[crossfire] GTK-V2 and the gtk-v2.glade problem

[Mark Wedel]

On 04/23/10 04:40 PM, Kevin Bulgrien wrote:
> The GTK-V2 client gets a bad rap because the default sizing has been removed
> from the layout.  People who start up the client think it is not working
> because it is all jumbled, etc.  I think either the change should be reverted,
> or a different, more first-timer friendly layout made the default.
>
> I understand that the defaults were removed to prevent issues with making
> the layout smaller than default, but IMO this is the wrong way to fix it.
> People are trying to play on gtk-v1 which doesn't work anymore on new
> servers.  This is not going to go well for getting new players.  It puts
> people off right at the start when they can't make heads or tails of what
> to do.  It should not be a first-time players job to have to unjumble a
> display.  It should come up right, and the complexity of adjusting display
> hassle should be deferred until after they see they love the game.
>
> With the release coming up, I think that this is a non-trivial issue, and
> suggest that gtk-v2.glade be fixed to be more friendly, or replaced as
> the default.

  As noted, the issue was that if the layout sizes were set, this ended up 
restricting the how small different things could be resized.

  As such, folks on lowish resolution systems found they couldn't resize things 
small enough.

  The size values could be put in place again, but unless things have changed in 
glade/gtk, I suspect the same issue will arise.

  I don't know how the other layouts get around this - maybe the default 
positioning/sizes that gtk chooses is more reasonable on different layout, or 
maybe some of the other layouts don't have the same minimum size restrictions 
(eg, won't allow resize below some size).

  I have no issue making a different layout the default if it works better.  I 
don't know if the gtk2 layout can get fixed purely in the glade file.

  A non glade method would basically be to have a predefined set of position 
files for the layout that the client uses if there is no per user layout.  An 
even more clever approach would be to have different positions get used based on 
size - gtk-v2.1024x768.pos, gtk-v2.1600x1200.pos, etc.

  But I suspect the even more clever approach is to choose different layouts by 
default based on the resolution of the system - if user has 640x480 resolution, 
probably the sixforty layout should be used, if 1028x768 another one may be a 
better fit, etc.