UI Proposal

[Adikso]

Since the first time I have seen Colobot I feel that it's just the game for... kids? I hope that in future it will be a game which not only look more mature but also will support more advanced bot battles (imagine 4v4 competition.. wow) and not only enable people to learn programming. That's why i have made this proposal. Colobot looks childish and it's interface is not very well organized. 

I wanted to make it look like IDE's looks like nowadays and also.. flat. I'm not sure if it isn't too dark for the game like colobot. Take a look.


https://ss.adikso.net/Colobot/ui.png

It's not completed yet, but it shows the main idea of this interface. Icons for controling and selecting robots are missing.
It's just an image, it's not implemented gui.

Notes:

• Green border at the bottom of Edit Code button indicate that code is successfully compiled.
  
• Console output allows to show more information (I implemented brainfuck interpreter few months ago and it show how much easier it would be with console output)
  

Let me know what you think about this.
I already showed a part of it to krzys_h, but it's updated version.

I also want to say Hello, as it's my first post here

[Simbax]

Good job! It looks really familiar to the UI I was dreaming of in Colobot. Sadly, it will take probably much time before it will be implemented in the game. The UI is not going to be rewritten until the 0.3.0 version.

[krzys_h]

Just like @Simbax mentioned, the whole UI code is a big mess so trying to implement it before CEGUI refactoring in 0.3.0 is probably not worth the effort.
Since I already worked with CEGUI a bit in the past (on the dev-ui branch) I can say that making the UI flat simplifies the work with creating CEGUI themes a bit. Not having to worry about keeping the look close to original makes the job a lot easier too.

imagine 4v4 competition.. wow

This is technically already possible in the engine, it's just the matter of creating a level like that.

Console output allows to show more information

CeeBot4 (a game on original Colobot engine which we don't have source code for) actually had some kind of console output window. Your version is a lot better though.

I implemented brainfuck interpreter few months ago and it show how much easier it would be with console output

Since you already registered on the forum, why don't you publish it?

I'm not sure if it isn't too dark for the game like colobot.

We could always provide a few color themes you could choose from. That should be quite easy to implement once we'll have CEGUI.

[radioactivity]

Idk, I like how current UI looks. Mostly old school 3D buttons, but I suppose UI could get some face lifting, especially if you could just change graphics of UI with simple mod, like you can now.

This is technically already possible in the engine, it's just the matter of creating a level like that.

I already made 4 player FFA

[Adikso]

imagine 4v4 competition.. wow

This is technically already possible in the engine, it's just the matter of creating a level like that.

Ok, but imagine it as multiplayer battle with a lot of bots (maybe capture the flag) and limited time to write code.

[RaptorParkowsky]

Since the first time I have seen Colobot I feel that it's just the game for... kids? [...] Colobot looks childish and it's interface is not very well organized.

Well, every EPSITEC game is childish, but CoLoBoT/CeeBot are more matured from all of them though. It's part of the original design and I think more dignified design of the world in the game (and also UI) will be rather a good thing for Colobot 2 project than for Gold Edition remake.

Flat UI design was considered earlier and I think we're going to make this style after CEGUI refactoring, but I think we should keep the original color scheme for it rather than making the new one. And probably (especially at the beginning of the making) it will be only optional. Most of the UI icons also will be changed, even in current state of the development, but not all of them (buildings/robots icons should stay as in original).

[krzys_h]

I think we should keep the original color scheme for it rather than making the new one

Like I said, I think it would be rather easy to provide multiple color versions. Most IDEs nowadays provide multiple themes to choose from and make customization really simple. We could have the original, "more childish" version for younger players and the more flat version for more mature players.

[True Destroyer]

Hey, since we're gonna need to wait some time for UI overhaul, how about UI retexturing? I made some low quality flat UI retextures, applicable as mods. Maybe you can improve them to make them look at least a bit more like UI on your screenshot (darker, more flat, and more modern and professional looking than mine). Feel free to use them.
Of course it doesn't concern anything about fonts or button/indicator placement or the custom features like console etc, but hey, you can experiment with flatness, icons and transparency using for example only ms paint, so its like low time investment against up to 60%-70% result. I guess you can even copy features directly from your ui.png screenshot to colobot's bmp files. (You said something that it's just a visualisation). Check my signature for UI texture pack. It's really only a couple of 1024x1024 textures made mostly of 64x64 squares.

P.S. Also about making custom UI's: It may be 'hard' to get over some stuff, that's not seen on your screenshot namely two things:
- maps have water and land colors defined in each level files (scene.txt), for some levels these colors may just accidentaly clash horribly with UI colors that you decided to use.
- astronaut has option to define color of the flag he puts on ground by button, so yep, either you use these rainbow colors there for the buttons or somehow spell out color names on them.