Unseen Studios

I realized today that the client badly needs a more flexible Graphical User Interface. I've been good about coding it so far, but if I'm going to be able to rapidly expand the features of the game, this needs to happen sooner rather than later (as I had planned). Although inventories are now working perfectly, it would take me 2-3 hours to set up the menu so you could easily view the inventory and change things about it. Conversely, it will take about 7-8 hours to write a complete GUI that has built-in support for text entry, text boxes, list boxes, stat bars, windows and more--with the added benefit of making it look better--and I won't have to write a new batch of code to make other listed items (such as skills, spells, trade window, etc.) work correctly. They'll be part of the system. So that's what I'm working on next!

This doesn't affect the August release date, but it sure is getting intimidating >.<

hey Karl,

sounds interesting I think the most of us who are dedicated to the project are sticking to the release whenever it is, already taking into consideration the constraints you are under and problems you face along the way. all i would say is, in your own time, we are following you every step of the way no matter how long the release takes. Well I know I am at least, althought I would like to think I am speaking on behalf of everyone registered! lol

All the Best,


Richard.

Just a recommendation before you get to far into programing the gui. Would making the hp/mp bars movable or maybe a couple of different styles to chose from be to much? And maybe make room for some of the things that xenhook had, such as exp/hr, on screen exp and gold display. Just a recommendation. I know you make everything really flexible so you can add stuff in the future, but those are just a couple things to think about.

Making things movable is a possibility, but it takes more programming to make that work. It's not impossible--I've done it before--but it's time consuming, and I need to move on ASAP. This GUI will be able to support it, though, so I'll keep it in mind for the future


Also, while I'm here: buttons work in-game now. I'm going to implement editable text and, hopefully, lists tomorrow; then, I'm implementing other random widgets (such as sliders) and replacing the current GUI on Wednesday and (finally) getting the inventory and stat menus up-and-running by Thursday night. This puts me a bit behind schedule but I'll work hard this weekend to catch up.

In the interest of saving time, I'm not going to go back and convert the current GUI over to the new GUI quite yet. I'll do this before release at some point, but it's one of those easy-yet-time-consuming tasks, and there are other things to be done.

Editable text lines are finished, so I'm going right along to scrollable lists (for the inventory). My slightly-ambitious goal is to have this and the inventory display finished tonight. More realistically, I should be able to have it, along with the ability to drop and pick up items, finished by Friday night.

New inventory concept screenshot. I'm implementing this next

Looks nice. I like the item preview location and style.