[docfu]

Okay. Being new to the board I'm reading a lot of older posts but it's very hard to get a feel of the games "current state."

Having installed antipodes/mediaVP's/BP/BP WIH and played through a lot of recommended campaigns it's easy to see where some of the improvements are (in game graphics is the easiest) but it's hard to see what's available (Alternative HUDs/ cockpits/ launchers) to get a feel for "What's right." (I.e. things start to look awesome.)

At the same time though, the overall look of the interface and the HUD haven't changed much since the game was originally released and a lot of the older mods have rather dated graphics/CG so as a new user it makes me feel like I'm missing something.

Rewrites like Doomsday (for Doom) still use the original games graphics 100% and keep a solid feel but it also has a console on top where you can change additional settings and...more importantly...easily see all of the new options rather than looking through the Forums to see what things have been updated, which can take hours after reading through irrelevant comments.

For me, as a new guy, these forums are "part of Freespace's interface" so to speak. While they contain a wealth of information it's spread out over a huge number of pages spanning an even larger number of posts, many of which become irrelevant with time.

(I've spent about 3 hours reading old posts just tonight.)

...

So...

When I suggested a Widget style interface to be put on top of the game (mainly for the HUD and game options) it's because it sounds like a plausible approach to adding new in-game adjustments without breaking existing code. I'd really like, for instance, to be able to see what different lighting profiles look like using sliders in real time or reorganize the HUD using a mouse.

Anyway, I hope that clears up why I made the suggestion.

[General Battuta]

Actually people have looked at using the shiplab as an ingame graphics option menu. But a lot of the stuff like the new HUD code is going to be available in the next release (3.6.14), so you'd have to get a nightly build to use it right now.

[Goober5000]

The existing FreeSpace gui elements are widgets, and they have been since FS1.  They're in a folder in the source tree called snazzyui.  They are what I used to compose the additional screens such as the scrollable command briefing, the fiction viewer, the apply-loadout-to-wing option, and several additional popup windows.

So it is certainly possible to build onto the UI if desired.  It's just that, as I said earlier in the thread, it's a very low priority.  People are way too obsessed with the graphical appearance of the engine and depressingly unconcerned about the parts that are in dire need of attention.

[Nuke]

im more concerned with the functionality of the interface over the outright appearance of it. take the options menu for example, id love to have a more up to date set of options that can be changed on the fly, especially graphics options. setting things in the launcher might be all fine and dandy, and you might have it set up to give you good performance for your typical missions. but there are those epic missions that sometimes require reduced settings to get any kind of framerate out of, be nice to hit f2 and be able to quickly switch off normal maps for example, instead of aborting the mission, quitting the game, and restarting with new settings. id be happy if freespace had a console with a command line interface for advanced options. menus might be preferable, since such an interface already exists (lab ui). id just like to see other ways of setting game settings other than launcher flags, regedit, and tables, for options capable of on the fly tweaking.

[MatthTheGeek]

From what I heard, the problem here isn't about the interface, but the order in which stuff are loaded in FSO. When you reach even just the player menu, all the launcher settings are already loaded and applied, and it's not possible to change them anymore. Having them changeable on-the-fly would require some heavy re-coding.

[Nuke]

From what I heard, the problem here isn't about the interface, but the order in which stuff are loaded in FSO. When you reach even just the player menu, all the launcher settings are already loaded and applied, and it's not possible to change them anymore. Having them changeable on-the-fly would require some heavy re-coding.

really it depends on the settings. some things do need to be handled at game init, but not all. if its something that affects the textures sounds or other media that are currently loaded, youre looking at at least a mission re-init, or at most a restart of the game. if your changing a variable that is used every frame to do something like set the mipmap distance, you could probably change it on the fly.

[Cobaltred]

Rewrites like Doomsday (for Doom) still use the original games graphics 100% and keep a solid feel but it also has a console on top where you can change additional settings and...more importantly...easily see all of the new options rather than looking through the Forums to see what things have been updated, which can take hours after reading through irrelevant comments.

So I mostly just lurk on these boards, but I think maybe my experience as someone relatively new to HLP might be useful here.  I understand that an ingame console is a massive undertaking and not high on the priority list.  However, I do think that it would be useful (and much more doable) to make it a little easier to find graphics and/or engine tweaks if there was some kind of centralized place they could be posted (with a note about whether they are stable or still being tested).  I've found a number of these over the past year, but often it requires a lot of searching on the forums and sometimes a question or 2 asked in IRC to get them.  It would seem the most logical place for something like this might be a page on the wiki with links to  (files or mods in some cases, just instructions on how to turn them on in others) or the board threads regarding those tweaks.  Another option would be a sticky somewhere.

Please don't get mad or defensive if this suggestion is either unreasonable or is already in effect.  Just a n00b making a suggestion here.  This community and project is fanfreakingtastic.   

[The E]

We do plan on adding a new interface screen accessible off the mainhall similar to the F3 Lab where you can adjust all the stuff that is currently controlled by custom flags and the like.

[Nuke]

thats good to hear