[crossfire] GTK2-v2 Client new layout defined

[Kevin R. Bulgrien]

Lalo Martins wrote:

> A discussion we had a while ago when the v2 client first appeared:
> 
> Many laptops on the market today aren't able to do more than 1024x768,
> and that isn't about to change any time soon.
>
> I *normally* play on my PC, but if I ever became unable to play on the
> laptop, I would be very disappointed.

The biggest challenge there is that the v2 client appears to use a
system defined font, so unless that font is pretty small, the v2 client
cannot be as tight as the v1 GTK client.
 
> Generally, your layout reminds me of the v1 client, which makes me ask:
> if you're going to have 3 columns, why not put the map in the middle?

Sure, that layout was done mostly to see if I could do a new layout...
As such, I changed as few widgets as I could.  I feel the same about
having the map in the middle, and intend to redo a layout in the v1
client format shortly, but my development system motherboard had
a SATA controller go out on it the day after I posted all that, so I've
been distracted temporarily.

As far as redoing the layout with the map in the middle goes, as a right-
handed mouse user, I think I may prefer having the inventory on the
 right and the messages on the left, but now that I've done it a couple
of times, doing both a lefty and a righty version would be pretty easy.
 
> Now, on the subject of layouts:
> 
> I think it would be a neat idea if the v2 client used libglade, and
> allowed the user to choose a layout file in the preferences dialogue.
> Yeah, that would probably require a client restart to take effect, and
> for best results we should include thumbnail screenshots with the glade
> files and find a way to display them in preferences; but overall it
> shouldn't be too hard, and if people are serious about writing different
> layouts, it might be worth it.

I mentioned as much on IRC... yes, libglade would be neat.  I'd have to
get a lot more comfortable with Glade and the client code to try it
myself.  (I was able to do the re-layout without touching any of the
client code.)  I think, though, unless it was easy, it seems there may
be better things to do than convert the client to use libglade.  It's
not like you have a lot of options on layout unless you have an obscenely
large display - and that's not a problem I have, and it doesn't seem to
be a problem a lot of players have.

> Of course, my preference would be for using a widget similar to the
> Gimp's dockable panes, so an user can change the layout at runtime.  But
> I looked around and found no such widget in a library format.
> 
> best,
>                                                Lalo Martins