[crossfire] Improved/redone client.

[Nicolas Weeger (Laposte)]

> Standardize on 19x19 map size.

It makes sense to have a common client size. Of course, whatever size we use, 
some people will find it too small, some will find it too big :)

> Make client fullscreen.

As long as it's an option, no issue here.

Note that I agree about the point concerning toolkits - it's nice to have 
coherence between applications.

> Standardize on one client

Agreed, with the following conditions:
* be available on as many platforms as we can, so people don't feel like 
writing another one
* have as many options as possible - so people can customize it to their 
taste, and don't feel like writing another one :)

> Improve client UI
>   Here are various thoughts and some suggestions I think people presented:
> - Pop up window for inventory handling (one gets so many items in
> crossfire, that the normal scrolled area really isn't sufficient)

Optional :)

> - Maybe use themes to make the appearance more that of a game and less that
> of an application (font size, background colors, etc)

The best thing would be to have "game mode", either full screen or not, with a 
specialized toolkit, and "integrated mode", integrated in the desktop (using 
style and such).

> - Figure out what information is important to display, and what isn't.  In
> particular, I'm thinking of the stats pane here - most often I use the exp
> pane to see where I am at relative to leveling, less so the resistances,
> and seldom use the overall stats one, since stats don't change very often. 
> Could we maybe use icons instead of string names, and scrollbars instead of
> numbers to represent progress?  Add popup hints so if you hover over the
> value, you get the full info?

Again, let's enable the user to customize the interface as much as possible.

> - Improved help - I don't think the help in the client has much useful
> content - I think a lot of the information currently in various places
> could make it to the client so it has a real help system.

Agreed.



A nice thing would be to have a generic client, with an interface layer. This 
way we could apply different interfaces while retaining a common layer. Think 
something like Firefox's XUL, maybe? (as a concept, i certainly don't suggest 
to use that language for the interface).
Maybe with a "widget" system? Let users write (in Python? LUA?) their own 
displaying widget to display game information?


Nicolas