for such a menu to show the game description. I'm not sure about the layout. Maybe it's better to show games in a scrollable list (w/ icon, title and description).

I'm planning to make it a vertical scrollable list with icon, title, and description - but I'm blocked by the scroll_container PR.

I have actually cloned your repo just to test this stuff myself, but it does not look at all like in the screenshots. :-(

You need to fiddle with the code in mainmenu/init.lua to see the different styles, and the actual redesign part of it (ie: the content) is not part of this PR, it will be in a later PR

v-rob · 2020-01-05T22:21:55Z

Overall, all the menus need to become much more visually appalling

More appalling, or appealing? :)

A huge problem in UI design we have IMO is that we only have one font size for everything. A title has the same font size as everything else. This makes it difficult to implement e.g. captions and menu titles. E.g. the caption for the game selection dialog is very small

Setting font sizes is quite possible, as seen through the hypertext element, it's just a matter of adding that functionality to label. Maybe through style.

LoneWolfHT · 2020-01-05T22:35:27Z

Maybe something like this, where all games are listed with their icons in that red bar, including the ones that haven't been downloaded (the icons for those will be greyscale'd to indicate that maybe)

Then down below in the blue area will be the game info, larger icon, name, short description, ect

Wuzzy2 · 2020-01-05T22:40:25Z

No, definitely do NOT replicate the old “game button bar” like in our current main menu. It takes 1,000,000 clicks everytime to click through the game I want, it's very annoying.

LoneWolfHT · 2020-01-05T22:45:05Z

No, definitely do NOT replicate the old “game button bar” like in our current main menu. It takes 1,000,000 clicks everytime to click through the game I want, it's very annoying.

It should just take one click for the scrollbar I didn't show at the top of the red bar and another click to click on the game icon?

v-rob · 2020-01-07T02:12:56Z

Yes, the button bar isn't that annoying. I think using scroll_container would make it perfectly fine. I personally don't like the idea of having to click on a button and then click on a game to get which one I want. Not everyone has a ton of games; I never have more than three at a time, so a scrollable button bar is only one click for people like me and two (or a scroll and a click) for everyone else. Clicking to get a new screen disrupts the mind, so it that will take even longer.

rubenwardy · 2020-02-03T01:27:20Z

Need to fix the alignment, and I'm not happy with the game buttons

LoneWolfHT · 2020-02-03T01:34:08Z

What would it look like if there were more games than space on the screen for them?

rubenwardy · 2020-02-03T01:39:01Z

It will scroll vertically using a scroll bar. This pr depends on scroll containers

LoneWolfHT · 2020-02-03T02:14:28Z

Might look better if there was a bit of a background in that case
Maybe something like the half-transparent grey one in this screenshot:

Wuzzy2 · 2020-02-03T10:59:42Z

It will scroll vertically using a scroll bar. This pr depends on scroll containers

In the meantime, you could use pages instead.

Wuzzy2 · 2020-02-03T11:21:57Z

One question:
What's the point of the left bar (“New Game”, “Load Game”, etc.) if you also did the good old main menu? Why have both and not one?

I would strongly prefer to use the classic main menu only. The tabs, or side buttons are pretty unique to Minetest, which is BAD because it will be a surprise to users.

You might argue that the point is to give games full freedom of designing their main menu but that could be actually a bad thing. Because then all games will just implement their own UI with their own, inconsistent conventions and the player must re-learn the UI from scratch every time.

Wuzzy2 · 2020-02-03T11:26:04Z

@rubenwardy: About the game selection: Maybe only put 1 game per line? That way, there's much more room for the description. I would also make it more obvious that the game buttons are clickable, by making them look like a real clickable button and not just an icon.

rubenwardy · 2020-02-03T11:51:25Z

Im leaning towards making the main menu mode the default, as with some attention it would look the best.

I'll be looking into using a 9slice background for the buttons. Not sure how to combine that with the background

rubenwardy · 2020-02-03T19:48:05Z

rubenwardy · 2020-02-03T20:24:33Z

rubenwardy · 2020-02-03T20:26:28Z

Wuzzy2 · 2020-02-03T21:01:35Z

I can't wait until this is in a testable state.

Wuzzy2 · 2020-02-03T21:16:21Z

Oh, I noticed you removed the game name from the top left corner. Please bring it back.

The button “Play Online” is inconsitent with “Join Game”. In general, I'm not very happy with some of the menu names …

Start Game: Obvious
Join Game: Doesn't say it's online
Content: Content of what? Way too vague.
Settings: Obvious
Change Game: Obvious
Credits: Obvious

Also: Still no exit button. :P

MoNTE48 · 2020-02-12T12:54:07Z

IMHO the interface in the first screenshot was simpler. I hate the back button. Back to the empty menu.
Switching between tabs now has 2 actions instead of one.

cHyper-0815OL · 2020-03-01T10:24:04Z

Are there any alpha versions of the new menu design out there for testing the new layout?

appgurueu · 2020-05-27T18:39:27Z

src/gui/guiBox.cpp

@@ -31,6 +32,8 @@ void GUIBox::draw()
 	if (!IsVisible)
 		return;

+	// errorstream << "color: " << std::hex << m_color.color << std::endl;


Throw this and the #include "log.h" out?

Pevernow · 2020-10-13T13:44:35Z

It seems all right.
But I don't know why it was close?

sfan5 · 2020-10-13T14:59:15Z

I believe rubenwardy currently has no time to work on this.

rubenwardy · 2020-10-13T15:18:31Z

Correct. This was only ever a Work-In-Progress / Prototype PR, I don't have much time to spend on it currently so I closed it. It may resurface when I have time for it

Tim79000 · 2023-03-17T19:49:15Z

I hope this gets added, but a few gripes, 1, will their be an option for showing games in a list without icons?
2, how in depth would game menu customization be?

rubenwardy added WIP The PR is still being worked on by its author and not ready yet. Feature ✨ PRs that add or enhance a feature @ Mainmenu labels Aug 6, 2019

rubenwardy force-pushed the tabview branch from b6529b0 to b5177bf Compare August 6, 2019 14:24

rubenwardy mentioned this pull request Aug 6, 2019

Main menu redesign #8629

Closed

9 tasks

rubenwardy force-pushed the tabview branch from b5177bf to 722f977 Compare August 6, 2019 15:56

rubenwardy force-pushed the tabview branch 3 times, most recently from d29dd4d to d189c2e Compare December 10, 2019 22:23

rubenwardy mentioned this pull request Dec 10, 2019

Change of behaviour after introduction of real formspec elements #9186

Closed

rubenwardy force-pushed the tabview branch from d189c2e to d275018 Compare December 10, 2019 23:01

rubenwardy mentioned this pull request Jan 5, 2020

Music for Subgames and Minor Menu tweeks #9285

Closed

rubenwardy added 5 commits February 2, 2020 23:07

Add tabview layouters

385aa9f

Remove game selector panel

5bca0bd

Refactor mm_texture into gamemenu, make game selection apply to all tabs

7bf48ce

Add change game dialog

39d1869

Clean up formspec layout for vertical mode

b09a817

rubenwardy force-pushed the tabview branch from d275018 to b09a817 Compare February 3, 2020 00:01

Improve game switcher

1b7b983

Improve layout

874a85a

rubenwardy added 4 commits February 3, 2020 19:53

Improve style

4b21f81

Add background to main menu

d02546e

Side-attached main menu

44f437e

no gaps

94f292c

v-rob mentioned this pull request Apr 25, 2020

FormSpec: Complex buttons #9754

Closed

appgurueu reviewed May 27, 2020

View reviewed changes

v-rob mentioned this pull request Jul 18, 2020

User custom formspec themes #10192

Closed

rubenwardy closed this Aug 8, 2020

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Mainmenu: Add customisable pager, add new change game dialog #8758

Mainmenu: Add customisable pager, add new change game dialog #8758

rubenwardy commented Aug 6, 2019 •

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Wuzzy2 commented Aug 23, 2019

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appgurueu May 27, 2020

Pevernow commented Oct 13, 2020

sfan5 commented Oct 13, 2020

rubenwardy commented Oct 13, 2020

Tim79000 commented Mar 17, 2023

Mainmenu: Add customisable pager, add new change game dialog #8758

Mainmenu: Add customisable pager, add new change game dialog #8758

Conversation

rubenwardy commented Aug 6, 2019 • edited

To do

How to test

rubenwardy commented Aug 6, 2019 • edited

Current Builtin Layouters

tabs

vertical

mainmenu

Wuzzy2 commented Aug 23, 2019

ClobberXD commented Aug 23, 2019

Wuzzy2 commented Aug 23, 2019

LoneWolfHT commented Aug 23, 2019 • edited

rubenwardy commented Aug 23, 2019 • edited

Wuzzy2 commented Jan 5, 2020

rubenwardy commented Jan 5, 2020 • edited

v-rob commented Jan 5, 2020

LoneWolfHT commented Jan 5, 2020

Wuzzy2 commented Jan 5, 2020

LoneWolfHT commented Jan 5, 2020

v-rob commented Jan 7, 2020

rubenwardy commented Feb 3, 2020 • edited

LoneWolfHT commented Feb 3, 2020

rubenwardy commented Feb 3, 2020

LoneWolfHT commented Feb 3, 2020 • edited

Wuzzy2 commented Feb 3, 2020

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rubenwardy commented Feb 3, 2020

rubenwardy commented Feb 3, 2020 • edited

rubenwardy commented Feb 3, 2020

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MoNTE48 commented Feb 12, 2020

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