Production Queue UI

[Gyrfalcon]

The production queue system looks great! I do have a couple of requests:

- Every time I add something to the queue, it resets the view to the top of the production list, which is somewhat annoying when I want to make several of something that doesn't appear above the fold.

- It would make more sense to me if there wasn't a distinction between current production and the queue. Having a separate button for the queue versus current production seems unnecessary and kind of confusing. Is there a good reason items in the queue are treated differently other than legacy from pre-queue code?

[Arioch]

- It would make more sense to me if there wasn't a distinction between current production and the queue. Having a separate button for the queue versus current production seems unnecessary and kind of confusing. Is there a good reason items in the queue are treated differently other than legacy from pre-queue code?

Sometimes you want to change the current item being produced instead of adding a new item to the queue, so they are different actions. There are three ways I can think of to deal with this:
1. Make them two different buttons. This is what we're currently doing.
2. Make it all one queue, and require the user to delete the current item before adding a new one if he wants to change the current build.
3. Include a toggle that turns the queue on and off. Civ V does this, and I think it's just confusing.

Because the current production pane behaves differently from the queue itself (left-click opens the production menu), it's tough to implement #2 functionality. We could have a right-click delete the item in current production, but that doesn't seem very intuitive.

[sven]

Is there a good reason items in the queue are treated differently other than legacy from pre-queue code?

There is still some legacy code hanging around, but, as Arioch says, the hard part here is finding UI behaviors that we like.

One thing we've talked about is using a drag/drop semantic (sortof like the one in the ship designer screen), to reorder items in the queue. If we go that route, then I think, perhaps, we could try simplifying things so that the choose production item behavior was just "left click to add to queue" -- and the large current production box was simply the top of the queue. People would often need to use drag/drop behaviors to rearrange or delete queued items as they saw fit, but, I think the boxes involved are big enough that this might not be too confusing/awkward. (A right-click to delete semantic, like the one we have now, would still probably be useful, but, in theory, simply dragging items out of the production area would be about as easy a way of achieving the same effect.)

It seems like a pretty promising idea to me right now -- but, I'm not convinced it's ideal. But however exactly the buttons for the choose production items work, I think we probably do want drag-drop reordering. Once that's in it should be easy to experiment a little with the details.

edit: As I keep thinking about this, the main problem I see with "left click to add to queue" is that the queue is limited to 5 items. So, what do you do when the queue is full? In the current UI, we just grey-out the "add to queue button", which seems to work pretty well. But, in a simplified UI, we'd probably need to grey-out the whole production item, or, alternatively, truncate the queue to make room for the new production. Not sure I like either idea.

[Arioch]

Drag and drop functionality is a good thing to add, but I don't think it should replace single-click functionality. Some people like drag and drop behavior and some don't. Especially for an experienced player, single-click is often faster and preferable.

The items in the production menu will eventually have their own informational tooltips, and we can put explicit instructions there ("left-click to produce, right-click to queue") as necessary.

[Big Imp]

Drag and drop functionality is a good thing to add, but I don't think it should replace single-click functionality. Some people like drag and drop behavior and some don't. Especially for an experienced player, single-click is often faster and preferable.

The items in the production menu will eventually have their own informational tooltips, and we can put explicit instructions there ("left-click to produce, right-click to queue") as necessary.

I agree

[projekcja]

I often find that I want to queue up a few of the same ship type on a colony, but if I need to scroll down a bit to find the ship type, every time I click on the queue button, the production scrolling resets, and I have to scroll down again. It would be nice if this didn't happen and I could just click a few times in a row at the same position on the screen without the refresh.

[sven]

I often find that I want to queue up a few of the same ship type on a colony, but if I need to scroll down a bit to find the ship type, every time I click on the queue button, the production scrolling resets, and I have to scroll down again. It would be nice if this didn't happen and I could just click a few times in a row at the same position on the screen without the refresh.

Good suggestion. As of r13171 (currently on 'dev'), the scroll position should no longer be reset after queuing a production item.