[P] The little "arrow"

All discussions regarding the AAOv6 Beta, be it bug reports or suggestions, should be posted in this section.

Moderator: EN - Forum Moderators

User avatar
Exedeb
Posts: 115
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:33 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Italian, English

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Exedeb »

Wait a second.
The arrow is small, look this.
Spoiler : :
Image
As you can see, the arrow isn't intrusive...
Ok, maybe a bit, but not so much.
The space that the arrow should occupy is enough for the text.
Spoiler : :
Image
Of course I edited the picture to do an example
And then I discovered something that It could be interesting. In courtroom, during the cross-examination, there's not arrow in bottom right corner (wow...).
I think we can edit the arrow in the circumstances. Small or less, transparent or less.

Sorry if my English is not correct or wrong. Thank you.
User avatar
Bad Player
Posts: 7228
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 10:53 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: American
Location: Under a bridge

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Bad Player »

No matter how big/small the arrow is, it'll be intrusive in textboxes that are filled up 100%.
User avatar
Exedeb
Posts: 115
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:33 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Italian, English

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Exedeb »

O-ok.
Sorry....
My apologies.
User avatar
Meph
Posts: 13439
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2008 10:07 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
Location: Probably Disneyland Paris... or the UK

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Meph »

DWaM wrote:But... the proceed button tells the player that it's safe to click it... :/
What the button does now is:
  • show no arrow when it can't be clicked.
  • show one arrow when the text has finished typing out and you can click it to go to the next frame.
  • show two arrows (like a fast-forward icon) when the text is being typed out and you can click it to force it to finish typing.
I think the two arrows can be distracting. It would be better to always show one arrow and only show two arrows when the button is held down to skip multiple frames (which is the current behaviour in the real AA games). Showing a little arrow in the bottom right corner of the dialogue box would be less distracting and wouldn't defer the user's vision away from it.
DWaM wrote:Putting it anywhere outside of it, or giving it a special place of its own on the screen has the potential of distracting and even making the image on the screen look... well, bad, in my opinion, at least. Putting it anywhere below the upper screen still damages you, because... Well, the big button's already there... X)
One idea I had was putting it in the margin between the top and bottom screen, but that probably won't work. Another idea that might be better is putting it above the top right corner of the dialogue box; like where the blue name box is.
Exedeb wrote:I think we can edit the arrow in the circumstances. Small or less, transparent or less.
That's a good idea. If the arrow was 50% transparent, you'd still be able to see the text.
Bad Player wrote:No matter how big/small the arrow is, it'll be intrusive in textboxes that are filled up 100%.
You shouldn't be writing dialogues that take up 100% of the textbox, anyway. There's a big risk that the text will spill over into the fourth line, if the user is using an operating system or Web browser that renders the font a bit wider than on your computer.
User avatar
GanonZD
Posts: 526
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2009 5:59 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Danish, German, a tiny bit French

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by GanonZD »

Meph wrote:You shouldn't be writing dialogues that take up 100% of the textbox, anyway. There's a big risk that the text will spill over into the fourth line, if the user is using an operating system or Web browser that renders the font a bit wider than on your computer.
I think there are lots of common ad hoc solutions on AAO that "should not" be used; this probably won't stop most authors from using them. And the four or so browsers that make up 99 % of the market render things like line width almost identically by now, as far as I know; the differences are getting so small they will hardly affect the width of the 7 words that make up a line in an AAO text box. And so far, AAO is not well suited for browsers on mobile devices anyway, so that's really not something to worry about either.

Furthermore, sometimes it's just not really possible to shorten the text without compromising on something. Tell Picasso never to paint pictures greater than some upper size limit... ;-)
Ganon er kommt zum Dorf.
User avatar
Kroki
Admin
Posts: 7475
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2007 10:05 pm
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español, 日本語
Contact:

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Kroki »

In the original games there is some space in the lower part of the box, but it has been removed in AAO.
Meph's system for the arrow button would be as amazing an improvement as the blinking sprites were a few years ago. 8)
ImageImage Image Image Image
User avatar
DWaM
Posts: 1763
Joined: Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:23 am
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
Location: The Kingdom of Ellipses

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by DWaM »

Meph wrote:
DWaM wrote:Putting it anywhere outside of it, or giving it a special place of its own on the screen has the potential of distracting and even making the image on the screen look... well, bad, in my opinion, at least. Putting it anywhere below the upper screen still damages you, because... Well, the big button's already there... X)
One idea I had was putting it in the margin between the top and bottom screen, but that probably won't work. Another idea that might be better is putting it above the top right corner of the dialogue box; like where the blue name box is.
Yeah, but the reason the arrow is in the bottom right corner in the first place (hell, in most visual novels), is that it goes by the logic that the reader has read the text in the textbox, came to the end of it, saw the arrow.
Putting it somewhere where the nametags are... esthetically, I can't imagine it would look good, I'm afraid. It would be distracting instead of subtle. And even if the arrow was transparent, the completely-filled-textboxes would still be a bit of a problem - it would still perhaps be a bit difficult to read it.
User avatar
Bad Player
Posts: 7228
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 10:53 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: American
Location: Under a bridge

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Bad Player »

Meph wrote:
Bad Player wrote:No matter how big/small the arrow is, it'll be intrusive in textboxes that are filled up 100%.
You shouldn't be writing dialogues that take up 100% of the textbox, anyway. There's a big risk that the text will spill over into the fourth line, if the user is using an operating system or Web browser that renders the font a bit wider than on your computer.
Tell that to all the major fancase makers xP
Sometimes you have complex sentences, and even cutting it down as much as you can you only get it to just barely fit in the text box.
Phantom

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Phantom »

3rd time's the charm.

Putin wrote:
Putin wrote:Worst case scenario you resize it lower than it is in-game and you make it slightly transparent.
Edit: To add onto my self-quote, within the text-box.
Edit 2: To add onto my self-quote again, make it transparent enough to where you can still see the text (even change the arrow color to a grey color so you can see the white text easily behind it).


Meph, you're making the entire idea more complicated than it needs to be. Everyone here is right when it comes to these random arrow placements comments you're suggesting about.

The only logical place is the text-box, but of course, the problem is text blocking/spacing. That's why you overlay the whole thing (that is, the arrow).

It's either this, or have NO arrow at all.
User avatar
kwando1313
Posts: 7684
Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:33 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English, Français (un peu), Ancient Belkan
Location: Uminari City

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by kwando1313 »

I'd prefer no arrow. >_> Or, at least increase the text box size so the arrow doesn't cover up the text.
Avatar made by Rimuu~

Image

"The Knight of the Iron Hammer, Vita, and the Steel Count, Graf Eisen. There's nothing in this world we can't destroy."
User avatar
Bad Player
Posts: 7228
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 10:53 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: American
Location: Under a bridge

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Bad Player »

Yeah, I think it's easiest and best to just keep it the way it is now, with no arrow.
User avatar
Unas
Admin / Site programmer
Posts: 8850
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:43 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: Français, English, Español
Contact:

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Unas »

Meph wrote:I think the two arrows can be distracting. It would be better to always show one arrow and only show two arrows when the button is held down to skip multiple frames (which is the current behaviour in the real AA games).
Except that, while it would work on a touch screen device, holding a mouse button down is a very unnatural thing to do on a computer in this case; it is usually associated with dragging and dropping information, not with keeping UI buttons pressed. And remember that computers are still the main target for AAO.
So, for the moment at least, I intend to keep the current behaviour.

Next, as DWaM said this behaviour already makes the typing status visible, since the appearance of the button changes along with its action.

Given the problems highlighted by people here with adding the small arrow to the textbox, and given that its functionality is already met in a different way, making it basically useless, I've decided not to add this feature.
ImageImageImage
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Si le savoir peut créer des problèmes, ce n'est pas l'ignorance qui les résoudra. ( Isaac Asimov )
User avatar
Meph
Posts: 13439
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2008 10:07 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
Location: Probably Disneyland Paris... or the UK

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Meph »

Bad Player wrote:Sometimes you have complex sentences, and even cutting it down as much as you can you only get it to just barely fit in the text box.
I've been in that situation, as well, you know. :P But I usually split them into two frames. That solution works fine. :)
Edit 2: To add onto my self-quote again, make it transparent enough to where you can still see the text (even change the arrow color to a grey color so you can see the white text easily behind it).


Meph, you're making the entire idea more complicated than it needs to be. Everyone here is right when it comes to these random arrow placements comments you're suggesting about.

The only logical place is the text-box, but of course, the problem is text blocking/spacing. That's why you overlay the whole thing (that is, the arrow).

It's either this, or have NO arrow at all.
Well I just suggested that too, and BP was like "Oh no, players still won't be able to read the text underneath". But yes, as I said earlier, one solution is to have an arrow with about 50% opacity. And I'm becoming more and more convinced that that is the best solution.
Or, at least increase the text box size so the arrow doesn't cover up the text.
I've lowered the dialogue box's height in AAO6 so that it's the same size as the one in AAI. I'd rather keep it at its shorter height so that the new AAI-style features are more visible. :)
So, for the moment at least, I intend to keep the current behaviour.
But the current behaviour doesn't allow you to skip multiple frames at once (without clicking multiple times).
Given the problems highlighted by people here with adding the small arrow to the textbox, and given that its functionality is already met in a different way, making it basically useless, I've decided not to add this feature.
Not even with transparency? *puppy-dog eyes*
User avatar
Bad Player
Posts: 7228
Joined: Wed May 20, 2009 10:53 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: American
Location: Under a bridge

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Bad Player »

Meph wrote:
So, for the moment at least, I intend to keep the current behaviour.
But the current behaviour doesn't allow you to skip multiple frames at once (without clicking multiple times).
But that's an issue about how the advancement button works. There's no reason or necessity to add in the textbox arrow if you change the way the advance button works.
User avatar
Meph
Posts: 13439
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2008 10:07 pm
Gender: Male
Spoken languages: English
Location: Probably Disneyland Paris... or the UK

Re: The little "arrow"

Post by Meph »

Bad Player wrote:But that's an issue about how the advancement button works. There's no reason or necessity to add in the textbox arrow if you change the way the advance button works.
There is, because, if this change were to happen, the proceed button would not change its icon unless you hold it down.
Post Reply