Re: [Bug-gnubg] USE_OLD_LAYOUT flag replaced with menu option

[Jon Kinsey]

Ned Cross wrote:

> 1) Error messages seem to be greatly reduced, If not gone entirely now.  The
> only issue I've seen with 2d/3d boards is that 3 of the predefined styles do
> not have a 3D board: espana, 30's board, easygoing.
I'm going to add some settings for these soon.

> 2) If I create a new design (color scheme) in 2D, then switch to 3D, the new
> board scheme is lost and replaced by the default 3d scheme.  Is it possible
> to add a default set of textures, light, & whatever to the newly defined
> color design in 3d? Or do I have to always create separate designs from
> scratch in 3D and 2D?
What would be reasonably easy to do is to copy the colours of the newly 
added
design (to the other dimension), textures less likely - especially as some
textures are coloured and some aren't.  I'll have a look...

> 3) Minor preference issue:  My default setup is panels not docked, 2d board,
> game record and analysis windows open, message window not open, toolbar
> icons only, not full-screen.  It took me 3 iterations of resetting
> everything to my default preferences and saving settings to my autorc file,
> but now it all works reliably. When GNUBG opens, the game record,
> annotation, and main windows open. The order of these items on the windows
> task bar has become reversed (game record first, then annotation, and main
> window last.  It was more intuitive before, with the main window being the
> first GNUbg item on the taskbar. Can this be restored?
I'll make this change.

> 4) Menus no longer activate from the game record window.  In the old 2d
> build, one could highlight a move in the game record window and the program
> would respond to a menu command (ie - keyboard shortcut like "play computer
> turn" or "analyse move", or "import new match").  Now the program will not
> respond to those inputs with the game-record window in focus, but only with
> the Main window in focus.  This requires the user to select the interesting
> position in one window, then switch windows to execute the menu command. Is
> it possible to restore the ability to accept menu commands from the Game
> Record window?
I think I may have acciedental removed this code, I'll try to re-add it!

> 5) Navigation Problem: Game Record window.  After setting up a position in
> the edit screen, it's now very difficult, if not impossible, to get back to
> the place where the position is shown with the dice on the board.
> Navigating with the arrows seems to skip either to the position before the
> edit, or to the position after the move. Try it and if it's not clear what
> I'm talking about I'll try to explain in more detail.
I'll try this as it's not immeditaely clear what you mean.

> 6) Minor preference: Windows task bar buttons.  Since when panels are not
> docked, there are multiple GNUBG windows open, and multiple windows taskbar
> button for the GNUBG program.  All the buttons have the same GNUBG icon, and
> say "GNU Backgammon" - "GNU Backgammon - Annotation", GNU Backgammon -
> Rollout" etc.  The minor usability issue is that since all buttons have the
> same Icon and same first 14 letters of text, there is no way to distinguish
> which button leads to what window.  Would it be possible to re-order the
> text of the heading to something like "Board - GNU Backgammon":
> "Annotation - GNU Backgammon"; "Game Record - GNU Backgammon"; "Rollout -
> GNU Backgammon"; "Message - GNU Backgammon", etc.  That way when looking at
> a taskbar full of GNU buttons, it would be possible to tell at a glance (by
> the first letters) which button would pull up what window.
I'll switch the "GNU Backgammon" text to the end of the window header 
for these windows.

> 7) 3D board inconsistency: when playing with the 3D board, the board shifts,
> and tilts when the doubling cube goes to the top-players side.  Presumably
> this is because the height of the cube extends beyond the border of the
> board in that situation, so the whole board has to "shrink" to still fit in
> it's defined space.  It's a bit unnerving so perhaps it might be possible to
> define the board boundary to include the space required by the cube in the
> top position. The problem exists even if the board is not filling the entire
> vertical space of the window.
This is by design...  If you do add the extra space for the cube then 
the board can be
significantly smaller than the window (when the cube isn't at the top).
It should be possible to stop this effect if the cube doesn't extend 
past the top of the window - I'll have a look.

> 8) Minor feature request: Board appearance.  A friend of mine has a
> beautiful Taki wooden board with nice color scheme.  In addition to
> beautiful colors, the Taki boards have a point shape that makes them look a
> bit like feathers.  They look like standard triangular points, but the
> bottoms, instead of being flat at the edge of the board, are rounded in a
> semicircle with the arc just touching the edge of the board.  Would it be
> possible to create an option under "Appearance/Board" of "flat points" or
> "rounded points" to enable creation of Taki style board designs?
All things are possible :), a picture/screen shot would help.

Thanks for all the points,

Jon