RedPanda Development Blog

I’ve implemented the pseudo-drag and quasi-drop mentioned in my last update, and as an added bonus, compensated for parental rotation when moving objects (Julio’s Bounty 1.) Until I can figure out how Quaternions work, it’s implemented manually by taking the parent’s rotation around the y-axis and rotating the delta-translation of the child by the opposite of that amount. (Maybe Quaternion.inverse() will have the same effect?)

The ClickManagers probably need a little refactoring. I’ll see about that this weekend.

After much frustration, I’ve finally fixed the bug with the cursor color not being updated. (Actually reading the update method helped a great deal.) Reintroducing myself to ClickManager has made me wonder if we’re approaching the translation of Wickets in the right way. We refer to our current system as “drag and drop,” but the fact that the Wicket does not remain under the cursor as long as the mouse button is held down means that we have more of a “cattle prod” interface: if it’s not doing what you want, just poke it in the direction you want it to go. Implementing a true drag and drop is well beyond my knowledge of linear algebra, but I think we could alter our current system to achieve an effect similar to a true drag and drop.

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I daresay Tommy and I wrapped up the conversation editing interface.  But who knows?  That’s the trouble with GUI-related endeavors: the goals of the endeavor are rarely clearly defined.  People usually say something like, “I want a graphical interface.  It should look pretty.  And, above all, users shouldn’t have trouble using it.”  But the idea of “looking pretty” is clearly subjective; and the idea of “users not having trouble” is something that’s hard to measure.  So how do you know when you’re done making a user interface?  You don’t.  There’s always something more you can do.  You can always make the interface a little more intuitive.

Nonetheless, I’m declaring the Conversation Editing Cycle complete.  If we get tons of negative feedback from our artists and other users, then perhaps we’ll tweak things.  But I personally think the interface is pretty slick.

Onwards and upwards!  (Physics?)