[Feature] Buttons for commands

Bugs & Features
#1

Hey everyone !

Today I’d like to introduce you to a feature I’ve been thinking about for Wolfery.

Have you ever been bored trying to find the right command ? Having to type the name of another fur you wanna DM but don’t know how many “l” or “m” his name contains ? Want to have a chat with someone in private but too lazy to type the commands again ?

There you go.

I’m a graphic designer, and I love when things are clear, simple, and user friendly. When I came to Wolfery I was just lost in the commands and chatting was a really hard step to make. So here’s my idea.

Chat command buttons

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The idea is to add a button next to the chat box. It would look like a big button divided in three parts.

  • First - This would be the channel button, a drop-down menu allowing you to choose between public chat, message, whisper, focus(@), and mail. The example above shows how this would work in public, we will see how this menu would work in the next section.

  • Second - This button would allow players to choose if their message would be a pose or something they say. Clicking this button would cycle between the two stances, say or pose.

  • Third - This last button would act like the second but here would allow to switch between IC and OOC

In the previous screenshot you can see how selecting those buttons would work in the chat, basically they are here to replace the commands in a visual way and be really user friendly, specifically for new users for are often messing with the commands. For example, if I wanted to say hello to the whole room in character I would choose : Public(Planet) - say - IC (Filled silhouette), enter my text. It would then result in the usual : Varian says, “Hello everyone !”

Now let’s have a look at the menu and how it would work for character focused actions.

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#2

Messaging another character

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First I click on the far left button. The drop-down menu would show itself and show me different icons to select which channel I want to use. In this exemple I will choose to message Accipiter. (In this picture there’s only 3 icons, there would be 5 in the end for each previously mentioned channels : public, message, mail, focus, and whisper).

#3

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When I select the message icon, a search box spawns above the button and lets me type the name of the character I want to focus on. This prompt will help me by autofilling the name and give me hints on the character I might be looking for by showing me the characters whose name begins with the letters I’m typing.

#4

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Now I’m focusing on Accipiter, so I’m now toggled in message mode and everything I’d write would be sent as a message to Accipiter. The name is blue, meaning the focus is valid and the character is actually online. It would turn orange if the focus is invalid (offline character, trying to whisper to someone not in the room, you get it). The focus would remain until I switch channels on the first button. I can always change the focus by clicking the name in the search box that prompted when I first clicked the message icon.

The idea behind this is to offer a way for people to chat in a fluid way, and to avoid spelling mistakes we often make or to avoid sending in public one of those lewd messages we wanted to send to a friend (yes we’ve all been there).

Also, for the vanilla players who prefer commands, it would be possible to add a setting in the overall menu to choose between legacy display (the actual one) or the new button display

Please feel free to tell me what you think about this idea and feel free to give any suggestions!

#5

I’d love to see the mockup scaled properly. I tested the same idea on the mobile client and eventually got rid of it because it takes up too much of the precious horizontal space.

It might work better for web but you need to mind people who write literal paragraphs of text. Right now I see a huge disparity in font sizes for the input box and the example underneath and I can’t imagine it working for something longer than a single sentence.

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#6

This looks like a really cool idea.
However I personally really like the current simple and easy on the eye ui of wolfery.

I can imagine that as an app (I believe @farcaller is working on one) this would be really cool for new players to use.

However it is also a big implementation that not everyone would like, so a toggle between the 2 methods would be nice.

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#7

I can work on a mockup in situation if that’d help you clearly see my idea !
If course the pictures above only give a preview of how it would work, the text under the chat boxes is only here to explain how it would be translated into a command, and how it would output, but it’s not representative of how it would actually look, I simply wanted to bring the attention to the buttons :slight_smile:

#8

It would, I’d appreciate more mockups for the mobile layout.

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#9

Noted, I’ll post those here when I’m done with those, kinda lacking time lately and my computer died so I can’t really work on that at home :frowning:

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#10

It would keep the original UI. Consider this as an addition ! But yeah I suggested a switch between the two options for those too familiar with writing the commands :slight_smile:

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